Reporting from Tehran -- Iran has enough nuclear fuel to build a bomb if it decides to take the drastic steps of violating its international treaty obligations, kicking out inspectors and further refining its supply, U.N. officials and arms control experts said Thursday.
The reports, the latest updates from the arms control watchdog for the United Nations, show that Iran had amassed about 2,227 pounds of low-enriched, or reactor-grade, nuclear fuel by late January. Physicists estimate that producing the 55 pounds or so of highly enriched, or weapons-grade, uranium needed for an atomic warhead requires 2,205 to 3,748 pounds of low-enriched uranium.
Iran's increased supply of low-enriched uranium surprised diplomats and arms control experts who had assumed that Iran would need until the end of the year to acquire enough fuel for a bomb
http://www.latimes.com/...
In their first appraisal of Iran’s nuclear program since President Obama took office, atomic inspectors have found that Iran recently understated by a third how much uranium it has enriched, United Nations officials said Thursday.
The officials also declared for the first time that the amount of uranium that Tehran had now amassed — more than a ton — was sufficient, with added purification, to make an atom bomb.
"It’s worse than we thought," Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, said in an interview. "It’s alarming that the actual production was underreported by a third."
http://www.nytimes.com/...
So Iran lied, plain and simple. You can say it Mr. Milhollin.
So can Iran build a bomb today?
For one thing, it doesn't have enough high-speed centrifuges at its facility in Natanz to further refine the uranium, said senior U.N. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
But Iranian officials have barred inspections of facilities producing centrifuge parts, a move arms control inspectors say adds to worries that Iran may build an undeclared centrifuge facility separate from Natanz.
Iran has also barred inspectors from its heavy-water reactor near Arak, which has concerned inspectors who hope to examine the site for possible telltale "clandestine" features that could be used in a weapons program, said a high-ranking U.N. official.
Hmmm, barring inspectors from inspecting. Sounds suspicious.
The Institute for Science and International Security report concludes Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon but does have enough low-enriched uranium for a single nuclear weapon.
It also finds that while Iran has dramatically increased installation of centrifuges that can be used for enriching uranium -- from 4,000 to 5,400 -- its scientists aren't using the new units yet. They remain in "research and development mode."
http://edition.cnn.com/...
Oh yeah, this UN official is so sure:
The officials rejected the possibility that the gap in the numbers meant Iran could smuggle enriched uranium out of the plant for further processing at a secret location.
We're sure that no material could have left the facility without us knowing," the senior United Nations official said, admitting, however, that inspectors only made the inventory rounds once a year. "It's only at that moment that we have our own independent data."
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Independent weapons experts told the paper that they were surprised by the figures and criticized the IAEA for conducting inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities only once a year.
http://www.jpost.com/...
Right. Iran's out maneuvered and outflanked these blind watch dogs at every turn. Who can be sure of anything at this point? And what a joke that the IAEA only inspects these nuclear facilities once a year, while being barred from inspecting some others completely..
So this is quite the surprise! Well, not really. Iran's been playing cat and mouse over their nuclear program for years.
What's Obama gonna do now?
moon