IRAN’S NUKESIran Now Has Enough Fissile Material for One Nuclear Bomb: IAEA

Iran has enriched enough uranium for making one Hiroshima-size nuclear bomb, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in its quarterly report. The report was viewed by several media outlets Monday, among them the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.

The IAEA says that Iran now has around 43 kilograms (95 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60 percent (in March, Iran had 33 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent).

The 43 kg of 60 percent enriched uranium would yield about 22-25 kg of uranium enriched to 90 percent, which is weapon-grade.

France24 reports that a separate IAEA report, also see by the news outlet, said Iranian officials have not given “technically credible” answers to questions regarding old nuclear material which was discovered at several military and scientific sites in Iran.

Iran’s nuclear program was launched under the shah, but in 1992, now under the ayatollahs regime, the program was bolstered for the purpose of building nuclear weapons. Israel and the United States, relying on cyberattacks and covert action, attacked the Iranian nuclear weapons program and the scientists involved in it, but these attacks only caused delays on the margins of the program.

In 2015, Iran struck a deal with the United States, China, Russia and other world powers. The deal rolled back Iran’s progress toward the bomb; imposed strict limits on various aspects of the country’s nuclear development; and imposed an intrusive inspection regime to verify Iran’s compliance with the deal.

In exchange, Iran received some of the money frozen in Western banks since the ayatollahs came to power in 19.

In May 2018, the Trump administration withdrew the United States from the deal, and imposed what it called a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign on Iran.

Iran used the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 deal, and the consequent weakening of the inspection regime, to ramp up its nuclear weapons-related activities: building thousands of advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges and moving them to fortified sites under ground; reopening the nuclear reactor in Araq, which will allow it to build nuclear weapons from plutonium; and continuing to improve its ballistic missiles.

The Biden administration has been trying to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, but the indirect talks between the United States and Iran have stalled.