Inspections

Yesterday, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has submitted his new safeguards report on Iran’s (and Syria’s) nuclear activities. It is now circulated among the 35 members of the IAEA Board of Governors and will be discussed in Vienna on September 7, just before the this year’s UN General Assembly in New York which will take place between September 22 and October 2. According to IAEA’s website circulation is restricted and the report cannot be released to the public unless the IAEA Board decides otherwise. As usual, non-governmental non-profit Institute of Science and International Security (ISIS) has immediately published the report(s) and its brief analysis on its webpage.

 

Enrichment

Recent IAEA reports on Iran’s nuclear program usually reveal highly reproducible results. What they consistently show is more or less a constant pace of development. The visit of IAEA inspectors at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) in Natanz on August 12 revealed that the number of centrifuges being fed with uranium hexafluoride (all IR-1; Iran is presently testing a 10-machine IR-4 cascade, and 10-machine IR-2m cascade at the Pilot PEF) was now 4592 with an additional 3716 centrifuges being installed. The total number of centrifuges at the FEP has now increased to 8308 from 7221 on May 31. Since June 1 an additional 169 kg of low enriched uranium (LEU) hexafluoride has been produced. Nuclear material at FEP and all installed cascades are subject to IAEA containment and surveillance. Results of environmental samples taken at FEP and PFEP in recent unannounced inspections indicate that they have been operating as declared. Samples taken in April 2009 have identified particles of LEU of less than 4.4% U-235, natural uranium and depleted uranium down to 0.38% U-235 enrichment.

 

Heavy-water Nuclear Research Reactor

The IAEA had requested a Design Information Questionnaire (DIQ) for the Fuel Manufacturing Plant (FMP) near Esfahan and the heavy water Nuclear Research Reactor (IR-40) in Arak which had been submitted by Iran to the IAEA on August 21. More important may be that inspectors of the IAEA had been allowed to visit the site and conduct a design information verification (DIV) on August 17. It was noted that the reactor vessel had not yet been present (it would be installed, according to information provided by Iran, in 2011). Although the facility at its current stage of construction (95% of the civil construction work is completed and about 63% of the plant itself) conforms to the design information provided by Iran as of January 24, 2007, the agency demands that Iran still needs to provide updated and more detailed design information in particular about the nuclear fuel characteristics, fuel handling etc. See, for example, in that respect a recent discovery by ISIS of a reactor fuel rod bundle shown to the press at the FMP in Esfahan in spring this year, which seems to be similar to the Soviet-era graphite reactor RBMK.

 

Uranium Conversion

At the Uranium Conversion Facility in Esfahan, a mere 11 tonnes uranium hexafluoride had been produced during the period between March 8 and August 10, 2009, much less than the 33 tonnes which had been produced between March 8 and November 3, 2008, giving rise to speculations that Iran is in fact running out of uranium ore.

 

Desired Cooperation

IAEA inspectors’ visits at the FEP in Natanz on August 12 and at the heavy water nuclear plant IR-40 in Arak on August 17, two months after the highly controversial presidential election and subsequent political power struggle, and about two weeks before the expected next (and, for ElBaradei, final) report on Iran’s nuclear program, may in fact have led to some constructive results. Thus, Iran and the IAEA have agreed on improvements to the containment and surveillance measures at the FEP as well as regarding the provision of accounting and operation records, even on the requirements for timely access for unannounced inspections.

 

Possible Military Dimensions

IAEA reports on Iran time and again conclude that the agency verifies the non-diversion of declared nuclear material. However, Iran is not cooperative in implementing steps which would allow the necessary subsidiary measures of the agency for design information verification. Contrary to the requests of the Board of Governors and the Security Council, Iran has neither implemented the Additional Protocol of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (which had been signed, though never ratified by Iran’s parliament, and implemented until President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s first election) nor cooperated with the agency in connection with the remaining issues of concern, as usually designated as the ‘alleged studies’, which Iran consistently rejected as being forged (the ‘laptop issue’, the ‘green salt project’ of nuclear related high explosives testing) which need to be clarified to exclude the possibility of military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program. As regards the latter, Iran has provided to the IAEA an overall assessment of the documentation related to the ‘alleged studies’ and partial replies and a document in response to specific questions presented by the agency. Although Iran has indicated further that it has information which could shed more light on the nature of the alleged studies, it has not yet provided it to the agency. ElBaradei might ultimately loose his patience when considering in particular the latter, Iran’s obstinacy in this matter. Again, the blame is on both sides. ElBaradei urges “[m]ember States which have provided documentation to the Agency to work out new modalities with the Agency so that it could share further documentation with Iran, as appropriate, since the Agency’s inability to do so is rendering it difficult for the Agency to progress further in its verification process.”

