The Same Old Tricks

The widely perceived new crisis about Iran’s nuclear program has a pretty complicated history. Several Iranian lawmakers and even defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi have vehemently rejected a UN brokered deal according to which Iran should send 1200 kg of its low enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for further enrichment and later to France for refinement.

In order to produce radio isotopes for medical purposes, such as Technetium-99m, medium enriched uranium has been fuelled into the 5 MW research reactor in Tehran for years, which has been supplied by the United States more than 40 years ago. Iran had purchased in 1988 about 116 kg of medium enriched uranium at 19.75% from Argentina, and this amount has been delivered to Iran by 1993. According to some calculations Iran would be running out this fuel by late 2010. Early in June 2009, Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali-Asgar Soltaniyeh had sent an inquiry to outgoing Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei seeking to replace this supply.

Soltaniyeh’s letter to the IAEA of June 2 has obviously extensively been discussed in the October 1 Geneva talks by the P5+1 and Iran, both in plenary sessions and face-to-face talks. At least the Iranian delegation led by its chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili seemed to have accepted that most of its LEU stockpile would be send to Russia for further enrichment after which France would provide Iran with the refined fuel.

The Geneva talks have been described as largely open, professional, even constructive. That the U.S. and Iran achieved almost a deal in an allegedly first encounter since the 444-day American Embassy hostage crisis of 1979-1981 (which will be commemorated next week on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean with contradictory sentiments) was a true sensation. But one cannot disregard the current legitimacy crisis of Iran’s leaders after the catastrophic presidential election only four months ago; and the ever diverging opinions among the establishment. Tehran has definitely a couple of other options for consideration.

First, the country could enrich its so far produced LEU by simply reintroducing it into the centrifuges in Natanz. Soltaniyeh’s inquiry letter to ElBaradei contained most probably already such a suggestion, although even Tehran would consider it unrealistic that the IAEA would allow the country to step up their enrichment program for medical purposes. Most countries are already afraid of Iran’s enrichment program resulting possibly in a nuclear bomb. There have also been reports on contamination problems of the so far produced LEU with molybdenum hexafluoride which might put the centrifuges in Natanz at risk if used for further enrichment. However, while so far the country has failed in certain areas, it definitely tries hard to master the full nuclear cycle. These kinds of technical problems may indeed be solved soon.

Second, under the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) Iran is a signatory of since 1968, the country has actually the right to simply buy the stuff for medical reasons even under current UNSC resolution 1737.

And third, Iran may even reconsider its inquiry and shut down for the time being the more than 40 years old research reactor in Tehran after running out the Argentine medium enriched uranium. Tehran may consider producing radio isotopes for medical purposes easier and in much larger amounts in the heavy water reactor at Arak which might be operational soon.

In fact, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Ali-Asgar Soltaniyeh went to the Vienna talks which started on October 19 not with one, apparently unprofitable, option for Iran only; namely sending almost all LEU abroad. Given the bad reputation of French negotiators in nuclear issues in particular when it comes to Iran, all of the above three alternatives may have discussed already then. Why ElBaradei so much hurried with his deal which would put Iran in a position where it could easily be blackmailed by western powers may have something to do with his soon retirement. But Iran has got some experience in recent decades of not being fleeced at the end of the day.

It has certainly been a ‘golden opportunity’ of getting rid of Iran’s nuclear stuff, but the French, American and Russian delegation has not really succeeded in confidence building. It is hoped anyway that the talks will continue on a par with Iran.

Visiting Qom

 

 

Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are now visiting the recently disclosed new uranium enrichment facility near Qom in Iran. Some commentators have raised concern that Iran would have had more than a month, after having notified the IAEA on September 21 about the site, to remove any incriminating evidence that the site has already been in an advanced stage of construction.  

Iran’s disclosure of the site came only after it had become clear that western intelligence had got knowledge about it for some time. GlobalSecurity.org  has published satellite imagery of January 2009 by DigitalGlobal which shows somehow disturbing construction work of an apparently heavily fortified facility already done. The UN inspectors will soon report on their findings to the IAEA headquarters in Vienna. ElBaradei’s next and probably final report on Iran (he will retire in December) is due next month.

