Renewed concerns, but surprise deal offers potential path forward
Just as the unmasking of a hidden uranium-enrichment plant threatened to raise tensions about Iran’s nuclear programme to a new level, negotiations between Tehran and major powers have led to a breakthrough that could possibly mark the beginning of the end of their long confrontation.
United States President Barack Obama’s announcement on 25 September of the discovery of a hitherto secret enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom reinforced international apprehension that Iran’s nuclear programme was not intended entirely for peaceful purposes. Such concerns had already been heightened by the leaking of a document indicating that the Safeguards Department of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believed that Iran had the ability to make a nuclear bomb, and was working on developing a missile system that could carry a nuclear warhead. In addition, the United Kingdom made it clear that, along with France, Germany and Israel, it did not share the US intelligence community’s conclusion that Iran’s nuclear-weapons development work had been on hold since mid 2003.
Under the well-established pattern of the long-drawn-out crisis, these disclosures could have been expected to prompt new efforts to impose international sanctions on Iran and even renewed calls for military action. However, such expectations were confounded by a potentially ground-breaking agreement – albeit fraught with risk – on an exchange of enriched uranium, following meetings in Geneva on 1 October and in Vienna on 19–21 October.
Qom facility revealed
Obama’s announcement at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh – made with Britain, France and Germany – was the first public disclosure of the Qom plant, which is designed to hold 3,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment, and is buried at the base of a mountain on an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps base. Iran had in fact informed the IAEA on 21 September that the ‘pilot’ facility was under construction. However, according to US officials, it did so only after learning that its secrecy had been compromised. French, British and American intelligence agencies had been focusing on the site since 2006 but until earlier this year they could not judge with high confidence that it was intended for uranium enrichment. Having come to this conclusion, the allies waited until the information could be used to advantage in negotiations with Iran.
The pilot plant is small in size in comparison to Natanz, Iran’s industrial-scale enrichment facility where over 8,000 of a total of 54,000 planned first-generation centrifuges are installed. The US determined that it would not be operational until at least 2010, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said it was 18 months away from production. According to Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Iran intends to install advanced-generation centrifuges in the Qom facility. Tests of three new types have been under way at Natanz. The IISS had suspected for two years that Iran would install advanced centrifuges in a clandestine facility. (See ‘Nuclear Iran – How close is it?’, Strategic Comments, volume 13, issue 7, September 2007.) The IISS understands that the Qom facility is designed for the production of 3–5% low-enriched uranium (LEU). It may be intended as the first stage in a two-step process in which highly enriched uranium (HEU) was to be produced in yet another secret facility. If so, additional secret facilities may yet come to light, including a uranium-conversion plant to supply gasified uranium for enrichment.
Iran’s explanation for the Qom plant – that it wanted to protect its most advanced centrifuges in order to reconstitute the programme in the event that Natanz was bombed – is credible. However, according to Obama ‘the size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful programme’, since it is intended to hold only 3,000 centrifuges. Although far too small to provide the amount of LEU needed for fuel for a nuclear power plant, the size is sufficient for a military programme. If configured for HEU production, or in tandem with another plant, 3,000 second-generation machines could produce at least two or three weapons’ worth of fissile material a year.
Under the Geneva agreement, IAEA inspectors will visit the plant on 25 October and may be able to confirm its configuration. This is ten days later than the US had demanded, and critics have charged that this will give Tehran time to arrange for any incriminating evidence to be removed. Although the delay is not justifiable and sets a bad precedent that undermines the IAEA's inspection rights, Iran has already had ample time to clean the site since it first learned, apparently several months ago, that secrecy had been compromised.
According to IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, Iran’s failure to declare the Qom facility earlier had put it on the ‘wrong side of the law’. Tehran had in 2007 unilaterally revoked the revised Code 3.1 of the safeguards agreement subsidiary arrangements to which it had agreed in 2003. The revised code required design information to be provided to the IAEA as soon as a new nuclear facility was planned. Iran, however, has insisted on the old Code 3.1 requirement for notification only 180 days before nuclear material is introduced. The safeguards agreements make no provisions for unilateral revisions.
IAEA weapons worries
Growing concerns about Iran within the IAEA had also been indicated by the leaking of parts of an internal 67-page working paper by the agency’s Safeguards Department, entitled ‘Possible Military Dimensions of Iran’s Nuclear Program’. The paper determined that in early 2002, Iran had undertaken a multi-pronged ‘warhead development program’ aimed at designing a nuclear warhead for its Shahab-3 ballistic missile. It said Iran had established a high-explosives industry capable of manufacturing nuclear-weapon triggers using detonators and high-voltage firing components, and concluded that Iran ‘has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device’ using HEU. Reflecting concerns that Iran may have obtained the weapons blueprint that the A.Q. Khan black-market network sold to Libya, the paper noted that ‘Iran may have nuclear weapon design information’.
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