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Iran's Nuclear Program: What Is Known and Unknown

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Iran's Nuclear Program: What Is Known and Unknown No. 2393 March 26, 2010 Iran’s Nuclear Program: What Is Known and Unknown James Phillips Abstract: The Obama Administration’s engagement pol- icy toward Iran has failed to defuse the nuclear standoff. Instead, Iran has continued to conceal and lie about its Talking Points nuclear weapons program in an attempt to stall until it can • Iran is continuing its pattern of concealing present the world with a nuclear fait accompli. A nuclear- and lying about its nuclear efforts, which are armed Iran not only will have a dramatically increased much more extensive than a civilian nuclear ability to threaten its neighbors and U.S. interests, but will power program could justify. also trigger a destabilizing nuclear arms race in the already • Iran rejected a proposed deal that would volatile Middle East. The Administration’s best option is to have helped its civilian nuclear program, press both its allies and the U.N. Security Council to which it claims is its only motivation. impose the strongest possible sanctions on Iran to increase • The amount of nuclear assistance Iran has the costs to Iran of continuing its nuclear weapons program. received from North Korea, the A. Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network, and other for- eign sources is unknown. Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad • The Obama Administration should update the celebrated the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 revolution flawed 2007 National Intelligence Estimate and on February 11 by proclaiming that Iran is a “nuclear establish a team of non-government experts to 1 review intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program state.” Iran’s radical Shia Islamist regime clearly sees and to issue an independent report. its nuclear program as a means of bolstering its sag- ging legitimacy and popularity, while expanding its • The United States should not only push for the strongest possible sanctions against Iran prestige and global influence. It also sees nuclear in the U.N. Security Council, but should also weapons as a potent equalizer that could deter exter- press its allies to impose even stronger sanc- nal attack and ensure its own survival. Tehran has tions outside the U.N. framework, free from spurned aggressive diplomatic offers from the Obama the Russian and Chinese vetoes. Administration to resolve the outstanding nuclear issue, just as it spurned efforts by the Bush Adminis- This paper, in its entirety, can be found at: tration and by Britain, France, and Germany. As http://report.heritage.org/bg2393 Produced by the Douglas and Sarah Allison Ahmadinejad said in 2007, Iran’s nuclear program is Center for Foreign Policy Studies like a train “with no brakes and no reverse gear.”2 of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Despite five U.N. Security Council resolutions and Institute for International Studies three rounds of U.N. sanctions, Iran’s nuclear train Published by The Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE speeds onward. Washington, DC 20002–4999 (202) 546-4400 • heritage.org Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress. No. 2393 March 26, 2010 Iran has forged ahead on its nuclear program Since 2002, the IAEA has bent over backwards to despite growing international pressure to comply give Iran the benefit of the doubt, in large part due with its nuclear safeguard agreement with the Inter- to the politicized leadership of IAEA Director Gen- national Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Since the eral Mohammed ElBaradei, who was an outspoken discovery of its secret uranium enrichment facility critic of the Bush Administration and often acted as at Natanz in 2002, Tehran has failed to keep its an apologist for Iran. In November 2009, ElBaradei repeated pledges to cooperate fully with the IAEA to was replaced by Yukiya Amano of Japan. demonstrate that it has not used its civilian nuclear Under Director General Amano’s leadership, the program as a fig leaf to mask a nuclear weapons pro- IAEA appears to be taking a more objective look at gram. Tehran has refused to fully disclose its nuclear the Iranian nuclear program. On February 18, it activities and to stop its uranium enrichment issued a confidential report that warned for the first efforts, which can produce fuel for nuclear reactors time of evidence that Tehran is working on a nuclear or, with further enrichment, the fissile material for a warhead for its missiles.4 This warning contradicts nuclear weapon. Iran has also pushed ahead on its the controversial 2007 U.S. National Intelligence ballistic missile program and building a nuclear 12 Estimate (NIE), which concluded that Iran had warhead that can be delivered by a missile. stopped working on a nuclear weapon in 2003.5 The Obama Administration has sought to engage It is time for the Obama Administration to Iran diplomatically to defuse the nuclear