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Iran Has Yet to Come Clean on Nuclear Program, Experts Charge
The recent Pakistani investigation into the smuggling activities of its top nuclear scientists has raised doubts that Iran has provided complete details of its efforts to acquire uranium enrichment technology, according to an article by two proliferation experts released yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 6). In an effort to ease international pressure, Iran last year disclosed that it had pursued a covert uranium enrichment capability and vowed to cooperate fully with international inspectors trying to learn about the program’s history and accomplishments. Despite Iran’s promise of cooperation, “few believe that Iran has told the whole story of its extensive foreign procurements,” said David Albright and Corey Hinderstein in an article just published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Albright is president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington and Hinderstein is a senior analyst there. The investigation into Iran’s nuclear program by the International Atomic Energy Agency has shown that much of Iran’s technology came from Pakistan, Albright and Hinderstein said, and last week, top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan formally acknowledged that he illicitly provided nuclear technology to Iran and other nations. Khan’s confession and subsequent pardon followed an official Pakistani investigation into the nuclear smuggling activities of its own scientists (see GSN, Feb. 9). The Pakistani revelations, however, have not yielded more information from Iranian officials who have continued to deny receiving information from Khan, have asserted that Iran acquired sensitive nuclear equipment through intermediaries and have said that they did not know where the technology originated (Albright/Hinderstein, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2004). “The Islamic Republic has bought certain parts from the middlemen whose names have been reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi on Sunday (see related GSN story, today). “It is evident that the Islamic Republic is not aware of what is going on behind the scenes,” Asefi said (HiPakistan.com, Feb. 9). Albright and Hinderstein said such statements were not credible. “Recent Pakistani government investigations are undercutting that assertion and magnifying concerns that Iran has made only a partial declaration to the IAEA,” they wrote. “On the surface, Iran appears so far to be protecting the actual supplier of these components,” they added. While Iran has supplied significant information about its program, the two experts said that many questions remain, particularly regarding the intent of Iran’s uranium enrichment ambitions and the presence of traces of highly enriched uranium in some equipment despite Iranian denials that it ever enriched material to such levels (Albright/Hinderstein, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).
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