Dealing with Iran

 

 

Earlier this month Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and his delegation had suggested, in the long-awaited Geneva talks, an unexpected deal with the West regarding shipping much of its so far produced stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for further enrichment to about 20%. It should then been returned to Iran in order to fuel Tehran’s research reactor for the production of medical isotopes. Many commentators were just surprised about completely new perspectives of international collaboration with the decade-long isolated pariah state. Possible motivations for Tehran’s seemingly constructive turn were quickly analyzed. Severe contamination of LEU, which had been produced in Natanz, with molybdenum had been identified as a major problem for further uranium enrichment at that site. But if Iran actually wants to master the full nuclear fuel cycle, reprocessing LEU in Esfahan’s uranium conversion facility should not be regarded a serious obstacle.

After further talks at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Iran has missed in the meantime a deadline, set by the outgoing IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, of responding to a proposal which suggested that most of Iran’s LEU is exported to Russia and France. The issue is delicate, and Ali Ashgar Soltaniyeh, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, has definitely to get approval in Tehran which has signaled already that the country prefers to simply purchase the needed uranium for the research reactor from Russia. Soltaniyeh has promised to provide the IAEA with a final answer next week.

There are definitely heavy disputes within the complicated ruling hierarchy, in particular when considering the tremendous emphasis the possibly illegitimate President Ahmadinejad has given to Iran’s nuclear program in the past, which has allegedly only peaceful purposes. The proposed UN deal which has been agreed already by the US, France and Russia may there be regarded as lopsided debilitation of Tehran’s position; and a hastily set deadline by ElBaradei might have been a grave diplomatic mistake, indeed. Iranian delegations are usually competent chess players who easily rumble intentions of their western counterparts.

At the same time, IAEA inspectors are right now underway for a visit of the newly disclosed enrichment site near Qom which has been revealed to the public only last month, first in a letter by Iran to the IAEA dated September 21 and a couple of days later during a press conference by President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Nicolas Sarkozy in Pittsburgh at the G20 meeting. It is not clear whether the past few weeks had enabled Iran to remove revealing evidence that the site has already been operational. Some commentators have pitied that the West has not insisted on immediate inspections after the site had been made public.

There is fear that mutual trust and confidence building has come to an end already. Iran’s illegitimate government, in particular its hard-line president, may be in need of keeping the country in its pariah state, sad to say.

Resuming the Talks

When on Monday next week delegations of Iran and world powers resume their talks in Vienna, the previous three weeks have seen much clarification already. Iran’s offer (or request) to further enrich most of its 1500 kg of 3.5% or so low enriched uranium (LEU) with the help of Russia or France to the desired 19.75% (for fueling the Tehran’s research reactor which is entirely used for producing the medical isotope technetium 99) has come by many as a surprise.

One reason for Iran’s turn may be contamination of the UF₆ with molybdenum which could damage the centrifuges in Natanz if it is further enriched. Joshua Pollack at ArmsControlWonk.com points to the long-known facts today that the contamination has its origin in Esfahan’s Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF). Only early in 2007 centrifuges in Natanz have been fed by UF₆, which had been produced in Esfahan, then leading to the contamination problem. Before, they relied on stuff which had been delivered by China.

According to Pollack, purification of contaminated LEU is not really a problem for the Iranians. The material has only to be transported back to Esfahan, re-processed and returned to Natanz. Tehran has, therefore, already stressed that, given the Vienna talks failed or did not yield, for Iran, constructive results one would definitely go ahead with enriching in the country. One should not underestimate Tehran’s first aim: mastering the entire nuclear fuel cycle.

Given Iran’s bad experience with western collaboration for decades, becoming independent of external sources may be of utmost importance for the country. Western powers may be well-advised of eventually building trust and confidence in offering honest and constructive international cooperation. So are the rulers in Tehran.

IAEA Estimates

Last month, a couple of days before Tehran had to admit the existence of a so far clandestine new nuclear site near Qom, I had expressed my concerns about the release of declassified information on Iran’s controversially disputed nuclear program while, at the same time, rumors are spread that classified parts, for example of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) may state something else. The declassified part of the NIE had claimed that Iran has, with moderate confidence, not resumed its military nuclear program which has, with high confidence, existed since 2003.

