Iran Enriching New Batch Of Uranium

The Washington Post reports that Iran has begun enrichment activities on a new batch of uranium. The work is coming just a couple of days before the UN mandated deadline for halting those activities and should tell even the Clue Proof™ that Iran will not comply.

Iranian nuclear specialists have begun enriching a new batch of uranium in an apparent act of defiance just days ahead of a U.N. Security Council deadline for Tehran to stop such work or face the prospect of economic sanctions, officials in Washington and European capitals who have been monitoring Iran's efforts said yesterday.

Inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency plan to formally disclose the new enrichment work, as well as additional Iranian nuclear advances, in a report due out tomorrow, according to the officials, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The officials stressed that the Iranians are working at a slow pace with small quantities of uranium, and that they are enriching the material to an extremely low level that could not be used for nuclear weapons. Still, it is unlikely that the Iranians will stop the work in time to meet the Security Council's deadline.

For three years, Iran and the United States have publicly sparred over a nuclear program that Tehran says it built to produce energy but which the Bush administration believes is a cover for nuclear weapons work. IAEA inspectors have been trying, without success, to determine the true nature of the program, which Iran kept secret for 18 years.

Notice the way that the unnamed IAEA officials downplay the work and assure everyone that it is only small amounts and low enrichment. Which they know how? Iran carried this program on in secret for years right under the noses of the UN. Nobody in the IAEA actually knows what the Iranians are doing, only what they have allowed the UN to see.

For the uninformed, uranium bombs are relatively easy to fabricate. Plutonium bombs require a rather sophisticated manufacturing capability and a fairly high level of infrastructure. Neither is beyond the capability of Iran.