Iran has systematically covered up its nuclear programme for the past two decades and needs ”particularly robust” international inspections to dissolve fears it is developing weapons of mass destruction, the UN’s atomic energy agency has found.
In a confidential 30-page report on the Iranian nuclear project, delivered to diplomats in Vienna on Monday night and obtained by the Guardian, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN’s international atomic energy agency (IAEA), revealed that Iran has extracted weapons-grade plutonium in experiments with uranium, and until recently was building a secret laser uranium enrichment facility, as well as a huge centrifuge enrichment complex.
Dr ElBaradei in effect declared Iran in breach of its international nuclear treaty obligations, a claim that requires the IAEA to report Iran to the UN security council.
But the politics and the diplomacy of the crisis mean that such a referral and the accompanying risk of punitive sanctions being decreed is unlikely to happen yet. The Vienna-based agency and the Europeans want more time to investigate the highly sophisticated and extensive projects under way in Iran.
Tehran has also, albeit only in the past month, moved to defuse the crisis by offering the inspectors access to anything they want to see in Iran and by announcing this week that it has frozen all uranium enrichment and nuclear reprocessing activities.
”Given Iran’s past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the IAEA is able to conclude that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes,” ElBaradei reported. He said he could not prove that Iran was engaged in a nuclear bomb project, but the evidence his inspectors had unearthed and Iran’s grudging admissions had ”given rise to serious concerns”.
”The policy of concealment continued until last month,” ElBaradei said. That was when the IAEA delivered an ultimatum demanding Iran reveal everything about its nuclear projects by the end of October or face the consequences.
The disclosure about plutonium extraction follows revelations in the summer that traces of bomb-grade uranium had also been found at two facilities in Iran. The amount of plutonium at issue is in micrograms — nowhere near what is needed for a warhead. But experts and diplomats said the key point was that the Iranians were developing the techniques to extract much more plutonium.
”This is unquestionably a bomb programme,” said Gary Samore, a nuclear expert and director of studies at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London.
”The purpose is to develop a weapons material capability. Nothing else makes sense given the scale of the Iranian nuclear power programme.”
The accumulation of detail in the report and in two previous assessments from Dr ElBaradei this year paints a staggering picture of a long-term, sophisticated programme running since the mid-80s. Only this year did the rest of the world obtain a glimpse of the Iranian projects.
”Iran has now acknowledged that it has been developing, for 18 years, a uranium centrifuge enrichment programme, and, for 12 years, a laser enrichment programme,” the report said.
Four unnamed foreign countries had helped the Iranians with knowhow and equipment. ElBaradei also said his inspectors had not yet resolved the origin of the weapons-grade uranium traces found at a Tehran plant and the Natanz enrichment complex. He insisted that to settle the plethora of open questions about the Iranian programmes, the IAEA would need ”a particularly robust verification system,” requiring ”full transparency and openness on the part of Iran”.
The 35-strong IAEA board is to meet in Vienna next week to decide its next moves towards Iran.
What the inspectors found
Plutonium: manufactured at a Tehran laboratory between 1988 and 1992, despite previous denials from Iran. Very small quantity extracted, not enough for a bomb. But Iranian scientists now know how to manufacture bomb-grade plutonium
Laser uranium enrichment: Under UN questioning a fortnight ago, Iran admitted it had built a pilot laser enrichment facility at Lashkar Ab’ad, north-west of Tehran, three years ago. Four unnamed countries have been involved in supplying equipment and knowhow for 20 years. The Iranians admit banned experiments there until this year. They say the facility was dismantled in May. Last month UN inspectors’ requests to examine equipment and talk to the scientists were ”deferred by Iran”
Uranium metal conversion: uranium metal is most commonly used for nuclear missiles. Earlier discoveries of metal conversion work were explained away by the Iranians as ”shielding material”. Last month they said the uranium metal was for use in the previously undisclosed laser enrichment project
The IAEA’s previous report disclosed traces found of two types of weapons-grade uranium at the underground centrifuge enrichment plant at Natanz. The IAEA then reported traces of weapons-grade uranium at the Kalaye electric company in Tehran – Guardian Unlimited Â