C
Clay
Guest
February 22, 2008
Nuclear Agency Confronts Iran With Evidence on Weapons
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON -- The International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday that
it had confronted Iran for the first time with evidence supplied by
the United States and other countries that strongly suggested the
country had experimented with technology to make a nuclear weapon, but
that Iranian officials dismissed the documents obtained from an
Iranian scientist as "baseless and fabricated."
The exchange was contained in an 11-page report in which the agency
painted a mixed picture of Iran's activities, saying Iranian officials
had answered a number of long-standing questions about its nuclear
activities but continued to defy the United Nations Security Council
by refusing to halt the enrichment of uranium. Still, the amount of
uranium that the agency reported that the country has produced so far
was small -- roughly a tenth of the amount that would be required to
produce enough fuel for a single nuclear bomb.
The agency's report was published at a moment that the Bush
Administration's efforts to greatly increase the pressure on the
country is in disarray.
A National Intelligence Estimate published in early December
concluded, to the surprise of many in the White House, that Iran had
suspended its work on a weapons design in late 2003, apparently in
response to growing international pressure. That report immediately
undercut President Bush's effort, in his last year in office, to rally
other nations to impose harsh financial sanctions on Iran for
continuing to produce uranium fuel. Russia and China, both of which
have deep commercial relationships with Iran, have made clear they
would not go along with severe sanctions, and a watered-down set of
new sanctions is now headed back to the Security Council.
America's allies in Europe have expressed puzzlement about the
intelligence estimate, and some have suggested its timing was intended
to reduce the chances that Mr. Bush could take military action against
Iran's nuclear sites in coming months, a notion intelligence officials
deny. In recent weeks the director of national intelligence, Mike
McConnell, told Congress he now has regrets about how the intelligence
estimate was presented, saying it had failed to emphasize that Iran is
moving ahead with the hardest part of any bomb project: Producing the
fuel. Designing a crude weapon is considered a far easier task.
It was the evidence that Iran was secretly working on such a design
for many years that is now at the heart of the confrontation between
Iran and the nuclear agency, which is based in Vienna.
Since 2005, the I.A.E.A. has urged the United States and other
countries to allow the agency to confront Iran with evidence obtained
on a laptop computer that once belonged to an Iranian technician with
access to the country's nuclear program. But the U.S. refused until a
few weeks ago, and only agreed on Feb. 15, the report said, to allow
original documents to be shown to the Iranians. In the report issued
Friday, the agency described some of that evidence in public for the
first time, "all of which the Agency believes would be relevant to
nuclear weapon R & D."
The most suspicious-looking document in the collection turned over to
the I.A.E.A. was a schematic diagram showing what appeared to be the
development of a warhead, with a layout of internal components. "This
layout has been assessed by the agency as quite likely to be able to
accommodate a nuclear device," the I.A.E.A. wrote. But that does not
prove it was a nuclear warhead, and Iran argued that its missile
program used "conventional warheads only."
The report referred to other documents drawn from the laptop -- though
the source of the material was never mentioned -- that included
documents describing how to test "high-voltage detonator firing
equipment" and technology to fire multiple detonators at one time,
which is required to trigger a nuclear reaction by forcing a nuclear
core to implode. The report also described work on whether a
detonation could be triggered in a 400-meter-deep shaft from a
distance of 10 kilometers, or about six miles, leading to suspicions
that the Iranian scientists were already thinking about nuclear
testing. But it is unclear whether the shaft would have been wide
enough for a nuclear weapon.
In a briefing for reporters and nuclear experts on Friday, a senior
I.A.E.A. official said that the agency had reached no independent
conclusions about whether the documents added up to an effort to build
a nuclear weapon, or whether those efforts were suspended more than
four years ago, as the National Intelligence Estimate concluded. "At
this point in time we don't make any conclusion" about the documents,
the official said.
David Albright, a former weapons inspector who now runs the Institute
for Science and International Security, said that "The issue now is
whether this is symptomatic of a comprehensive nuclear weapons effort,
or just individual projects. Is it part of a plan to design and
develop a weapon that can fit on a nuclear missile? And if so, why are
so many pieces missing?"
