Iran has enough nuclear fuel for bomb, experts say

Tehran: Iran has enough nuclear fuel to build a bomb if it decides to take the drastic steps of violating its international treaty obligations, kicking out inspectors and further refining its supply, UN officials and arms-control experts said on Thursday.

Iran has made no such gestures and has slowed its expansion of machines producing nuclear fuel, increasing its production capacity by less than 5 per cent over the last three months, according to a report issued Thursday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA.

Another IAEA report released on Thursday raised suspicions about graphite and uranium particles found at an alleged Syrian nuclear site Israel bombed in 2007.

The reports, the latest updates by the UN's arms-control watchdog, revealed that Iran had amassed 1,010 kilogrammes of low-enriched or reactor-grade nuclear fuel by late January. Physicists estimate that producing the 25 kilogrammes or so of highly enriched or weapons-grade uranium to build an atomic warhead requires between 1,000 and 1,700 kilogrammes of low-enriched or reactor-grade uranium.

Iran's increased supply of low-enriched uranium surprised diplomats and arms-control experts who assumed Iran would need until the end of the year before it would have enough fuel to build a bomb.

One expert, David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said he was "blindsided" by the report.

Senior officials close to the Vienna, Austria-based International Atomic Energy Association told reporters and arms control experts in a conference call Thursday evening that Iranian officials had told them they had "miscalculated" their stockpile of low-enriched uranium because of a mathematical error, a discrepancy that was cleared up with agency officials in mid-November but never before made public.

Iran steadfastly denies it seeks to build an atomic bomb, which Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says violates principles of Islam.

It insists its nuclear program is meant solely to produce energy for its growing population. But the US, Europe and Israel suspect that Iran is trying to attain a nuclear weapons capacity.

By crossing the 1,000-kilogramme threshold, experts say Iran has improved its "break-out" capacity, the ability to renege on treaty obligations, boot out inspectors and quickly build a bomb.

The latest IAEA report may complicate Obama administration plans to engage diplomatically with the Islamic Republic in order to convince it to dismantle sensitive aspects of its nuclear programme.

Still, said Albright, the uranium stockpile signifies "a capability, not a decision." And even if Iran made such a decision it still faces numerous major hurdles to building a bomb.

It does not have enough high-speed centrifuges at its Natanz facility to further refine the uranium, said senior UN officials, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.

"In theory it is possible," said one UN official. "But to do so they would have to use installed capacity. If they would use the facility in Natanz, they're not there."