Report: Iran trying new nuclear experiments

U.N. nuclear watchdog not commenting
IAEA spokespeople were unavailable Thursday but an official of the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog said the agency would not comment. He asked not to be named because he was not authorized to be quoted by name.

Both Albright and a senior Vienna-based diplomat agreed that the alleged experiment roughly jibed with Saddam's efforts to chemically process research reactor fuel to recover enriched uranium — in the case of Baghdad, enough and at a sufficiently high level of enrichment to make a bomb.

Close to success, the Iraqis saw their plans fail with the destruction of the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center during the first Gulf War of 1990-1991.

But both the diplomat and Albright noted that the purported source for the fuel — Tehran's TNRC research reactor — was unlikely to have enough material for reprocessing into the core of a warhead.

The five-megawatt reactor initially ran on weapons-grade uranium fuel enriched to 93 percent that was provided by the U.S. in the late 1960s to the then pro-U.S. regime. But measured in terms of potential proliferation, the amount was small — only 7 kilograms.

Then, in the late 1980s, Argentina helped reconfigure the reactor core and provided about 115 kilograms of uranium. In contrast to modern reactors that run on low-enriched fuel, that material was highly enriched to about 20 percent.

Albright said that even optimal reprocessing would probably yield less than about half of the 30 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium needed for a bomb. That restriction makes it unlikely that Iran was looking to the TNRC reactor for that immediate purpose.

Pushing the nuclear envelope?
Instead, an Iranian reprocessing plans could be part of Tehran's attempts to push the nuclear envelope.

U.S.-led efforts for tough U.N. sanctions for Iran's refusal to suspend enrichment have been consistently blocked by Russia and China. Tehran also has support of developing countries traditionally suspicious of Washington.

Iran may be banking on further international inaction if it announces it will reprocess, perhaps arguing that it will need it as a source for new fuel for the research reactor. If allowed to do so, it will have moved another step ahead on the path to being able to develop warhead material.

"It's the idea that Iran wants to slowly develop nuclear weapons capability under the tent and it does it slowly so that people will accept it," said Albright. "It's (a matter of) keeping your head down, moving slowly and deliberately and winning at each step."

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