“[T]he Agency has repeatedly informed Iran that it does not consider that Iran has adequately addressed the substance of the issues, having focused instead on the style and form of presentation of the written documents relevant to the alleged studies and providing limited answers or simple denials in response to other questions. The Agency has therefore requested Iran to provide more substantive responses and to provide the Agency with the opportunity to have detailed discussions with a view to moving forward on these issues, including granting the Agency access to persons, information and locations identified in the documents in order for the Agency to be able to confirm Iran’s assertion that these documents are false and fabricated. The Agency has reiterated its willingness to discuss modalities that could enable Iran to demonstrate credibility that the activities referred to in the documentation are not nuclear related, as Iran asserts, while protecting sensitive information related to its conventional military activities.”

Sacked

Controversial figure Tariq Ramadan has been sacked as a visiting professor at Rotterdam’s highly reputed Erasmus University for the reason of not giving up presenting the presstv talk show Islam & Life produced in London studios. Presstv is an English language Iranian news channel largely imitating western formats such as BBC World News or CNN as well as Qatar-based Al Jazeera. Claims that it is independent of any commercial or governmental influence are not trustworthy in particular with respect to the latter. Definitely, presstv is, since its foundation in late 2007, an indispensable source when trying to follow sometimes confusing political news in Iran. One has to be very cautious, though. Current appearances of Mohammad Marandi, assistant professor at University of Tehran, on presstv (the “basiji professor” as he is called by his adversaries), who is notorious for eloquently trivializing the regime’s brutal oppression of the opposition movement in the aftermath of the recent election and power struggles within the labyrinthine ruling establishment have substantiated grave concerns about presstv lopsidedly featuring certain individuals acting solely as the regime’s mouthpieces. See, for example disgraceful Marandi in a revealing interview of July 27 with brave Fareed Zakaria at CNN.

Now, Ramadan, who is denied a US visa for some time now, could not resolve doubts that he acted as a mouthpiece of post-election Iran as well. In any case, Erasmus University’s decision should be seen as wrong as false accusations of Iranian prosecutors in the current show trials against top members of Iran’s opposition movement that what has been called the Green Revolution has mainly been orchestrated by Western powers (doubts continue to exist, though, even when Ali Khamenei has expressed yesterday his strong beliefs that Western powers were not involved). The University’s decision should be based on content. So far, Ramadan has not produced such scandalous contributions on presstv as Marandi did.

Ramadan, who is right now on vacation in Morocco, has announced that he would appeal Erasmus’ decision. He may be well-advised also revising his decision of appearing presently on presstv.

Surprising Turn

The Arak 40-megawatt, heavy-water reactor, Iran’s IR-40, is under construction since 2004 and will likely be operative sometime in 2013. In violating its safeguards obligations of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of which the country is a signatory, Iran had denied access by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to conduct already scheduled design information verification visits several times pretending that the reactor is entirely planned for research and development and the production of isotopes for medical purposes. The reactor has raised proliferation concerns since its spent fuel will contain plutonium suitable for the manufacturing of nuclear weapons.

In a significant move, IAEA inspectors were now allowed to visit the site. The visit took place already last week, news agencies were told by a diplomat on the condition of anonymity. Moreover, Tehran had also allowed the IAEA to step up surveillance at the uranium enrichment facilities in Natanz. The IAEA did not comment on the matter. Claims on Tuesday this week that Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, has promised talks with Western powers about its nuclear projects “without preconditions” based on mutual respect have been denied, however, immediately.

Tehran’s surprising turn comes one week before outgoing Director General of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, is going to present his final report on Iran’s nuclear activities. In that report speculations may be verified regarding a fuel element shown in pictures made on the occasion of a visit of President Ahmadinejad at the Fuel Manufacturing Plant in Esfahan last spring which had been aired by Iranian media. In a report by Albright, Brannan and Kelly of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) it has been argued that the fuel assembly shown in a picture resembles a respective part used in an older Soviet-ear graphite reactor which is odd for the relatively small heavy-water reactor being constructed at the Arak site.

