Vienna - It's an argument over one figure: With 1,010
kilogrammes of low-enriched uranium, does Iran have the capability to
make a nuclear weapon? Or is the country still some technical steps
away from the bomb, as some nuclear analysts say?
After the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued its
latest report last week on Iran, several media suggested that the
Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog had determined that Tehran had
enough fuel for a bomb.
In fact, the IAEA had simply stated that Iran has enriched 1,010
kilogrammes of uranium hexafluoride to a low level - to analysts such
as David Albright at the Washington-based Institute for Science and
International Security, this figure means Iran has reached the
'break-out capability' to use the material for one weapon.
To do that, Iran would first have to expel or deceive IAEA
inspectors, resign from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT),
enrich the uranium to a higher level needed for weapons, and fashion
it into a bomb, Albright and others say.
'At the moment, I'm not very concerned,' said Andreas Persbo, a
Swedish analyst at the Verification Research, Training and
Information Centre (VERTIC), a London-based think tank.
Given Iran's technical capabilities, it would theoretically take
around six months to take all these steps, Persbo estimated, giving
the international community or individual countries enough time to
react by diplomatic or military means.
'If they really want a nuclear weapon, they need to come up with a
time of two months,' Persbo said.
Iran's position is that it is enriching uranium only to fuel
reactors for nuclear power. So far, three rounds of UN Security
Council sanctions have not deterred Tehran from continuing this
nuclear activity.
If Iran took all the enriched uranium it has and converted it into
a single bomb, one would assume that Tehran was willing to take the
big risk of ending up with a small and not very effective weapon,
said James Acton, a British expert at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace.
'If Iran were prepared to take high risks, they would have been
ready for the last three, five or six months,' Acton said from
Washington, disputing that it was possible to make a definite
statement about Iran's capabilities.
Jeffrey Lewis at the New America Foundation in Washington called
it 'a mistake' to focus on the breakout scenario.
Instead, attention should be paid to the possibility that Iran
could build a secret enrichment plant for military purposes, rather
than converting the one currently monitored by the IAEA in Natanz.
However, not everyone agrees with the view that 1,010 kilogrammes
Iran has amassed through the end of January are not all that
significant.
The country did not actually have to build a working nuclear
weapon to create a threat, Albright said.
'What if they just said they got the bomb?' he asked. 'What are
you gonna do?'
Albright said that this was why the 1,010 kilogrammes meant for
Israel that it was losing control over the timing of Iran's nuclear
activities. While Iran might have material for just one bomb at
present, the amount was continually growing, he said.
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