Iran
nuclear report stirs undue
fear By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - News stories on the latest
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report
suggested new reasons to fear that Iran is closer
to a "breakout" capability than ever before,
citing a nearly 50% increase in its stockpile of
20%-enriched uranium and the installation of
hundreds of additional centrifuges at the Fordow
enrichment installation.
But the
supposedly dramatic increase in the stockpile of
uranium that could theoretically be used to enrich
to weapons grade is
based on misleading figures
in the November 16 IAEA report. The actual
increase in the level of that stockpile appears to
be 20%.
The coverage of the completion of
the installation of 2,800 centrifuges at Fordow,
meanwhile, continued the media practice of
ignoring the linkage between large numbers of idle
centrifuges and future negotiations on the Iranian
nuclear programme.
The latest round of
media coverage of the Iran issue again highlights
the failure of major news outlets to reflect the
complexity and political subtleties of the Iranian
enrichment programme.
The IAEA report
created understandable confusion about the
stockpile of uranium enriched to 20% - also called
20% LEU (low-enriched uranium). It does not use
the term "stockpile" at all. Instead, it says Iran
produced 43 kg of 20%-enriched uranium during the
three months since the August report and cited a
total of 135 kilograms of 20% uranium now "in
storage", compared with only 91.4 kg in August.
Based on those figures, Reuters suggested
that Iran might already be two-thirds of the way
to the level of 200-250 kg that "experts say"
could be used to build a bomb. The Guardian's
Julian Borger wrote that Iran was enriching
uranium at a pace that would reach the Israeli
"red line" in just seven months.
But
analysis of the figures in the last two reports
shows that the IAEA total for 20% LEU "in storage"
actually includes 20% LEU that has been sent to
the Fuel Plate Fabrication Plant in Esfahan for
conversion to powder for fuel plates to be used by
Iran's medical reactor but not yet converted.
The November IAEA report includes the
information that, as of September 26 - six weeks
after the data in the August report were collected
- the total amount of 20% LEU fed into conversion
process in Esfahan stood at 82.7 kg.
That
figure is 11.5 kg more than the total of 71.25 kg
fed into the conversion process as of the August
report.
The difference between the two
indicates that 11.5 kg had been taken out of the
stockpile and sent to the Fuel Plate Fabrication
Plant at Esfahan during September 2012.
In
another indicator of the difference between the
IAEA's "in storage" figure and the actual
stockpile size, the current IAEA report gives the
figure of 73.7 kg of 20% LEU from the Fordow
facility "withdrawn and verified" by the IAEA over
the entire period of such enrichment. That total
is 23.7 kg higher than the total of 50 kg from
Fordow "withdrawn and verified" given in the
August report.
A total of 23.7 kg of 20%
LEU was evidently taken out of the stockpile
available for higher level enrichment and sent for
conversion to powder for fuel plates during the
last quarter. The current IAEA report nevertheless
uses the same overall total of 96.3 kg of 20% LEU
fed into the conversion process that it used in
the August report.
Subtracting the 23.7 kg
additional uranium "withdrawn and verified" by the
IAEA during the quarter from the total
20%-enriched uranium production of 43 kg during
the quarter reduces the amount added to the
stockpile of 20% LEU to 19.3 kg.
Adding
the 19.3 kg to the August total of 91.4 kg gives a
total for the stockpile of 110.7 kg - a 20%
increase over the August level rather than the
nearly 50% increase suggested by news stories.
The IAEA declined to respond to the
substance of an IPS e-mail query citing the
apparent inconsistencies in the data presented in
the last two reports. IAEA Press Officer Greg Webb
said in an e-mail that safeguards department
officials who had been sent the query "reply that
the report is clear and accurate as it stands".
However, the Institute for Science and
International Security in Washington, DC, which
normally supports everything in IAEA reports, said
in a November 16 commentary that the current
report "does not make it clear if Iran has sent
additional near 20% LEU hexafluoride to the
Esfahan conversion site after August 2012."
The Washington think tank added, "However,
it if did, the near 20% LEU remains in the form of
hexafluoride." The comment implied that the IAEA
may have included 23.7 kg of 20%- enriched uranium
sent to the Fuel Plate Fabrication Plant during
the quarter as being "in storage".
The
IAEA report also said Iran had halted its
conversion of 20% LEU for fuel plates during the
quarter, although it did not indicate how long the
halt might last.
Reuters cited that halt
as "another potentially worrying development". But
in light of the actual level of the stockpile,
that halt could simply reflect the fact that
Tehran is content to keep the figure from rising
too far above 100 kg.
The spokesman for
the Iranian Parliament's National Security and
Foreign Affairs Committee, Hossein Naqavi, said
October 6 that Iran was taking "a serious and
concrete confidence-building measure" by
converting some of the 20% LEU into powder for
fuel plates.
More surprisingly, an Israel
official leaked to an Israeli daily that Iran was
believed to have consciously avoided allowing its
stockpile of 20%-enriched uranium to go much
beyond 110 kg by diverting much of it for
conversion to fuel for its scientific research
reactor.
Citing "defense sources",
Ha'aretz military correspondent Amos Harel wrote
October 9 that the Israeli policymakers had new
information they considered "highly reliable" that
each time new production of 20%-enriched uranium
could have brought the total above 130 kg, Iran
had "diverted 15 or 20 kg to scientific use".
Harel indicated that the new information
was the justification for the Israeli position
that the threat of Iranian threat of a breakout
capability had receded for many months.
Media coverage of the addition of the last
of 2,800 centrifuges added to Fordow enrichment
facility over the past year played up the idea
that the centrifuges could become operational at
any time. "They can be started any day," a "senior
diplomat" from an unnamed country was quoted by
Reuters as saying.
The fact that half of
those centrifuges have not been put into operation
was treated as a mystery. The Los Angeles Times
said, "For unknown reasons, Iran has not begun
feeding uranium hexafluoride gas into more than
half of the machines..... "
None of the
stories mentioned the obvious connection between
Iran's continuing to add centrifuges but not
putting them into operation and its maneuvering
for a deal with the United States.
Iran
has been suggesting both publicly and privately
throughout 2012 that it is open to an agreement
under which it would halt all 20% enrichment and
agree to other constraints on its enrichment
programme in return for relief from harsh economic
sanctions now levied on the Iranian economy.
Iranian strategists evidently view the
unused enrichment capacity at Fordow facility as
an incentive for the United States and the P5+1
(the five permanent members of the UN Security
Council plus Germany) to seek such an agreement.
Gareth Porter, an investigative
historian and journalist specializing in US
national security policy, received the UK-based
Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for
articles on the US war in Afghanistan.
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