In their recent report on Iran, which has been derestricted September 9, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) again pointed at length to a possible military dimension of Iran’s nuclear program. The Agency has been accused, in particular by France and Israel, that a draft document, dealing with respective allegations has not been included in the official report. On Friday last week, certain excerpts of a lengthy document leaked and were immediately posted on the web page of the Institute for Scientific Information and Security (ISIS).

The news (if they are new; most of the so-called Alleged Studies are related to the infamous laptop which has been smuggled out of the country by the wife of an Iranian, who had been recruited by a German intelligence service; its content has become public in 2005 but was regarded faked by Tehran) may indeed be worrying. According to the excerpts of the circulating, though not approved, documents, the IAEA has gathered information that the Ministry of Defense of Iran has conducted and still may be conducting a comprehensive program aimed at the development of a nuclear payload for the Shahab 3 missile (one immediately remembers the provocative tests by Iran a few days before the Geneva talks). As mentioned already in the concluding remarks of the previous IAEA report on Iran, this information seems to be generally consistent since it originates from several Member States (of the NPT) and the IAEA’s own investigations.  The leaked paper says, inter alia:

“From the documents presented by a number of Member States and the Agency’s own activities, it is possible to assess that in early 2002 Iran formally declared the start of its warhead development programme, which very likely comprised at least two projects under the leadership and auspices of the Ministry of Defence – Project 111 and Project 110. Project 111 was to design the inner cone of the Shahab 3 missile re-entry vehicle and the production of an explosives operation control set (ECS). Project 110 was to produce the contents of the spherical warhead payload. The Agency assesses that the development work to design a suitable chamber inside the re-entry vehicle is intended to accommodate a new warhead payload that is quite likely to be nuclear.

“Information received from a Member State indicates a round, semi-round and semi-sperical shock generator for which an EBW (exploding bridge wire) detonator is being developed. It is said that the shock generator was fired in field test conditions with one detonator using a firing cable.

“The significance of the information is that Iran may have developed an effective high explosive implosion system, which could be contained within a payload container believed to be small enough to fit into the re-entry body chamber of the Shahab 3 missile.

“It is believed that Iran has developed exploding bridgewire detonators and associated electronic high voltage firing systems. The Agency assesses that Iran has managed to develop a high explosive industry capable of synthesizing and formulating the raw materials into explosive compositions and that could be used in a nuclear weapon. It is very likely that Iran has the required engineering skills to machine explosives into the weapon components. It is assessed that Iran has succeeded in combining its detonator development work with other related studies to manufacture a relatively compact high explosives initiation system that has probably been tested with comprehensive diagnostic equipment.”

According to this leaked information, the IAEA assesses that Iran has sufficient information to design and build a crude nuclear weapon.

“The Agency assesses that Iran has conducted studies relating to the aspects necessary to incorporate a device into a conventional delivery system such as the Shahab 3 missile. Further studies on payload integration are also accompanied by the electronic engineering studies to produce an arming and fuzing system. From the evidence presented to the Agency it is possible to suggest that, for the Shahab 3 delivery system, Iran has conducted R&D (research and development) into producing a prototype system. However, further work is necessary to manufacture a more robust unit capable of producing an airburst fuzing option that would function both safely and reliably.

“Overall the Agency does not believe that Iran has yet achieved the means of integrating a nuclear payload into the Shahab 3 missile with any confidence that it would work. Nonetheless, with further effort it is likely that Iran will overcome problems and confidence will be built up.”

Thus, the leaked excerpts conclude with a sense of grim humor. Reading this makes immediately clear why the official IAEA report of August 27 does not further entertain such speculations which seem to be irrelevant as long as the 2007 NIE has not been undergone a thorough revision. This revision may be overdue, since British, German, and, of course Israeli intelligence comes to different conclusions about the existence of a military nuclear program in Iran.

The leakage may highlight a tough power struggle within the IAEA between the Department of Safeguards which has drafted the respective paper and the Department of External Relations and Policy Coordination. Outgoing Director General ElBaradei might favor the stance of the latter. It is noteworthy that the leakage to ISIS (most probably via Olli Heinonen, the Director General’s Deputy for Safeguards) has just happened when ElBaradei had left Vienna for visiting the rulers in Tehran for scheduling a first IAEA inspection of the Qom site.

