Origin of Iran's nuclear program and its pursuit of
nuclear weapons
Iran's nuclear program began when the Shah purchased a research reactor from the US in
1959.
The Shah had big plans for a network of 23 power reactors, but the US did not consider
this a danger, because he was an ally, and he did not ask for technologies to enrich or
reprocess spent nuclear fuel.
In the years after the Iranian revolution, US concern about Iran's nuclear efforts focused
on Russian help on the Bushehr nuclear reactor project. Those concerns were heightened in
2002, when a dissident Iranian group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, helped
expose clandestine nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak.
This exposure forced Iran to declare the facilities to the IAEA, as Tehran is a signatory
of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It was not just the secrecy that set off alarms in the
US, but the nature of the newly revealed sites - and Natanz, in particular.
The 100,000-square-meter Natanz facility is the location of a pilot uranium centrifuge
enrichment plant, as well as a future commercial-size centrifuge plant. If Iran masters
enrichment technology, it will be able to make its own fissile material, including
possible bomb material - and it will have jumped the most difficult hurdle on the path to
becoming an atomic power.
On Jan. 10, Iran removed IAEA seals placed at Natanz and other facilities to verify a
suspension of work. Centrifuges, which enrich a gas form of uranium by spinning at
incredibly high speeds, are difficult to run, and Iran may have trouble restarting its
pilot centrifuge plant.
"They're not quite junk, but it's going to take a lot of effort to get them up and
running again," says Charles Ferguson, a nuclear science and technology expert at the
Council on Foreign Relations.
How many years to build a bomb?
But once the centrifuges are running, the clock will be ticking on Western estimates of
when Iran might have enough fissile material for a nuclear device. Israeli intelligence
argues that Iran is only two years away from a bomb, but others think it will take more
time.
Israel repeated that it would not accept a nuclear Iran under any circumstances. Iran said
that Israel would be making a "fatal mistake" if it takes military action
against Tehran's nuclear program and dismissed threats from the Jewish state as a
"childish game."
The ISIS - which released the satellite photo of Natanz - says Iran could have its first
nuclear weapon by 2009. But why won't Iran just use the centrifuges to produce
low-enriched uranium for power reactors? That's what Tehran says it wants to do.
US intelligence rejoins that Iran hid the plants from the IAEA - a suspicious act. Nor has
Tehran told the full story of where its centrifuge technology came from, although most
experts think it is Pakistan.
Furthermore, Iran's investment in the nuclear-fuel cycle makes no sense from a civilian
viewpoint, the US says. Iran lacks adequate deposits of natural uranium to ever be
self-sufficient in civil nuclear power, according to a Department of Energy analysis in
2005. The DOE says that Iran's nuclear infrastructure is about the right size for weapons
capability, as seen when it is compared with the program of another nation, presumably
Pakistan.
"It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Iran is pursuing nuclear
weapons," says the DOE intelligence analysis.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iran/nuke/iaea0207.pdf |
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