U.S. Critical As Iran Marks Nuke Step

White House Calls Iran's Announcement That It Has Enriched Uranium 'Defiant'

(CBS/AP) 

Ahmadinejad said Iran "relies on the sublime beliefs that lie within the Iranian and Islamic culture. Our nation does not get its strength from nuclear arsenals."

He said Iran wanted to operate its nuclear program under supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency and within its rights and regulations under the regulations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The announcement does not mean Iran is immediately capable of producing enough fuel to run or a reactor or develop the material needed for a nuclear warhead. Uranium enrichment can produce either, but it must be carried out on a much larger scale, using thousands of centrifuges.

Iran succeeded in enriching uranium to a level needed for fuel on a research scale — using 164 centrifuges, officials said.

But the breakthrough underlined how difficult it will be for the West to convince Iran to give up enrichment.

Ahmadinejad made the announcement in a richly appointed hall in one of Iran's holiest cities in a ceremony clearly aimed at proclaiming to the Iranian public their country's nuclear success.

Speaking before the president, Iran's nuclear chief — Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh — told the audience that Iran has produced 110 tons of uranium gas, the feedstock that is pumped into centrifuges for enrichment.

The amount is nearly twice the 60 tons of uranium hexaflouride, or UF-6, gas that Iran said last year that it had produced.

Aghazadeh said Iran plans to expand its enrichment program to be able to use 3,000 centrifuges by the end of the year.

The United States and some in Europe accuse Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons — an accusation Tehran denies, saying it intends only to generate electricity.

In London, a spokesman for the British Foreign Office recalled that Iran was under Security Council orders to "resume full and sustained suspension of all its enrichment."

"The latest Iranian statement is not particularly helpful," the spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with government policy.

In Vienna, officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors are now in Iran, declined to comment on the announcement.

But a diplomat familiar with Tehran's enrichment program said it appeared to be accurate. He demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss information restricted to the agency.

The enrichment process is one of the most difficult steps in developing a nuclear program. It requires a complicated plumbing network of pipes connecting centrifuges that can operate flawless for months or years.

The process aims to produce a gas high with an increased percentage of uranium-235 — the isotope needed for nuclear fission — which is much rarer than the more prevalent isotope uranium 238.

A gas made from raw uranium is pumped into a centrifuge, which spins, causing a small portion of the heavier uranium-238 to drop away. The gas then proceeds to the next centrifuge, where the process is repeated. Then it goes to another, and another, and another, in a chain that can involve thousands of centrifuges and gradually increases the proportion of uranium-235.

The Bush administration has sought to defuse reports of military planning against Iran.

"We have I don't know how many various contingency plans in this department, and the last thing I'm going to do is start telling you or anybody else in the press or the world at what point we can refresh a plan or don't refresh a plan or why," Rumsfeld said.

Bush, who has called Iran part of the "axis of evil," has said military force is always an option, but a last resort.