The noose is tightening. Mullahs better get ready, this is Iraq all over again.
Arms Inspectors Said to Seek Access to Iran Sites
By WILLIAM J. BROAD, DAVID E. SANGER and ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: December 2, 2004
his article is by William J. Broad, David E. Sanger and Elaine Sciolino.
VIENNA, Dec. 1 - International inspectors are requesting access to two secret Iranian military sites where intelligence suggests that Tehran’s Ministry of Defense may be working on atomic weapons, despite the agreement that Iran reached this week to suspend its production of enriched uranium, according to diplomats here.
The inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency base their suspicions on a mix of satellite photographs indicating the testing of high explosives and procurement records showing the purchase of equipment that can be used for enriching uranium, the diplomats said. Both are critical steps in the development of nuclear arms.
Iran has insisted that its uranium enrichment program is entirely for civilian nuclear energy production, but the areas the I.A.E.A. wants to visit are all located in secure military bases. Traditionally, such facilities are considered off limits to the I.A.E.A., whose primary mandate is to monitor civilian nuclear programs, unless there is strong evidence of covert nuclear activity at the military sites. Weapons experts cautioned that the equipment purchases and other activities could have non-nuclear purposes.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the I.A.E.A., said in an interview here on Wednesday that he has repeatedly asked Iran for access to the two sites, but that it has not yet been granted.
“We are following every credible piece of information,” he said. Understanding the exact significance of what is happening at the two military sites is “important,” he added. “We still have work to do, a lot of work.” He estimated that even with full Iranian cooperation, it would take at least two years to resolve all of the outstanding questions surrounding the country’s nuclear program.
“We’re not rushing,” he said. “It takes time.”
The deal the Europeans signed with Iran, which the United Nations atomic agency blessed on Monday, was designed to defuse the most urgent problem, Tehran’s enrichment of uranium at civilian sites, which could have given it quick access to the raw material for making bomb fuel.
With that problem at least temporarily under control, inspectors and the United States are now turning to the question of whether Iran has a parallel military nuclear program that it has not declared. Last year, the country admitted to inspectors that it had hidden critical aspects of its civilian program for 18 years.
The inspectors now want to examine the military sites to see whether secret nuclear work is under way. Much of the equipment needed for centrifuges - which spin at supersonic speeds to purify uranium for reactors and bombs - is “dual use,” meaning it could be used for peaceful purposes, as well.
Some officials close to the atomic agency said a last-minute disagreement over centrifuges in Iran’s civilian program, which emerged before this week’s accord was signed, may have been designed as a diversion by Tehran to take attention away from the agency’s request for access to its military bases.
An Iranian official dismissed the idea of opening up the military sites, saying Tehran had no responsibility to do so. “There is nothing required for us to do,” he said.
“They should have evidence that there are nuclear activities, not just 'We heard from someone that there is dual-use equipment that we want to see.”
The suspicions were aired here as an Iranian opposition group was preparing to release what it called new information that Iran was secretly developing a nuclear-capable missile whose range is significantly greater than what the Iranians have publicly acknowledged to date.
Diplomats and weapons experts here said in interviews that the intelligence on Iran’s military activities comes from several sources, including nations that are members of the United Nations nuclear agency.
One of the suspect military sites under investigation by the I.A.E.A. is a huge, decades-old facility southeast of Tehran, the Parchin military complex. Inspectors believe Iran’s military may be testing conventional high explosives at the site, of a type used to detonate nuclear weapons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/02/international/middleeast/02nuke.html
