Iran to have enough uranium for a nuclear warhead by 2011

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iranian technicians have moved highly sophisticated technical equipment into a previously secret uranium enrichment site in preparation for starting it up in 2011, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a new report Monday.



The report offered no estimate of the new plant's capabilities but a senior international official familiar with the watchdog agency's work in Iran said that it appeared designed to produce about a ton of enriched uranium a year.

The official, as well as analysts, said that would be enough for a nuclear warhead but too little to fuel the nearly finished plant at the southern port of Bushehr and other civilian reactors Iran is planning to bring online in the coming years.



"It won't (even) be able to produce a reactor's worth of fuel every 90 years, but it will be able to produce one bomb a year," said Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the Strategic Security Program of the Federation of American Scientist. "It does look strange."



The IAEA also noted that Iran's enrichment at the Natanz site — revealed by dissidents in 2002 and under agency monitoring — was stagnating, with output remaining at mid-2009 levels.



The report did not offer a reason. But the official suggested that nuclear experts previously working at Natanz could now be preoccupied with putting the finishing touches on the newly discovered site, called Fordo, near the holy city of Qom.



As early as three years ago, Iranian officials had announced that immediate plans for the Natanz site were to install about 8,000 enriching centrifuges, and Monday's report suggested that Tehran had reached that goal.

The seven-page report — the latest IAEA summary of what it knows about Iran — said that as of Nov. 2, about 8,600 centrifuges had been set up but only about 4,000 were enriching — or 600 less than in September. Still, the official said output had been steady since June with about 100 kilograms — 220 pounds — of enriched uranium being produced a month. 



The report said that Natanz had churned out close to 4,000 pounds of low-enriched, or nuclear fuel-grade uranium by Nov. 2 — close to the amount considered by experts that would be needed for two nuclear weapons, AP reported.