Tuesday, November 14, 2006

IAEA finds plutnoium and highly enriched uranium in Iran

While the US is focused on a balance of power shift in Washington, Iran continues to forge ahead with their nuclear program.

VIENNA, Austria - International Atomic Energy experts have found unexplained plutonium and highly enriched uranium traces in a nuclear waste facility in Iran and have asked Tehran for an explanation, an IAEA report said Tuesday.

[...] "The agency will remain unable to make further progress in its efforts to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran," without additional cooperation by Tehran, said the report, by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei.

Such cooperation is a "prerequisite for the agency to be able to confirm the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," it added.

[...] Since revelations more than three years ago of a covert uranium enrichment program, Iran has moved to develop its capabilities, activating two small experimental enrichment plants and enriching small amounts of uranium to nuclear fuel level. Although that is far short of the weapons grade uranium that could be used for nuclear warheads, international concerns about Tehran's ultimate intentions led the Security Council to set an Aug. 31 deadline for an enrichment moratorium — which Tehran has ignored. Officials have said they plan to have 3,000 centrifuges operating by next year — enough to make enough material for several nuclear weapons a year.


Of course they still insist the program is completely peaceful, for electricity generating purposes only. Yet they refuse to let the IAEA confirm that with simple site inspections.

Something fishy going on there?

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