Global Security Newswire

Iran could soon decide whether to turn its expanding atomic program toward producing a nuclear warhead, CIA chief Michael Hayden told reporters yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 15).

The United States and other Western powers have expressed concern about Tehran's uranium enrichment program, which has so far produced low-enriched uranium suitable for use in nuclear power reactors. Iran has insisted its nuclear intentions are purely peaceful, but Hayden said the country would soon possess enough low-enriched uranium to produce a key nuclear weapon ingredient by running the material through its enrichment centrifuges again, the Associated Press reported.

CIA officials concluded that Iran wants the option to pursue a nuclear weapon because the nation has endured a variety of sanctions in order to continue its enrichment activities without accepting more invasive international audits.

"I'm amazed Iran is willing to run the costs they are running if they are not trying to keep the option open for a nuclear weapon," he said.

Hayden listed the potential for an Iranian nuclear warhead among 10 critical issues that the next CIA director should carefully monitor in the first year of President-elect Barack Obama's administration (Pamela Hess, Associated Press/Google News, Jan. 15).

Meanwhile, the United States has detected Iranian efforts to acquire large supplies of Chinese metals it could use in nuclear-capable missiles, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

The Iranian firm ABAN Commercial & Industrial Ltd. hired a third party to buy 66,000 pounds of tungsten copper ingots from China's Advanced Technology & Materials Co. Ltd., according to correspondence viewed by the Journal.

In addition, the United Arab Emirates notified the United States that it stopped Iran-bound deliveries of titanium and aluminum sheets last year (see related GSN story, today).

"We can't say we know it would, or would not, be used for military purposes," said Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

He noted, though, that Iran has worked hard to circumvent international measures aimed at keeping it from importing high-quality industrial components. "There doesn't seem to be any real doubt or debate whether Iran is going for the bomb or whether Iran is using front companies to import things. Everyone agrees on that around the world," he said.

China is a party to an international agreement banning sales of powdered tungsten copper to Iran, but in ingot form the material can still be used in fins that increase the accuracy of long-range missiles, proliferation analysts said. The Chinese sellers of the material might have intentionally sold it in ingot form to avoid violating the export rule, according to George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Chinese businesses "take a legalistic approach to whether it is prohibited under the treaties," he said, adding that from Iran's perspective, "if there's a problem where somebody's not supposed to sell them stuff, their view is, that's the sellers' problem" (Simpson/Solomon, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 16).

In Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday that he would not "judge" Obama "ahead of time," the Washington Post reported.

"We will wait and see what his administration will do," he said. "Any government that comes to power in the United States should limit its influence to its own borders. The root of all problems and wars in the world is the unwanted meddling of the United States in world affairs" (Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post, Jan. 16).