Iran watch: BreakthroughIran has reached a nuclear breakout capacity; holds enough uranium for bomb

In December 2007, analysts in the U.S. intelligence community issued a national Intelligence Estimate (NIE) which, incredibly — perhaps “bizarrely” is more appropriate — claimed that Iran had “halted” its nuclear weapons program. Trouble was, they forgot to tell the Iranians about it. Now the UN, not exactly an organizations given to wild assertions or bold claims, says Iran has built up a stockpile of enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb. In a development that comes as the Obama administration is drawing up its policy on negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program, UN officials said Iran had produced more nuclear material than previously thought. They said Iran had accumulated more than one ton of low enriched uranium hexafluoride at a facility in Natanz. FT’s Daniel Dombey reports that if such a quantity were further enriched, it could produce more than 20 kg of fissile material — enough for a bomb.

“It appears that Iran has walked right up to the threshold of having enough low enriched uranium to provide enough raw material for a single bomb,” said Peter Zimmerman, a former chief scientist of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

The new figures come in a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, released yesterday. This revealed that Iran’s production of low enriched uranium had previously been underestimated.

When the agency carried out an annual stocktaking of Natanz, in the center of the country, in mid-November, Iran had produced 839 kg of low enriched uranium hexafluoride — more than 200 kg more than previously thought. Tehran produced an additional 171 kg by the end of January. “It’s sure certain that if they didn’t have it [enough] when the IAEA took these measurements, they will have it in a matter of weeks,” Zimmerman said.

Iran’s success in reaching such a “breakout capacity” — a stage that would allow it to produce enough fissile material for a bomb within months — crosses a “red line” that for years Israel has said it would not accept. UN officials emphasize that to produce fissile material Iran would have to reconfigure its Natanz plant to produce high enriched uranium rather than low enriched uranium — a highly visible step that would take months — or to shift its stockpile to a clandestine site. Dombey writes that no such sites have been proved to exist, although for decades Iran concealed evidence of its nuclear program.

A senior UN official added that countries usually waited until they had an enriched uranium stockpile sufficient for several bombs before proceeding to develop fissile material. He conceded that Iran now had enough enriched uranium for one bomb. “Do they have enough low enriched uranium to produce a significant quantity [enough high enriched uranium for a bomb]?” he said. “In theory this is possible, [although] with the present configuration at Natanz it isn’t.”

David Albright, the head of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), said: “If Iran did decide to build nuclear weapons, it’s entering an era in which it could do so quickly.”