Iran to upgrade nuclear program with faster IR-2M centrifuges to speed uranium enrichment, diplomats say

In this April 8, 2008 photo released by the Iranian President's Office, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility. / AP

VIENNA Iran is poised for a major technological update of its uranium enrichment program, allowing it to vastly increase production of the material that can be used for both reactor fuel and nuclear warheads, diplomats told The Associated Press Thursday.

The diplomats said that Iran last week told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it wants to install thousands of high-technology machines at its main enriching site at Natanz, in central Iran.

Iran argues it has a right to enrich for a civilian nuclear power program. But suspicion persists that the real aim is nuclear weapons, because it hid much of its program until it was revealed from the outside more than a decade ago and because of what the IAEA says are indications that it worked secretly on weapons development. Defying U.N. Security Council demands that it halt enrichment, Iran has instead expanded it.

One of the diplomats said Iranian officials informed the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog that they planned to mount as many as 3,132 of the new-generation centrifuges. He said a confidential note circulated Thursday to the IAEA's 35-nation board cited Iranian officials as saying that domestically developed IR-2m centrifuges would be used.

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Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on Iran's nuclear program and the director of the nonproliferation and disarmament program at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the new machines "could be a game-changer, depending on how many they introduce."

The introduction of the machines, if confirmed, "does suggest that they made a breakthrough, and are moving from the research and development phase to employing them to enrich uranium," Fitzpatrick told CBSNews.com the IR-2M machines can enrich uranium "four to five times faster" than other centrifuges in use at Iran's plants.

If confirmed by IAEA inspectors, "this will reduce the timeline for Iran being able to produce a weapon's worth of fissile material," added Fitzpatrick. He said IAEA inspectors were due to visit Natanz and issue a report on their findings in the next couple weeks, which "will indicate exactly how many (IR-2M centrifuges) have been introduced."

According to Fitzpatrick, Iran has been working for 10 years or more in a pilot program at Natanz to bring these new centrifuges into use. There have been a couple hundred undergoing trial and development at the pilot plant, and he suspects it was international sanctions that delayed their roll-out for so long.

Iran says it is enriching only to power reactors and for scientific and medical purposes. But because of its nuclear secrecy, many countries fear that Iran may break out from its present production that is below the weapons-grade threshold and start enriching to levels of over 90 percent, used to arm nuclear weapons.

Tehran now has more than 10,000 centrifuges enriching uranium at its main plant at Natanz, 140 miles southeast of Tehran, to fuel grade at below 4 percent. Its separate Fordo facility, southwest of Tehran, has close to 3,000 centrifuges producing material enriched to 20 percent, which can be turned into weapons-grade uranium much more quickly.

Fitzpatrick says the fear is that the new machines, "will enable them to very quickly turn it (their 20 percent-enriched stockpile) into high enriched uranium."

Iran has depended on centrifuges whose design is decades old at both locations up to now, while occasionally displaying models of more advanced machines. If it makes good on its announcement to move to a high-tech model it will be able to increase its stockpile of enriched uranium at two to three times the present rate.

Tehran already has enough enriched material for several nuclear weapons. But it insists it has no such plans. And experts say that while it could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to arm a nuclear bomb with two to four months, it would still face serious engineering challenges that would lead to much longer delays before it would succeed in making the other components needed for a functioning warhead.

[ticobird]

I predict that if and when Iran detonates a nuclear bomb above ground anywhere in the world except underground within Iran the nation will cease to exist as we know it now. All Iranians should be concerned enough to rise up and shut this nuclear program down and if they don't then they should be making plans to leave due to the unknown chain of events that would unfold should the Iranian ?leadership? decide to use the weapon they are constructing.

[sjc_1]

To a rogue state the NPT is just paper, it is what they signed to get a reactor. Iran has LOTS of natural gas to run their cars, homes and businesses. They can sell LOTS of oil for money to buy fuel rods from the people they bought the reactor from. They DO NOT need to enrich uranium...period. That is NOT negotiable...the sooner they get that through their thick skulls the better.

[WhereisOT]

After all those letters to you, nucular mahmoud, and you are still going for it...
Perhaps if "some" People/Journalists over there were not lazy & muzzled & used their voices to inform, educate instead of entertain, to give others a voice, done some investigating of bad things (instead of collecting a paycheck and writing letters and such) That would prevent more bad things from happnen & the World would be better off...
Uh.. nevermind...thats over here...

Anyhow....the bottom line is...if your ultimate goal is to have a bunch of nucular weapons....far more menacing than the Wile E. Coyote's bomb..

You really willing to start something that will end all life on this Planet...
You be nuts, but not that nuts...

[foo8259]

Wasn't Ahmadinejad the "poor little monkey" sent into orbit?

[Ericwvb]

They would be fools not to get nuclear weapons.

Just look at the map of the Middle East.

Two of their biggest enemies are Israel and the USA.

Israel has 200-300 nuclear weapons. The USA has the strongest military in the world and military bases in almost every country bordering Iran.

The USA is imposing sanctions on Iran that are so severe that if they were imposed on us, we would go to war over them.

Imagine if Iran was the most powerful country in the world, and had hundreds of nuclear weapons pointed at us, as well military bases in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, the Caribbean, Eastern Russia, etc., and multiple aircraft carriers patrolling our coasts 24/7, and we didn't have nuclear weapons but could get some.

[Ericwvb]

"What you're leaving out is Iran has threatend Israel and has no need for the weapons."

All your points are totally irrelevant from Iran's point of view.

Iran's threats and the fact that they are run by religious nuts are things Israel and the USA care about, not Iran.

Out of the 3 "Axis of Evil" countries, the one without nukes got attacked and the one with did not, and American politicians and Israel talk non-stop about attacking Iran.

[wfw3536]

I just wonder how soon it will be before Obama gets us into another war. During his campaign he stated a number of times he would not let Iran develop nukes.

[freewillybird]

It ain't Obama, simpleton. It is the military-industrial complex. Remember Dwight Eisenhower's quote. The world is not a simple open-book straightforward place, WFW. Stop with the simple partisan bias and open your eyes to the complexity if you dare.

[Regis_S]

Seems to me the issue is US and israel wanting to be sure that if they attack Iran that they can do so without risk of retribution and has nothing to do with an unwarranted attack by Iran on either. Therefore it would appear to be in Iran's best interest to arm or purchase arms to act as a deterrent. One need only ask Syria about recent unprovoked air attacks by israel to realize all ME countries threatened by israel and US should consider arming to balance the power.

[OldTimeTruth]

Lets just face facts. Both Iran and North Korea are ran by nuts and thugs. No different then Hitler and others in history. History is about to repeat itself and the longer the world waits and sits on their hands it well solve nothing.
In the end this will break out into war. Russia and China could care less on what Iran and North Korea are doing. They just want the thorn's to fester for the US and the world.

[parisdakar]

Of course they want nukes. They want a barganing chip so they are taken seriously like the rest of the world's nations. So let Iran build them, and develop their nuclear power industry. And let them know, if they don't already, that if a nuke that they built is ever detonated anywhere by anyone, it will be the last thing Iran ever does.

[rzarc2]

Why do something that makes sense when you can start ANOTHER war instead. You do not make a very good neocon!

[kbbpll]

"Tehran already has enough enriched material for several nuclear weapons. ...it could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to arm a nuclear bomb with two to four months" - so which is it?