Iran’s Nuclear Program Hits Obstacles
Saturday’s NY Times has a compelling article on Iran’s nuclear program. Here’s some key parts of the article:
When Iran defiantly cut the locks and seals on its nuclear enrichment plants in January and restarted its effort to manufacture atomic fuel, it forced the world to confront a momentous question: How long will it be before Tehran has the ability to produce a bomb that would alter the balance of power in the Middle East? Iran’s claims that it is racing forward with enrichment have created an air of crisis as the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency prepares to meet Monday in Vienna before the United Nations Security Council takes up the Iran file for possible penalties.
Yet behind the sense of immediate alarm lies a more complex picture of Iran’s nuclear potential. Interviews with many of the world’s leading nuclear analysts and a review of technical assessments show that Iran continues to wrestle with serious problems that have slowed its nuclear ambitions for more than two decades. Obstacles, the experts say, remain at virtually every step on the atomic road. And the most significant, they say, involve the two most technically challenging aspects of the process, converting uranium ore to a toxic gas and, especially, spinning that gas into enriched atomic fuel.
These paragraphs are indicative of the issues that nuclear analysts have raised on Iran’s nuclear capabilities. To say that Iran faces major hurdles before building a nuclear weapon and delivery system would be accurate if this report is correct.
Therein lies the problem, though. Do we know that these theories are accurate? I’d hate to base our policy on the CIA’s analysis or the IAEA’s assurances. The good news is that this article highlights the fact that we don’t have to go by those factors alone. We can rely on the opinions and observations of nuclear industry experts who know what types of hurdles the Iranians need to overcome.
According to the analysts, the Iranians need to do repairs and build new machines at a prototype plant before they can begin enriching even modest quantities of uranium. And then, for a decade, they would have to mass produce 100 centrifuges a week to fill the cavernous industrial enrichment halls at Natanz. What is more, the gas meant to feed those machines is plagued by impurities. The perception gap was underscored in February when Tehran issued a stark warning. By late this year, Iranian officials said, they would begin installing nearly 3,000 centrifuges at the giant Natanz plant, buried deep underground to withstand attack. That many centrifuges, international inspectors knew, could make fuel for up to 10 nuclear warheads every year.
In Washington and Europe, the announcement was dismissed as an empty boast. “Maybe they can move that fast,” said a senior American official who tracks Iran’s program but who declined to be named because it is an intelligence matter. “But they would need lots of help, luck and prayer.”
In other words, these experts find their professed enrichment capability to be suspect at best. Again, caution is needed since we don’t know what help Iran has received along the way but if they’re just getting technical advice, the flow of equipment can be monitored to a degree of certainty, especially in a post-9/11 world.
I strongly recommend reading the entire article.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing
March 5th, 2006 at 6:18 am
Iran’s Nuclear Two-Step
Iran wants nuclear weapons. There’s no doubt about that. They believe it is their divine right. And they want to use it. They’ve said as much. And they even have admitted to deceiving the Europeans who so badly want to believe the Iranians when they …