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Evidence for Iran Nuclear Bomb Work Remains Hazy
U.S. officials have acquired sophisticated drawings of a deep underground shaft in Iran that is suspected to be designed for an underground nuclear weapons test, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Feb. 7). The drawings for the 400-meter tunnel with remote-controlled sensors to measure pressure and heat do not, however, explicitly indicate any relationship to Tehran’s nuclear program, according to U.S. and U.N. experts who have studied the documents. Other evidence is similarly vague, the Post reported. A laptop computer acquired in 2004 by U.S. intelligence from an Iranian citizen contains designs for a small-scale uranium conversion facility, as well as drawings on modifying Iranian missiles to accommodate a nuclear warhead. An imprisoned Pakistani arms dealer, meanwhile, has given uncorroborated testimony alleging that Tehran received several advanced centrifuges for enriching uranium. U.S. intelligence cannot prove the authenticity of the laptop documents (see GSN, Nov. 14, 2005). Regime opponents could have forged them to implicate the government, analysts said, or they could have been planted by the regime to deceive the West into believing that its program remains in its early stages. “There is always a chance this could be the biggest scam perpetrated on U.S. intelligence,” said one U.S. source. “But it’s such a large body of documents and such strong indications of nuclear weapons intent, and nothing seems so inconsistent.” U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte told Congress last week that “Iran, if it continues on its current path … will likely have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon within the next decade.” That assessment is more conservative than others in Washington, according to the Post. Some Bush administration officials have suggested that the CIA requires unrealistically high standards of proof due to previous intelligence errors. “Taking into account the assessments made by the intelligence community, and others, I just don’t have a lot of confidence in the assessments,” said a senior administration official (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, Feb. 8). Iran has most of the necessary components for a nuclear bomb and lacks only some assembly knowledge, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday. Iran has the scientists, the electrical infrastructure, the raw materials and the machining equipment to build an atomic bomb, McCormack said, according to Agence France-Presse. “There are still certain techniques and pieces of know-how that we do not believe that they have — simply by the fact that they don’t have a nuclear weapon yet,” he said (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, Feb. 7). British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday warned Iran not to ignore mounting international concern over its nuclear activities, AFP reported. “Iran would make a very, very serious mistake if it thinks the international community is going to allow it to develop nuclear weapons capability,” he said (Agence France-Presse II/Khaleej Times, Feb. 7). Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the recent International Atomic Energy Agency decision to report Iran’s nuclear activities to the Security Council allows for further diplomacy, AFP reported yesterday. “The dossier is not ‘referred.’ The notion here is one of reporting, of joint work with the Security Council on the Iranian issue,” Putin said in an interview posted on the Kremlin’s Web site. “In my view, this encourages a further search for ways to resolve this problem,” he said (Agence France-Presse III/IranMania.com, Feb. 7).
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