By Mark Heinrich
VIENNA – After sprinting ahead in much of the first half of 2007, Iran's contentious nuclear energy programme seems to have slowed to a walk, diplomats say.
Two months ago, Iran looked on course to have 3,000 centrifuges, which can enrich uranium for electricity or explosives, operating by the end of July – a number that would open the door to 'industrial scale' output of nuclear fuel.
But Iran still appears well short of that threshold and no one outside its opaque decision-making structure can pinpoint why, say diplomats familiar with International Atomic Energy Agency inspections at the underground Natanz enrichment complex.
Political motivations and technical hurdles may both be in play, diplomats and nuclear analysts reckon.
Iran is manoeuvring to forestall a third round of more painful U.N. sanctions over its refusal to shelve enrichment in exchange for significant trade and other benefits.
That rationale also lies behind Tehran's sudden gestures to cooperate with IAEA inquiries into the murky scope of its atomic activity and to ease curbs on IAEA access to key nuclear sites. More Iranian-IAEA talks are due next week.
After two decades of nuclear secrecy and obstruction of IAEA sleuths, Iran is under growing pressure to prove that a nuclear programme it says is only for electricity generation is not a disguised effort to build atomic bombs.
But the Islamic Republic has also struggled to run large numbers of centrifuges in unison at supersonic speed nonstop for long periods, crucial to refining uranium in usable amounts.
Iran installed some 2,000 centrifuges at what looked to be breakneck pace during the spring and proclaimed the launch of 'industrial capacity' – even though it had failed to overcome all glitches at a small, pilot enrichment plant, analysts say.
Centrifuges run in interlinked networks, known as 'cascades', of 164 each. Eighteen cascades, or 3,000 centrifuges, could in theory yield enough fuel for one bomb in about a year – if that were Iran's objective.
Iran's ultimate goal is to have 55,000 centrifuges in more than 300 cascades running at Natanz.
RUNNING IN PLACE
'Last week we were told that Iran had only 10 cascades running, with two more in vacuum-testing (without uranium feedstock inside) and some other centrifuges being tested for leakage,' said a European Union diplomat.
'Iran has apparently deliberately slowed down the commissioning of centrifuges, which means they've made little progress since the last IAEA report to us in May,' he said, referring to the agency's 35-nation board of governors.
'Whether this is a technical issue, or political signal, no one knows yet.'
A senior diplomat close to the IAEA confirmed that a slowdown first disclosed by Director Mohamed ElBaradei on July 9 was continuing, but he said technical problems were not evident.
'Iran rushed the commissioning in the spring to convey a fait accompli to Washington. The slowdown is political too. They could speed up again whenever they want,' he said.
Independent nuclear non-proliferation experts, however, believe Iran is still quietly grappling with quality-control.
'It never made any technical sense to install so many centrifuges before the cascades in the pilot plant were working well. Perhaps the political leaders finally listened to their technicians that haste makes waste,' said Mark Fitzpatrick at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Iranian officials have denied any slowdown, saying the programme is progressing normally.
They vow Tehran will exercise its sovereign right to civilian nuclear energy and resist Western pressure to desist, but Tehran has leavened its defiance – pledging to answer IAEA questions about its nuclear behaviour by late August.
As a result, the United States and big European allies suspended steps to put teeth into so-far soft sanctions slapped on Iran at least until September pending the outcome of IAEA-Iranian negotiations.
'The impression I get from governments is that they are pretty relaxed, that Iran has a pretty high failure rate with centrifuges, that it can't run them at high speed,' said Gary Samore, director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
'The critical point is tens of thousands of centrifuges. Iran won't reach that for 5-10 years,' he said, barring any parallel covert facility that intelligence has not detected.
