Iran’s nuclear weapons program is now more advanced than Iraq’s, a U.S. official with access to intelligence reports on nonproliferation has said (see GSN, Nov. 18).

Iran has improved its program by obtaining technology to produce nuclear reactor fuel and to process spent fuel, Newsday reported today.  This fuel cycle can also include the reprocessing of spent reactor fuel to extract weapon-grade plutonium, which is what U.S. specialists believe Iran wants to accomplish, Newsday reported.

“They (Iran) are pursuing clandestinely through false trading companies and a variety of other means an intensive effort to develop those attributes of the fuel cycle which are necessary” to build nuclear weapons, said John Wolf, U.S. assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation.

Iran has used front companies to purchase technologies needed to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, Wolf said.  The purchases include “esoteric technologies which only really make sense as part of a weapons development program,” he added.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei is planning a trip to Iran to visit its nuclear sites, according to Newsday (see GSN, May 29).  ElBaradei said he would like to visit sites believed to be involved in Iran’s attempts to acquire a complete fuel cycle.  Iranian officials have made assurances that “whatever they are building there will be declared” to the IAEA and placed under inspections, he added.

In a speech to the IAEA General Conference in September, Iran indicated that it is seeking to acquire fuel cycle technologies for peaceful uses, according to Newsday.  Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, invited “technologically advanced” countries “to participate in my country’s ambitious plan for the construction of nuclear power plants and the associated technologies such as fuel cycle, safety and waste management.”

The “complete transparency of my country’s nuclear activities is a serious commitment by my government,” Aghazadeh said.

Some analysts, however, doubt Iran’s claims that its fuel cycle development would be only for peaceful purposes.

“I think it’s a very dangerous trend,” said Gary Samore of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.  “I think the Iranians are likely to pursue a nuclear weapons program under the guise of a safeguarded fuel cycle” (Royce/Lane, Newsday, Nov. 20).

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