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Iran Atomic Shopping Deepens Bomb Fears
Western diplomats say recent intelligence reports show Iran has been attempting to buy items that could be used to build nuclear weapons -- a charge Tehran dismisses as baseless. The diplomats cited European customs information and intelligence gathered in the Middle East showing Tehran had tried to buy, among other things, high-speed switches that could potentially be used in a nuclear weapon and high-speed cameras the Iranians might use to test a nuclear explosion. "They appear to be working on the planning for a high-speed nuclear implosion device," the diplomat said, adding that Iran had also been experimenting with "high explosive that would be appropriate for the core of a nuclear weapon."A senior U.S. official told Reuters in Washington that these procurement efforts were part of an effort that has been going on for a long time. He declined to confirm the specific items mentioned, but said they were not "all new" to Washington. "This is an ongoing procurement process. I fully believe that they're still at it, but I can't say that there is some new list that they're out buying right now," the official said. The diplomats said their motivation for briefing Reuters was concern that France, Britain and Germany were enabling Iran to play for time while the trio struggle to find a way of enticing Tehran into fully suspending its uranium enrichment program. Iran agreed with the Europeans last October to suspend its enrichment program, which the United States believes is aimed at making fissile material for atomic weapons. But Tehran never fully suspended the program and recently said it would resume production, assembly and testing of enrichment centrifuges. "There is a recognition here that time is a very critical factor," said a non-Western diplomatic source. "The red line is not when they (the Iranians) get the bomb, but when they don't need any more external assistance." A senior European diplomat said there was a lot of evidence that what Iran sought was "break-out capability" that would stop short of building a nuclear weapon but give it the ability to do so rapidly if it chose to leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States is bound to seize on the new intelligence as further proof of its belief that Tehran is developing nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian nuclear power program. But analysts and diplomats say Washington will have trouble persuading skeptics that Iran wants the bomb given that U.S. and British intelligence about pre-war Iraq's alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) -- a key justification for the decision to invade Iraq -- turned out to be grossly inaccurate. Posted by: Steve 2004-07-16 |
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