Iran: We'll Soon Join Nuclear 'Club'

President Says Iran Has Enriched Uranium, Ahmadinejad Touts 'Progress'

(CBS/AP) 

While Iran's refusal to forgo nuclear weapons technology poses a growing threat to United States security and international stability, the U.N. Security Council has yet to demonstrate that it can forge the consensus needed to resolve such disputes, John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said in a speech at the University of Delaware.

With U.N. nuclear inspectors in Tehran and less than three weeks before the Security Council takes up the issue of Iran again, Bolton called Iran a "test" of the efficacy of the world body, CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk reports.

"World powers remain committed to pressuring Iran to freeze its nuclear program: the White House is not ruling out military options, European foreign ministers are considering sanctions, and Atomic Energy Chief Mohammed ElBaradei is planning to go to Iran himself — all with the objective of convincing Iran to back down, putting the ball in Iran's court as the international pressure mounts." Falk said.

The IAEA is due to report to the U.N. Security Council on April 28 whether Iran has met its demand for a full halt to uranium enrichment. If Tehran has not complied, the council will consider the next step. The United States and Europe are pressing for sanctions against Iran, a step Russia and China have so far opposed.

The reported breakthrough came only two months after Iran resumed research on enrichment at its facility in the central town of Natanz in February. The resumption of work there prompted ElBaradei's International Atomic Energy Agency to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council — escalating the standoff over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

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 enrichment process can take years to produce a gas that's rich enough in uranium-235 to be used to power a nuclear reactor or produce a bomb. Enrichment typically starts out with a gas that is 0.7 percent uranium-235 and boosts it up to either 4 percent for power generation or 90 percent for weaponry.