“A[nother] possibility is simply that Iran is not planning to use this fuel assembly in the Arak reactor. Rather, Iran could have displayed a RBMK [Reaktor Bolshoy Moshchnosti Kanalniy] uranium oxide fuel assembly for publicity purposes, allowing Ahmadinejad to proclaim that Iran had ‘mastered’ this important step of the reactor’s fuel cycle.” (Emphasis added.)

 

See also on this blog

Peer Review on controversial disputes about Iran’s nuclear breakout capacities.

In a Timely Manner on how ISIS launches its analyses on the Iranian nuclear program for political reason.

No Mercy

 

 

 

 

I know that I was always very privileged when living in the country. My Ramadans were usually nice times full of interesting discussions about religious matters and in general plenty of opportunities for widening my horizon.

However, the easy-going times of Ramadan are now definitely over. Since last year (when I had left the Middle East for good already) the Holy Month is moving into the summer months and will be observed for about 12 years during the scorching heat. A full circle of the Gregorian-Hijra calendar is 33 years, an entire generation. Since in Muslim countries the population is very young, few people have experienced the harsh conditions of fasting during the long, extremely hot and, what makes it even worse, humid days.

I have noticed that the weather conditions were very uncomfortable in Kuwait the last days. When living in Kuwait, I had expressed my concerns many times and usually was told by the older Kuwaiti colleagues that people were used to it. I doubt. Most people are anyway working indoors. My compassion and sympathy is especially with Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Indian construction workers who have to bear the brutal heat and humidity in full which is in fact unbearable when it comes to 40+ degrees and close to 100% humidity. I remember only one time that this condition had hit me. In my first September in Kuwait, it was very similar: water running outside the windows.

I was also wondering how it had been in Makkah, for example, when the Holy Qur’an had been revealed to the Prophet (PBUH). According to tradition, he’d got the first revelation in a cave of Hira on August 10, 610 CE when he was fasting in the month of Ramadan (I think that it was at the end of Ramadan, the last few days are still observed by the faithful as Laylat al-Qadr). On that very day this year Makkah reported 42 degrees maximum temperature and rather humid conditions.

So, people at that time were in fact kind of used to it. By Hijra of the Muslims in 622 CE, Ramadan had moved 132 days ahead, i.e., end of April, which still seems not to be very comfortable in Makkah (37 degrees, very humid this year).

Madinah may in fact be a bit different. It is also at a higher altitude, >600 meters above sea level.

In the old days in Kuwait without any air condition people would not have worked too much but used the long hours for contemplation and prayers. Badgirs, or wind towers, dominated the village, not skyscrapers as today (see Sharq Market as an example; they are found all over and on both sides of the Persian Gulf). The need for physical activity was at a very low level, I suppose.

Today’s greed and hyperactivity makes life so difficult during Ramadan in the summer. There might be a chance right now for a change in the society. Since I would expect even casualties this summer and in the coming years, authorities have to do something about it. Not only there but also in the Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, even Saudi Arabia.

Before I left Kuwait, working hours during Ramadan had been shifted already to the early morning hours. Construction workers woke me up, not the muezzin. But then Ramadan was still in October, which may be nice in Kuwait, especially at the end of the month.

First published at Salmiya.

 

Afghan Election Fraud

I have commented in the past weeks frequently on the alleged Iranian presidential election fraud and my growing anger about the ruthless response of the country’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had maneuvered himself in a hopeless situation when prematurely and most probably unjustified supporting his hardliner populist ‘principlist’ president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after the June 12 election.

Although I am still pretty convinced that rigged election results cannot be proved from outside the country by statistical means or by pointing at irrational results from certain ethnical groups; and that their correctness can definitely not be confirmed by telephone polls from a neighboring country three weeks before election day, the brutal crackdown and rounding up of the regime after the mass demonstrations with dozens if not hundreds of casualties, torture and show trials have severely undermined the willingness of most western commentators to let the Iranians settle their domestic disputes in their own rights.

The present power struggle seems now to take place without contribution of ‘the people’. Whether Rafsanjani, Khamenei (or his son Mojtaba), Karroubi or Mousavi finally prevails, who cares? There has probably never been such an analysis bywestern commentators of a third world’s country election than that in Iran 2 months ago.

Tomorrow’s Afghan election is already a charade, or political theater, as Eric Margolis put it in Information Clearing House. Who will win? The candidate chosen by the US and its NATO allies: corrupt and incompetent Hamid Karzai and his warlords, war criminals Mohammed Fahim and notorious Rashid Dostam.

