Iran Preparing for Advanced Nuclear Work, Officials Say
By Douglas Frantz
Times Staff Writer
June 9, 2005
ISTANBUL, Turkey — Iran has plans to install tens of thousands of
advanced centrifuges at its huge underground nuclear plant near the
central city of Natanz, which eventually would enable the nation to
enrich uranium nearly twice as fast as anticipated, Western
intelligence officials say.
The officials say there is no hard evidence that Iran is currently
manufacturing the updated centrifuges and that the timetable for
installation remains unknown. However, preparatory work is underway at
the plant, they said in recent interviews, and the decision to rely on
the superior type of centrifuge suggests Iran could manufacture fissile
material for a possible weapon sooner than expected.
Diplomats
with knowledge of Iran's nuclear program said they could not confirm
the information, but Tehran said last year that it intended to use the
advanced centrifuges at some point.
Iran insists that its
nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the United States and
European Union fear that the country intends to build atomic weapons,
in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Stopping
Iran from mastering the process of uranium enrichment is the central
goal of the U.S. and EU. They have threatened to turn to the U.N.
Security Council if Tehran abandons an agreement, reached with three
European governments in November, to suspend enrichment activities.
The concern is that Iran, after developing sufficient enrichment
capabilities, could more readily shift production from low-level
enriched uranium for nuclear reactors to high levels for weapons,
either secretly or after withdrawing from the nonproliferation treaty.
On Sunday, Iranian officials pledged to extend the country's voluntary
suspension of enrichment activities until the end of July as part of
the nuclear negotiations with Germany, France and Britain. But Tehran
has called the suspension voluntary and temporary and says it intends
to eventually produce fuel for civilian reactors.
An inspection
team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear
watchdog, will begin work today in Natanz. The team will verify whether
Iran is complying with the enrichment suspension ahead of an IAEA board
meeting next week in Vienna.
The complex at Natanz, about 150
miles south of Tehran, is the heart of Iran's enrichment effort. Plans
call for more than 50,000 centrifuges to be installed in two vast
underground halls, where they could produce large quantities of
enriched uranium, the Western intelligence officials said.
Earlier this year, Iran finished covering the main plant with 25 feet
of concrete and an additional layer of earth. Satellite photos show
that the entrance to the underground complex and two large air shafts
were concealed by what appear to be dummy buildings.
Journalists taken on a government-led tour of Natanz in March reported
that the 1,100-acre site was ringed by at least 10 antiaircraft
batteries. Iranian officials said the missiles and underground
facilities were prompted by concerns over possible attacks by the U.S.
or Israel.
The IAEA has been investigating Iran's nuclear
program since an exile group disclosed the existence of Natanz in
August 2002, exposing an ambitious Iranian effort that had been kept
secret for nearly two decades.
Though questions remain, the IAEA says it has found no evidence of a
weapons program.
Two Western intelligence officials and a nuclear expert, all from a
government opposed to Iran's nuclear efforts, said they had developed
"very solid information" about plans to manufacture and install 54,000
centrifuges at Natanz. They said up to two-thirds of them would be the
advanced model, known as the P-2.
They said they were uncertain about the key issue of when Iran would
build and install the machines.
Tehran told the IAEA last year that it had stopped all research and
development on P-2s. If Iran is building the advanced centrifuges, that
would violate its agreements with the three European nations and the
international agency, diplomats said.
In separate interviews,
diplomats close to the IAEA said that, although it is likely Natanz
will eventually house P-2s, they had no information that Iran was
working on the machines.
"Their having made some planning
should not be overly surprising," a Western diplomat in Vienna said.
"However, if there were production going on, it would be a breach of
the suspension."
A senior Iranian official dismissed the idea
that Iran was now working on P-2s, but he said Natanz was designed to
accommodate either the P-2 or the less advanced P-1.
A senior
IAEA official is expected to provide an update on Iran's compliance
when the board meets next week. The Western diplomat in Vienna
suggested that the release of information about the P-2s was timed to
fuel doubts about Iran.
"The question has been: Do they already
have the P-2 developed and demonstrated?" said David Albright, a former
IAEA inspector who is head of the Institute for Science and
International Security in Washington. "My understanding is that there
is not much progress being made on this [question] by the IAEA."
Russia has agreed to provide fuel for Iran's nuclear reactor at
Bushehr, which is to begin operating next year, but Tehran says it
plans a series of reactors to generate electricity and wants to produce
its own fuel.
Iran began building P-1 centrifuges several years
ago and told the Europeans in April that it would install 3,000 of them
at Natanz.
That number is far more than planned for a nearby
pilot plant and could turn out enough enriched uranium for one or two
bombs in a year, Albright said.
The Bush administration
recently pushed back its estimate of the date by which it believes Iran
could produce an atomic weapon if it resumed enrichment activities.
Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Pentagon's Defense
Intelligence Agency, told a Senate committee in March that Iran was not
expected to be able to produce a weapon before early in the next
decade, several years later than earlier estimates. Albright said he
was told that assessment was shared throughout the U.S. intelligence
community.
However, Israeli intelligence estimates that Iran could have a nuclear
weapon within two years or less of resuming enrichment.
Iran admitted under pressure last year that it had secretly bought
parts and designs for the P-1 centrifuge from Pakistani scientist Abdul
Qadeer Khan in the late 1980s. Iranian officials later acknowledged
that the Khan network sold them designs for the more efficient P-2 in
1995.
Iranian officials told the IAEA that they did not work on
the P-2 until 2002 and that those efforts were unsuccessful and were
halted in 2003.
In a report issued last November, the IAEA said
a private contractor in Tehran hired by the government had acknowledged
trying to buy 4,000 magnets suitable for P-2 centrifuges from a
European company and had suggested that he might want far more. Iran
also said it had bought magnets suitable for P-2s in 2002.
The
IAEA said it did not have enough evidence yet to determine whether Iran
was telling the truth about the absence of work on the P-2 for seven
years. A second diplomat in Vienna said the work had not resumed.
It is unclear how quickly Iran could turn out the required number of
P-2s. Centrifuges are complex, finely balanced machines, with about 100
parts manufactured to precise tolerances.
P-2s are designed
to use rotors manufactured from specialized steel, which Iran would
probably have to acquire abroad. Iranian attempts to substitute a
carbon-fiber compound in 2002 and 2003 ran into difficulties, the IAEA
says.
