IAEA Understanding of Iran’s Nuclear Program Has “Deteriorated”

Top U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei set the stage today for the Security Council to impose another round of sanctions against Iran.  In a report distributed to the council and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board, he complained that the agency’s understanding of Iran’s nuclear program has “deteriorated” (see GSN, May 22).

On March 24, the council imposed a second batch of sanctions against Iran and set a 60-day deadline for Tehran to freeze its uranium enrichment and other nuclear fuel-related programs (see GSN, March 26).  Today’s report from Vienna made clear that Iranian leaders have chosen to ignore the deadline.

“Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities.  Iran has continued with the operation of [its pilot enrichment site].  It has also continued with the construction of [its main, underground centrifuge facility at Natanz] and has started feeding cascades with uranium hexafluoride,” ElBaradei’s four-page report says (Greg Webb, GSN, May 23).

“Obviously, the bottom line is that they haven’t accepted a suspension of enrichment.  That’s all the Security Council needs to take further sanctions,” said proliferation expert Gary Samore of the Council on Foreign Relations (Michael Adler, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, May 23).

Agency inspectors conducted their first unannounced visit to the Iran’s centrifuge facility May 13 as part of a verification plan introduced after the facility’s scale had enlarged considerably, the report says.

Inside the site, the inspectors found Iran eight 164-centrifuge cascades in operation with uranium gas.  Two additional cascades were undergoing testing without uranium, and three more were under construction, according to the report.  The numbers suggest Iran has made strong headway toward its initial goal of installing 3,000 centrifuges.

Iranian officials told the agency that their equipment was enriching uranium to contain up to 4.8 percent of uranium 235.  Agency officials were “in the process of verifying” that figure, the report says.

Light-water nuclear power reactors, such as the one Russia is building for Iran at Bushehr (see GSN, May 17) and the one Iran says it has begun to build independently (see GSN, May 21), typically use fuel enriched to below 5 percent uranium 235.

Western nations have pressed Iran to stop its enrichment program, fearing that Tehran could use the same equipment to create material containing 90-percent, or nuclear weapon-grade, uranium 235.

Iran’s reduced cooperation with the agency over the past year has undermined the agency’s ability to demonstrate Iran’s peaceful intentions, the report says.

“The agency’s level of knowledge of certain aspects of Iran’s nuclear-related activities has deteriorated,” it says.

Frustrated by agency probes and Western pressure, Iran has reduced the amount of information it once voluntarily provided.  It has moved toward supplying the minimum amount of data required by its safeguards agreement with the agency.  Iran has signed, but not ratified, its Additional Protocol to that agreement, and Tehran no longer offers all the information to the protocol would require if it were in force.

With that weak cooperation, as well as other unresolved questions, the agency would have trouble removing international suspicions over Iran, the report says.

“Unless Iran addresses the long outstanding verification issues, and implements the Additional Protocol and the required transparency measures, the agency will not be able to fully reconstruct the history of Iran’s nuclear program and provide assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran or about the exclusively peaceful nature of that program,” it says (Webb, GSN).

One U.S. official blasted Iran’s refusal to curb its nuclear program

“Iran is out of compliance and Iran is once again thumbing its nose at the international community,” Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said today at the Heritage Foundation.  He predicted a “strong” drive toward a third round of Security Council sanctions, but said Iranian cooperation could end the crisis.

“We want to get to negotiations because we want Iran to know that it does not have a right to develop nuclear weapons, that we will oppose it in its drive to have a nuclear weapons future,” he said.  “Instead we want to help Iran create an opportunity to create a civil nuclear capacity for energy production.”

“Iran can’t have it both ways,” he added.  “They can’t pretend to be a member of the international community, the IAEA and U.N., and yet violate the rules of both the IAEA and the U.N” (John Fox, GSN, May 23).

Meanwhile, U.S. officials would probably lodge a formal complaint with ElBaradei over his recent comments suggesting that the world might have to accept Iran’s enrichment program, a diplomat told Agence France-Presse (see GSN, May 15).

“From a proliferation perspective, the fact of the matter is that one of the purposes of suspension — keeping [Iran] from getting the knowledge — has been overtaken by events,” ElBaradei told the New York Times last week.  “The focus now should be to stop them from going to industrial-scale production, to allow us to do a full-court-press inspection and to be sure they remain inside the [Nuclear Nonproliferation] Treaty.”

Vienna-based U.S. Ambassador Gregory Schulte met with ElBaradei today, shortly before the agency report was released (Agence France-Presse).

Bush administration officials have consistently charged Iran with planning to develop nuclear weapons and have therefore insisted that Iran not be allowed to have any uranium enrichment capacity.

“We’re not going to agree to accept limited enrichment,” Burns said today.   “We not going to agree to accept that the 1,300 centrifuges can continue to spin at their plant in Natanz” (Fox, GSN).

France would support the U.S. protest of ElBaradei, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said today.

“Our permanent representative in Vienna will take part in the American initiative,” said Jean-Baptiste Mattei.

“We were indeed surprised by several comments from Mr. ElBaradei over the weekend,” he said.  “We share the gist of concerns expressed by our American partners — along with several other partners, for that matter” (Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, May 23).

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