“[All] parties are banned; only individuals are allowed to run. This is a favorite tactic of non-democratic regimes, particularly the US-backed dictatorships of the Arab world.”

As the BBC informs us, thousands of voting cards have been offered for sale and thousands of dollars have been offered in bribes to buy votes. There will be no free and fair election for the war-torn country. We will see whether Karzai will make it in the first round.

“But as international forces fight and die to allow this election to go ahead, serious questions are raised about the credibility of the process and the balance between sacrifice and reward.”

Not Before 2013 – Ever?

In his updated testimony to Congress Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has now further shifted a possible date as to when Iran may have achieved capabilities of producing highly enriched uranium (HEU) to “not before 2013” (from “between 210 and 2015” claimed in February last year).

“While Iran made significant progress since 2007 in installing and operating centrifuges, INR (the Bureau of Intelligence and Research) continues to assess it is unlikely that Iran will have the technical capability to produce HEU before 2013. INR shares the Intelligence Community’s (IC’s) assessment that Iran probably would use military-run facilities, rather than declared nuclear sites, to produce HEU.”

The analysis is based on Iran’s technical capability and is not a judgment about when Iran might make any political decision to produce HEU.

According to responses to questions posed by the Senate Select Intelligence Committee members at a February 12 hearing, the US intelligence community “has no evidence that Iran has yet made the decision to produce highly enriched uranium, and INR assesses that Iran is unlikely to make such a decision for at least as long as international pressure and scrutiny persist.”

The now declassified document had been submitted already in April and was obtained by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) through a Freedom of Information Act request yesterday. It can be found on FAS’s web site.

The documents renders highly speculative claims made earlier this year by David Albright and Jacqueline Shire at the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) that Iran may actually achieve breakout capability (i.e., the capacity of producing weapon-grade uranium by further enriching low-enriched uranium, LEU) by early next year largely unsubstantiated. It had in the meantime also been questioned by experts. The co-incidence of the latest report of the International Atomic Energy Agency, ISIS’s analysis (both February 19) and Admiral Blair’s initially classified testimony (February 12) is also quite remarkable.

When Iran’s arch enemy Iraq had been attacked and invaded six years ago by an American- and United Kingdom-led multinational coalition (“of the willing”) the Iranian government under the “reformist” President Mohammad Khatami suspended, according to the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (“with high confidence”), a covert military nuclear program. After having been put on an “axis of evil” by former President G. W. Bush, the Islamic Republic regarded a “cost-benefit rather than a rush to a weapon” policy for the sake of security and integrity of the country a higher value.

Now, after his heavily disputed re-election, and facing enormous domestic problems and strong resistance even among his hardliner, or “principlist”, fellows, old and new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be well-advised to further slow down Iran’s allegedly peaceful nuclear program.  After mass demonstrations following the possibly stolen election, the Iranian people might no longer show any solidarity with the hardliners if being attacked by Israel later this year (God forbid!).

 

See also on this blog

Peer Review about information leakage for political reason (and other issues).

President Obama’s U-turn about an unavailing attempt of the American Civil Liberties Union of getting pictures of abused prisoners in US American camps in Iraq and Afghanistan released.

Body Language

Last Thursday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced a new chapter of Iranian history. In front of Basij militia in Mashhad in Eastern Iran, in front of one of the holiest shrines of Shi’a Islam, he described the fate of his adversaries:

“A new period has begun.

“Let me take the oath of office, and wait for the government to begin its work.

“Then, we’ll seize them by their collars and stick their heads to the ceiling.”

He and his government have hurried in the meantime in commencing the first round of show trials in the Revolutionary Court, not dissimilar to Roland Freisler’s notorious People’s Court of Nazi Germany, to publicly humiliate some opposition rear ranks such as former veep Mohammad Ali Abtahi (the “blogging Mullah”) and to intimidate the bigger shots. They (Rafsanjani, Khatami, Mousavi; and brave Karroubi, who has in fact been identified in new demonstrations in Tehran today) did not attend today’s endorsement farce.

In a comical situation, the two ‘leaders’ of the Islamic Republic, for a moment, didn’t know how to finalize the act. It seemed so as if Khamenei tried to avoid any physical contact with his old and new president, who finally managed to kiss his left shoulder. What a difference to the affectionate ceremony four years ago.