Iran Has 'nuclear Technical Ability'

Jan. 20, 2011 - PRLog -- US officials believe Iran now has the "technical ability" to make highly enriched uranium, an essential step towards building a nuclear bomb, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable.
   At a meeting of international nuclear experts in Vienna, a US representative said that "Iran had now demonstrated centrifuge operations such that it had the technical ability to produce highly enriched uranium (HEU) if it so chose". The meeting in April 2009 was hosted by Britain's ambassador to Austria, Simon Smith.
   The revelation comes as nuclear talks resume between Iranian officials and representatives of six world powers in Istanbul tomorrow. Expectations of compromise are low.
   Not all western governments share the US conclusion, but if true it suggests international sanctions have failed to deny Iran the know-how required to make a nuclear bomb. The production of HEU is generally agreed to be the most serious obstacle any aspiring nuclear state must overcome.
   Diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to curb its programme have also failed to produce results. In the days running up to the two-day meeting in Istanbul, Iranian officials have repeated they will not bow to UN security council demands to suspend uranium enrichment. Iran insists its program is entirely peaceful.
   Western strategy is increasingly focused on delaying Iranian progress, buying time in the hope that economic pressure will eventually lead to a change of mind in Tehran. The campaign has had some recent success in the form of covert sabotage – the Stuxnet computer worm, reportedly a US-Israeli project, slowed down Iran's uranium enrichment last year. Other efforts have involved finding bottlenecks in the Iranian programme and trying to tighten them.
   Leaked US cables describe the outline of this containment policy. They reveal:
• Russia has vowed never to allow Iran to make its own fuel for a Russian-built nuclear power station at Bushehr.
• British officials have predicted Iran will amass 20 tonnes of low enriched uranium by 2014 – enough, if further enriched, to make 19 warheads.
• In 2008, Washington launched a worldwide campaign to cut off Iran's supplies of a high-strength steel, known as maraging steel, and carbon fibre. Access to these materials has been identified as a bottleneck in its enrichment programme.
   Iran has always maintained its programme is intended for the generation of electricity, but its one nuclear power station, at Bushehr on the Gulf coast, is licensed to use only Russian-made fuel rods for its first 10 fuel loads, enough for just over 10 years.
   At the April 2009 meeting in Vienna, Russian officials assured their colleagues that even after that period "Russia expects to supply fuel for the lifetime of Bushehr and it would not agree to provide Iran the necessary technology/licence to make its own fuel for the Bushehr reactor".
   The experts at the Vienna meeting – from Britain, the US, Russia, France, China and Germany – noted that Iran had almost exhausted the original 531-tonne stock of the yellowcake it bought from South Africa in the 1980s.
According to the 2009 US embassy cable: "The French explained thatIran's current uranium stockpile was dwindling, with less than 100 tonnes of uranium remaining."

By Edgar Tenenbaum | Staff Writer
edgar@laprofessionalexpress.com

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