standoff, acknowledge that its engagement policy has failed but with little success. Instead, over the past year, to budge the dictatorship in Tehran on the nuclear Iran has spurned Western proposals to resolve the issue or on any other issue. As the history of Iran’s nuclear issue, insisted that it will continue to nuclear program makes clear, Tehran has resisted expand its nuclear program, installed hundreds multiple opportunities to defuse mounting tensions more centrifuges to enrich uranium, been caught over its nuclear program. secretly constructing another uranium enrichment facility, and pledged to build 10 more. What Is Known Moreover, on December 14, 2009, The Times of Tehran claims that Iran’s nuclear program is London reported that Western intelligence agencies devoted solely to civilian nuclear power and had uncovered Iranian documents indicating that research purposes. This contention is contradicted Iranian scientists had tested a neutron initiator, the by many facts and by a series of recent revelations. component that triggers a nuclear weapon. A neu- Fact #1: Iran has built an extensive and expen- tron initiator has no peaceful application. This dis- sive nuclear infrastructure that is much larger covery directly contradicts the U.S. intelligence than what would be necessary to support a civil- community’s position that Iran halted nuclear ian nuclear power program. weapons-related work in 2003.3 On December 18, Iran announced that it was testing more advanced Iran’s nuclear weapons program, cloaked within centrifuges, which could enrich uranium faster. its civilian nuclear power program, has made steady 1. Nasser Karimi and Ali Akbar Dareini, “Iran Proclaims New Success in Uranium Enrichment,” Associated Press, February 11, 2010, at http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100211/D9DPTTKO0.html (March 15, 2010). 2. BBC News, “Iran Defiant on Nuclear Program,” February 25, 2007, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6395203.stm (March 15, 2010). 3. Catherine Philp, “Secret Document Exposes Iran’s Nuclear Trigger,” The Times (London), December 14, 2009, at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6955351.ece (March 15, 2010). 4. George Jahn, “U.N. Nuke Agency Worried That Iran May Be Working on Arms,” Associated Press, February 18, 2010, at http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j9EVzzCsT-QwKFtWDzgF6ZLue6BgD9DUNOS81 (March 15, 2010). 5. See James Phillips, “The Iran National Intelligence Estimate: A Comprehensive Guide to What Is Wrong with the NIE,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2098, January 11, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2008/01/ The-Iran-National-Intelligence-Estimate-A-Comprehensive-Guide-to-What-Is-Wrong-with-the-NIE. page 2 No. 2393 March 26, 2010 advances. Iran operates a large uranium enrichment sufficient uranium reserves to run power reactors facility at Natanz, which it illegally sought to con- for more than 10 years and would eventually be ceal until 2003, and it is building up a stockpile of forced to import either uranium yellowcake or fin- enriched uranium that is of no current use in its ished fuel rods to operate them. Moreover, harness- civilian nuclear energy program.6 Iran’s only ing Iran’s enormous natural gas reserves to generate nuclear power plant, which Russian technicians electricity would be far less expensive, given that have almost finished testing at Bushehr, does not Iran is currently flaring and burning off natural gas need domestically produced nuclear fuel because as a byproduct of oil production.8 Moscow has agreed to provide all the enriched ura- Iran had produced approximately 1,400 kilo- nium that Iran needs to operate it for the first 10 grams (kg) of low enriched uranium (LEU) metal at years of operation. Moreover, Iran does not have a Natanz by January 31, 2010.9 The LEU is enriched fuel fabrication plant that can produce reactor fuel to the level of about 3.5 percent, and Tehran claims for the Bushehr facility. that it will be used for fuel rods for civilian nuclear _________________________________________ reactors. Approximately 1,900 kilograms of LEU is needed to produce enough highly enriched ura- The Iranian nuclear program cannot be justified 10 on strictly economic or energy grounds. nium (20 kilograms) to build a nuclear weapon. ____________________________________________ At its current rate of production, Iran will have enough LEU by the end of July to produce a nuclear Iran has pursued virtually every possible technol- weapon if it were further enriched. Once the deci- ogy for producing nuclear fuel and did so covertly sion is made, the uranium processing and weapon and in violation of its treaty obligations to keep the manufacturing could take as little as six months.11 IAEA informed. This includes laser separation, a Experts quoted by The New York Times in December costly and complex technology to enrich uranium 2009 claimed that Iran’s centrifuges could probably that is ill suited to producing fissile fuel for a reactor.
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