Global Security Newswire

Iran could generate enough material for a nuclear weapon by enriching its stockpile of lower-grade uranium to weapon-grade levels, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 27).

Asked whether Iran possesses enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, Adm. Michael Mullen told CNN: "We think they do, quite frankly."

He based his assessment on the International Atomic Energy Agency's latest report on the progress of the Middle Eastern state's uranium enrichment program, the Los Angeles Times reported. The United States and other Western powers have pressured Iran to halt the program because it could produce highly enriched uranium suitable for use in a nuclear weapon, but Tehran has insisted the effort is strictly geared toward producing low-enriched nuclear power plant fuel (Julian Barnes, Los Angeles Times, March 2).

Mullen was addressing the report's estimate that Iran possessed 1,010 kilograms of low-enriched uranium hexafluoride, spokesman Capt. John Kirby said. However, the State Department yesterday said the size of Iran's uranium holdings was uncertain, the Associated Press reported.

"There are differing [views] not only outside government but also inside the government" about Iran's fissile material supply, spokesman Robert Wood said, adding that "we just don't know" the amount.

"We are concerned they are getting close" to having enough material for a nuclear bomb, Wood said (Steven Hurst, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, March 2).

Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed hope yesterday that the international community could still resolve the nuclear standoff peacefully.

"They are not close to a stockpile; they are not close to a weapon at this point. And so there is some time, and the question is whether you can increase the level of the sanctions and the cost to the Iranians of pursuing that program," Gates said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"At the same time, you show them an open door -- if they want to engage with the Europeans, with us, and so on -- if they walk away from that program. Our chances of being successful, it seems to me, are a lot better at $35 or $40 oil than they were at $140 oil because there are economic costs to this program, they do have economic challenges at home" (Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire, March 2).

If Iran opted to weaponize its uranium stockpile, it would still only be capable of producing a single bulky weapon that would not fit on any of its current missiles or aircraft, Time magazine reported.

To convert its uranium to weapon-grade material, Iran would have to reveal its weapon ambitions to the world by withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, banning IAEA inspectors from its nuclear facilities, and running uranium through its enrichment centrifuges for several months, according to the magazine. Developing warhead-ready bombs and missiles would take even longer, giving other countries ample opportunity to respond with diplomacy or force before Tehran could obtain a viable nuclear deterrent, Time reported (Tony Karon, Time, March 2).

If Russia moves forward with plans to sell a new air-defense system to Iran, the United States "should provide Israel with [air] capabilities to continue to threaten high-value Iranian targets” in an effort to "gain leverage in pressuring Russia not to transfer" the system, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said in a report slated for release this week.

The report warns that Israel wants the option of conducting air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities within the next two years, but the Russian-made S-300 air defenses would give the Iranian sites substantial protection against Tel Aviv's current air capabilities, the Financial Times reported.

In any case, air attacks "might only slow Iran temporarily" in its nuclear work and regional retaliations could significantly undermine U.S. interests, says the report, which urges Washington to target Iran with new economic penalties to help avoid military action.

The report received input from Dennis Ross, a senior State Department adviser on the Middle East (see GSN, Feb. 24), and from Gary Samore and Robert Einhorn, two high-profile foreign policy voices expected to receive prominent nonproliferation posts in the Obama administration (Daniel Dombey, Financial Times, March 1).

"The whole world" should be concerned about Iran's nuclear program, Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said yesterday.

"It concerns me that we have a regime with both an ideology that is obviously evil, combined with a desire to procure technology to act on that ideology," Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper added, according to the Edmonton Sun (Christina Spencer, Edmonton Sun, March 2).

"All this talk is baseless," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said today in response to nuclear allegations (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, March 2).