The new IAEA report on Iran indicates that the traces of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) that U.S. officials believed were obvious signs of Iran’s weapon-related activity can plausibly be traced back to U.S. ally, Pakistan, the source of Tehran’s equipment. This report makes it highly unlikely that the U.S. can convince the IAEA Board of Governors to escalate the issue to the UN Security Council.
Last year, after European Union ministers won a freeze in Iran’s nuclear uranium enrichment activities, U.S. officials had an opportunity to exploit this breakthrough and negotiate towards an end to a potentially hostile program. The right combination of force and diplomacy might have worked to allow Tehran to build nuclear reactors, but not the nuclear fuel-fabrication processes that keep Iran’s nuclear bomb-making capabilities alive. Administration hardliners prevailed, however, and the United States pursued a more confrontational approach. They apparently believed that they had solid evidence of Iranian violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that would allow them to bring Iran before the UN Security Council, or provide justification for military strikes against the regime. But, it was no slam dunk. The new IAEA report on Iran indicates that the traces of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) that U.S. officials believed were obvious signs of Iran’s weapon-related activity can plausibly be traced back to U.S. ally, Pakistan, the source of Tehran’s equipment. This report makes it highly unlikely that the U.S. can convince the IAEA Board of Governors to escalate the issue to the UN Security Council.
To be sure, some vital questions remain, but nothing points conclusively to a clandestine weapons program. The IAEA reports that it is still not in a position “to draw definitive conclusions concerning the correctness and completeness of Iran’s declarations,” but that it is continuing to make “steady progress in understanding” Iran’s nuclear program. It faults Iran in delaying the provision of critical information in some cases, but says that Tehran has continued to act “as if its Additional Protocol is in force,” providing related information and allowing access to sites on a timely and forthcoming basis. This reflects the mixed tone of the report -- hardly a “smoking gun.”
On the question of HEU contamination, Iran asserts that it has not enriched uranium to more than 1.2% of U-235 and that it does not have any HEU. Tehran claims that HEU traces found at various locations in Iran are due to imported equipment that was contaminated. While the IAEA continues to have questions over HEU contamination found at the Kalaye Electric Company and at the enrichment complex at Natanz, the report says that “it appears plausible” that the HEU contamination “may not have resulted from enrichment by Iran at those locations.” Plausible, but not undeniable. The IAEA is not buying Iran’s claim that uranium hexafluoride (feedstock for the enrichment process) contamination under the roof of the Tehran Research Reactor is due to a leaking bottle. It is “not technically possible,” as the report points out. Still, for the moment, the IAEA gives Tehran the benefit of the doubt. As the investigation continues, decisively resolving the contamination question requires not only more information from Iran on the origin of the contaminated components, but also from Pakistan, which is the source of most of those components. The lack of complete information on supply routes and sources of equipment continues to impede the IAEA investigation.
The IAEA report is less satisfied with Iran’s explanations on its P-2 enrichment program. Having received the P-2 design drawings in 1995 (earlier than U.S. intelligence had thought), Iran claims that no work on the P-2 centrifuges was carried out until 2002 because it had made a decision to concentrate on the P-1 enrichment program. It was only in early 2002, Tehran claims that the country’s Atomic Energy Organization decided to begin work on the P-2 program, and a contract was signed with a private company. The IAEA reports that Iran’s reasons for the “apparent gap” in P-2 activity between 1995 and 2002 “do not provide sufficient assurance” on the veracity of that claim. The IAEA’s work in this matter is frustrated by insufficient information on the supply network. It has requested further information on Iran’s procurement of magnets for the P-2 centrifuges, and Iran has responded that it was “trying to receive that information which would then be transmitted” to the IAEA. Resolving this issue remains key to the IAEA’s grasp of the extent and nature of Iran’s enrichment program.
The report is inconclusive on the nature of activities that took place at the razed site at Lavisan-Shian. This is the site of Iran's alleged clandestine nuclear activity. Iran says that a Physics Research Center was established there in 1989 to prepare to combat and neutralize casualties resulting from nuclear attacks or accidents and to provide scientific advice and services to the Ministry of Defense. Iran maintains that “no nuclear material declarable in accordance with the Agency’s safeguards was present,” and that no nuclear fuel-cycle activities were carried out at the site. Iran belatedly provided the IAEA access to the site, and has provided a list of eleven activities which took place there. Citing “security concerns,” however, Tehran has not given a list of the equipment used at the Center. On why the site was razed, Tehran offers an explanation with documentation to back it up: the site had been razed in response to a decision to return the site to the Municipality of Tehran from the Ministry of Defense. The IAEA is currently assessing the documents and the environmental samples.
Earlier in the summer, Iran had informed the IAEA of its decision to resume manufacturing of centrifuge components, and assembly and testing of centrifuges, beginning on June 29. Accordingly, Iran provided the IAEA with a list of IAEA-imposed seals that it was removing on material and equipment to proceed with its centrifuge work. All of this activity is under IAEA supervision, but the Agency has written Tehran saying it hoped Iran would “continue to build international confidence” and reverse its decision to resume centrifuge testing. Iran has also informed the IAEA of its decision to conduct uranium conversion experiments. A test conducted in May and June 2004 generated 30-35 kg of uranium hexaflouride, which is the feedstock for enrichment. A test scheduled for September 2004 will involve 37 tons of yellowcake. David Albright, a nuclear expert and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, estimates that this could produce about 100 kg of HEU, which he believes could be enough for five crude nuclear weapons. While this resumption irks the United States and fails to reassure the international community on the nature of Iran’s nuclear program, it is a legal activity. The impasse on Iran continues.
It appears likely to us that Teheran does not have a determined nuclear-weapon program, such as Iraq had in the 1980s and Israel had in the 1960s, but that it intends to acquire the capabilites to produce nuclear weapons should the government decide to do so in the future. And they would prefer to do this legally, if possible. This is a national ambition that began under the Shah and is supported by the reformers; it is not just the policy of the ayatollahs. Current U.S. policy has not only failed to stop these efforts, it likely accelerated them. A dramatic change of course is now required.
Related Links:
"Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran," Resolution adopted by the IAEA Board of Governors on 19 September 2004