<http://tinyurl.com/2q6sho>
========================
Liberal assholes say "what"...
snicker
-C-
Nuclear Agency Confronts Iran With Evidence on Weapons
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON -- The International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday that
it had confronted Iran for the first time with evidence supplied by
the United States and other countries that strongly suggested the
country had experimented with technology to make a nuclear weapon, but
that Iranian officials dismissed the documents obtained from an
Iranian scientist as "baseless and fabricated."
The exchange was contained in an 11-page report in which the agency
painted a mixed picture of Iran's activities, saying Iranian officials
had answered a number of long-standing questions about its nuclear
activities but continued to defy the United Nations Security Council
by refusing to halt the enrichment of uranium. Still, the amount of
uranium that the agency reported that the country has produced so far
was small -- roughly a tenth of the amount that would be required to
produce enough fuel for a single nuclear bomb.
The agency's report was published at a moment that the Bush
Administration's efforts to greatly increase the pressure on the
country is in disarray.
A National Intelligence Estimate published in early December
concluded, to the surprise of many in the White House, that Iran had
suspended its work on a weapons design in late 2003, apparently in
response to growing international pressure. That report immediately
undercut President Bush's effort, in his last year in office, to rally
other nations to impose harsh financial sanctions on Iran for
continuing to produce uranium fuel. Russia and China, both of which
have deep commercial relationships with Iran, have made clear they
would not go along with severe sanctions, and a watered-down set of
new sanctions is now headed back to the Security Council.
America's allies in Europe have expressed puzzlement about the
intelligence estimate, and some have suggested its timing was intended
to reduce the chances that Mr. Bush could take military action against
Iran's nuclear sites in coming months, a notion intelligence officials
deny. In recent weeks the director of national intelligence, Mike
McConnell, told Congress he now has regrets about how the intelligence
estimate was presented, saying it had failed to emphasize that Iran is
moving ahead with the hardest part of any bomb project: Producing the
fuel. Designing a crude weapon is considered a far easier task.
It was the evidence that Iran was secretly working on such a design
for many years that is now at the heart of the confrontation between
Iran and the nuclear agency, which is based in Vienna.
Since 2005, the I.A.E.A. has urged the United States and other
countries to allow the agency to confront Iran with evidence obtained
on a laptop computer that once belonged to an Iranian technician with
access to the country's nuclear program. But the U.S. refused until a
few weeks ago, and only agreed on Feb. 15, the report said, to allow
original documents to be shown to the Iranians. In the report issued
Friday, the agency described some of that evidence in public for the
first time, "all of which the Agency believes would be relevant to
nuclear weapon R & D."
The most suspicious-looking document in the collection turned over to
the I.A.E.A. was a schematic diagram showing what appeared to be the
development of a warhead, with a layout of internal components. "This
layout has been assessed by the agency as quite likely to be able to
accommodate a nuclear device," the I.A.E.A. wrote. But that does not
prove it was a nuclear warhead, and Iran argued that its missile
program used "conventional warheads only."
The report referred to other documents drawn from the laptop -- though
the source of the material was never mentioned -- that included
documents describing how to test "high-voltage detonator firing
equipment" and technology to fire multiple detonators at one time,
which is required to trigger a nuclear reaction by forcing a nuclear
core to implode. The report also described work on whether a
detonation could be triggered in a 400-meter-deep shaft from a
distance of 10 kilometers, or about six miles, leading to suspicions
that the Iranian scientists were already thinking about nuclear
testing. But it is unclear whether the shaft would have been wide
enough for a nuclear weapon.
In a briefing for reporters and nuclear experts on Friday, a senior
I.A.E.A. official said that the agency had reached no independent
conclusions about whether the documents added up to an effort to build
a nuclear weapon, or whether those efforts were suspended more than
four years ago, as the National Intelligence Estimate concluded. "At
this point in time we don't make any conclusion" about the documents,
the official said.
David Albright, a former weapons inspector who now runs the Institute
for Science and International Security, said that "The issue now is
whether this is symptomatic of a comprehensive nuclear weapons effort,
or just individual projects. Is it part of a plan to design and
develop a weapon that can fit on a nuclear missile? And if so, why are
so many pieces missing?"
<http://tinyurl.com/2q6sho>
========================
Liberal assholes say "what"...
snicker
-C-
