ILAM, Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Islamic republic still seeks at least 50,000 uranium- enriching centrifuges in order to provide fuel for its nuclear power plants in the future. ‘We need at least 50,000 centrifuges in order to realize our aim of producing our own nuclear fuel,’ Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Galavizan sports in the western provincial capital city of Ilam.| But they're not needed to build a bomb. Honest. The NIE sez so. Why, it would take the Iranians until .. 2010 .. to build a bomb with just 3,000 centrifuges. Having 16 times as many centrifuges isn't a problem. See? Nothing to worry about! |
A US intelligence released a report on Monday verifying Iran had halted its atomic weapons programme in 2003 and seemed less determined to develop nuclear arms than George W BushÂ’s administration previously believed. As of mid-2007, Iran had not resumed its nuclear weapons programme even as it was continuing uranium enrichment in defiance of the United Nations Security Council, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report said.