Iran: Nuclear Threat

Iran has announced plans to enrich its uranium stockpile from 3.5% to 20%.

However, the low enriched uranium is more than sufficient for a civilian power plant. While higher enriched uranium can be used in medical reactors – the stated purpose of the Iranian regime – there are serious concerns that the actual goal in higher enrichment is to make weapons of mass destruction.

There are a number of very worrisome issues with Iran’s nuclear program. First, there’s no need for the Iranians to enrich fuel for civilian energy purposes, since the fuel for the Busehr reactor is being provided by the Russians. Also, although the Iranian regime would say mastering nuclear enrichment may be a matter of national pride, it doesn’t make fiscal sense for the second largest oil producer in the Middle-East to be developing an extraordinarily expensive nuclear program. Also compounded by the brutal economic difficulties the country finds itself in.

Regarding the claims of medical research, the LA Times reported that “only France and Argentina have the facilities to turn the material into the fuel plates for the [medical] reactor.” Unless some agreement can be reached with these countries, Iran would be left with a stockpile of useless material.

While getting to 3.5% enrichment is a major technological feat, enriching to 20% “would be going most of the rest of the way to weapon-grade uranium," as David Albright, an official with Washington's Institute for Science and International Security, told the Associated Press. On top of this, it was reported months ago that Iran possessed enough uranium—if further enriched—to make a nuclear bomb.

Former CIA director Jim Woolsey said in a 2007 hearing before the House:

“The traces of highly-enriched (not just fuel grade) uranium, their deception, their heavy water plant and other indicators brand their program as one designed to develop nuclear weapons even in the absence of considering their rhetoric about destroying Israel and ending the world”

If Iran develops a nuclear bomb, it would be disastrous. The Iranian regime is the largest state-sponsor of terror around the world; imagine what this would mean if they could now arm their affiliates with WMDs. Iran itself possesses missiles that can reach into Europe and through much of the Middle East. If the country gets the bomb, you would also likely see an arms race emerge among other regimes in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia who has also been active in exporting its extremist ideology globally.

This is not a question of a peaceful ally pursuing this technology in contravention of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It is the suspect pursuit of this technology by a regime that is openly hostile to the West and what it stands for.

Iranian Atomic Energy Organization Head: 'We Have the Right to Enrich Uranium to 100%'

MEMRI - MIDDLE EAST MEDIA RESEARCH

In a January 9, 2010 interview on Iranian TV, Iranian Atomic Energy Organization head Ali Akbar Salehi said that Iran had the right to enrich uranium to 100%, but that it nevertheless preferred to purchase the nuclear fuel it needed from other countries.

It should be noted that uranium enriched to 90% or higher is used only for military purposes, in the construction of nuclear weapons. According to International Atomic Energy Agency regulations, uranium for peaceful purposes may be enriched to no more than 5%, with prior authorization from the agency. Additionally, with the IAEA's authorization, uranium enriched to 19.75% can be used to operate research reactors for medical purposes, like the one in Tehran (this type of uranium can be purchased from countries that operate enrichment facilities).

Following are excerpts from Salehi's interview:[1]

In response to a question about exchanging Iran's 1,200 kilograms of uranium, already enriched to 3.5%, for 120 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20%, Salehi said: "Although we informed the IAEA in advance that our centrifuges are set up in such a way that we do not enrich uranium to over 5%, we do have the right to enrich uranium to a level of up to 100%, and we will always have this right. Enrichment to a level of 20% is also within our rights, but we prefer to obtain the [nuclear] fuel from abroad."

Salehi added, "The [Western] countries that negotiated with us on the [nuclear] fuel issue asked us not to publicize [their] informal proposal for the exchange of [nuclear] fuel [meant] for the research reactor in Tehran. Publishing it could have brought us much political advantage." He said further that Iran demanded "tangible guarantees that it would [actually] receive uranium enriched to 20% in a deal of simultaneous [exchange] carried out on Iranian soil."

During the interview, Salehi reiterated several times that even though Iran had the ability to supply its own needs, it preferred to purchase the enriched uranium, so that Iran and the rest of the world could assess the sincerity of the West's proposals.

