|
Towards a Confrontation with Iran
Heavily EFLIran's record of denial and concealment over 18 years, as described in six IAEA reports, has deepened suspicions about its aims. "We have no illusions," says a European envoy. And recent developments have intensified the worries. Iran announced that it would resume manufacturing and assembling centrifuges and that it had converted tons of "yellowcake" uranium into uranium hexafluoride gas--the feedstock for centrifuges, which spin the gas at high speeds to enrich it to yield fuel for nuclear reactors or bombs. Iran has also tried to hire away Iraqi nuclear scientists with unknown success, U.S. officials say. Iran's black-market efforts to buy nuclear parts also continue. U.S. News has learned that Iranian-linked trading companies last year attempted to acquire specialized components for the "cascade" of connected centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Iranian representatives have said it was necessary to make clandestine purchases--albeit for peaceful nuclear technology--to evade foreign efforts to thwart them. Further, says David Albright, a leading proliferation expert and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, Iran has so far refused requests by IAEA investigators to enter a munitions production and storage facility at Parchin, as well as other military sites, on the grounds that they are not nuclear facilities covered by the nonproliferation treaty. Some analysts consider Parchin a probable home for testing the high-explosive charges that can trigger a nuclear detonation. Posted by: AzCat 2004-11-14 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=48738 |