Endnote:

[1] ISNA, IRIB (Iran), January 10, 2010

'Iran to get uranium from Kazakhstan'

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

ran is close to clinching a deal to clandestinely import 1,350 tons of purified uranium ore from Kazakhstan, according to an intelligence report obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday. Diplomats said the assessment was heightening international concern about Teheran's nuclear activities.

Such a purified uranium ore deal would be significant because Teheran appears to be running out of the material, which it needs to feed its uranium enrichment program.

The report was drawn up by a member nation of the International Atomic Energy agency and provided to the AP on condition of that the country not be identified because of the confidential nature of the information.

Such imports are banned by the UN Security Council.

In New York, Burkina Faso's UN Ambassador Michel Kafando, a co-chair of the Security Council's Iran sanctions committee, referred questions Tuesday about a potential deal between Iran andKazakhstan to his sanctions adviser, Zongo Saidou.

Saidou told the AP that, as far as he knew, none of the UN's member nations have alerted the committee about any such allegations. "We don't have any official information yet regarding this kind of exchange between the two countries," Saidou said. "I don't have any information; I don't have any proof."

A senior UN official said the agency was aware of the intelligence report's assessment but could not yet draw conclusions. He demanded anonymity for discussing confidential information. A Western diplomat from a member of the IAEA's 35-nation board said the report was causing "concern" among countries that have seen it and generating "intelligence chatter." The diplomat also requested anonymity for discussing intelligence information.

A two-page summary of the report obtained by the AP said deal could be completed within weeks. It said Teheran was willing to pay $450 million, or close to 315 million euros, for the shipment.

The price is high because of the secret nature of the deal and due to Iran's commitment to keep secret the elements supplying the material," said the summary. An official of the country that drew up the report said "elements" referred to state employees acting on their own without approval of the Kazakh government.

After-hours calls put in to offices of Kazatomprom, the Kazak state uranium company, in Kazakhstan and Moscow, were not answered Tuesday. Iranian nuclear officials also did not pick up their telephones.

Separately a senior US official who demanded anonymity for talking about confidential information said Washington was aware of the intelligence report, but declined to discuss specifics.

"We are not going to discuss our private consultations with other governments on such matters but, suffice to say, we have been engaged with Kazakhstan and many of our other international nonproliferation partners on this subject in particular over the past several years," he told the AP. "We will continue to have those discussions."

Purified ore, or uranium oxide, is processed into a uranium gas, which is then spun and re-spun to varying degrees of enrichment. Low enriched uranium is used for nuclear fuel, and upper-end high enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

Iran is under three sets of Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze its enrichment program and related activities that could be used to make nuclear weapons. Teheran denies such aspirations, saying it wants to enrich only to fuel an envisaged network of power reactors.

Any attempt to import such a large amount of uranium ore would be in violation of those sanctions, which ban exports to the Islamic Republic of all items, materials, equipment, goods and technology that could contribute to its enrichment activities.

In addition, transfers of uranium ore in quantities greater than 500 kilograms annually are subject to close scrutiny by the Nuclear Suppliers Group of countries exporting atomic technology and materials.

Teheran still has hundreds of tons of uranium hexafluoride - the gas that is spun by centrifuges into enriched uranium. But its stockpile of uranium oxide, from which the gas is derived, is thought to be rapidly diminishing.

The IAEA believes that Iran's rapidly expanding enrichment program has been built on 600 tons of so-called "yellowcake" or uranium oxide imported from South Africa during the 1970s as part of plans by the former regime to build a network of nuclear reactors.

But the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said earlier this year that, based on 2008 IAEA statistics, Iran had already used up close to three-quarters of its South African supply.

In a November report, the IAEA noted that Iran had stopped producing uranium gas from yellowcake in early August and said Iranian officials had notified the agency that the production facility was down for maintenance.

But David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security, said Tuesday that the facility at the city of Isfahan had produced very little for about a year.

"They said it was closed for maintenance but the reality is they probably ran out of uranium," he said.

Kazakhstan is among the world's three top producers of uranium, accounting for more than 8,500 tons last year. Iran, in contrast is producing an estimated 20 tons a year - far too little to power even one large reactor let alone the network is says it wants to put in place.