Qom

The suspected new nuclear site (Fig. 1) near Qom is located about 9 km southeast of Daryacheh-ye Howz-e Soltan, a pretty circular salt pan with an eight-km diameter; and 25 km northeast to the outskirts of Iran’s holy city of Qom. The site on the northeastern foothills of a small mountain ridge seems to be rather small. Satellite imagery from Google Earth (of March 2005) shows two buildings, probably tunnel entrances and some earth rubble, probably from tunnel excavations.

In the meantime, new satellite imagery by DigitalGlobe of September 2009 (Fig. 2) provides evidence for considerable construction activity. A comparison of the new site with that located between Kashan and Natanz, about 150 km southeast, shows the difference in sizes (Fig. 3). While much of it is in fact underground, the visible parts of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility (in fact easily visible from the nearby highway to Esfahan) are heavily fortified. It covers an area of about four square kilometers.

Fig. 1 Google Earth satellite imagery indicates (a) Iran; (b) Central Iran with the huge Daryacheh-ye Namak (the triangular white spot) and the smaller circular Daryacheh-ye Howz-e Soltan in the center of the image; (c) Daryacheh-ye Howz-e Soltan embedded in mountain ridges at the outskirts of Dasht-e Kavir, Iran’s Great Salt Desert; (d) the suspected new nuclear site (the bar corresponds to 10 km); (e) the site in 2005 (the bar corresponds to 100 m).

Fig. 2 Recent satellite imagery of the suspected new nuclear site near Qom.

 

Fig. 3 Differences in sizes of the suspected new nuclear site near Qom (a) and the uranium enrichment facility near Natanz (b). The bar corresponds to 1 km.

 

Well-prepared Iranians

That the Iranian delegation in Geneva in their long-awaited talks with World powers P5+1 would announce IAEA inspections of its second enrichment facility at Qom, which had been revealed only last week, within a couple of months had been expected. That Iran suggested further enrichment to 20% of already produced LEU, or low enriched uranium of about 4%, for fueling into its research reactor in Tehran for the production of medical isotopes in Russia had not. The chief negotiator Saeed Jalili discussed Iran’s diplomatic package of September 10 but was also offering so far completely considered impossible concessions regarding its highly disputed nuclear ambitions.

Middle-East expert Juan Cole claims that “Barack Obama pwned Bush-Cheney in one day, and got more concessions from Iran in 7 1/2 hours than the former administration got in 8 years of saber-rattling.” It’s not Obama. I suppose, it’s the well-prepared Iranian delegation which made it. It is an important step of confidence-building. There will be further talks later this month. We’ll see whether reason prevails or the regime’s hardliners are able to counteract.

Nuclear Qom

When did Iran commence work at the Qom site? The question might be of significance when considering new ‘crippling’ sanctions. Its answer seems to be complicated. In March 2007, Iran withdraw its voluntary adhesion to the so-called modified code 3.1 of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), implemented in 1992, which requires the member states (the Shah has signed the NPT in 1967, its majlis, or parliament, ratified it in 1974) to notify the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as soon as a possible nuclear facility is even designed, in retaliation of referring the nuclear issue to the UN Security Council which the country considered illegal. The old code 3.1 demanded notifications only 180 days before introducing nuclear materials into the facility. Mohammed Sahimi at TehranBureau speculates on the possibility that Iran may have commenced its work on the site in the early 1990s. According to Sahimi, Iran would be pretty innocent if work had begun before 1992, even if the country, for a short period of time, later had implemented, voluntarily, the modified code 3.1.

For my taste, there is a certain circular reasoning in his arguments. More realistically would be if the country had started work at Qom after its one-sided withdrawal from its obligations, i.e., after March 2007. Iran’s well-known nuclear facilities in Natanz, Esfahan, and Arak had massively been threatened by possible military actions that year by the Bush-Cheney administration and Israel. Comparative satellite imagery of GoogleEarth images of 2005 and more recent images of DigitalGlobe of 2009, which have been provided by the Institute of Science and International Security (ISIS), suggest rather fundamental changes of the possible site(s) in recent years.

That Iran has notified the IAEA about the site before Obama in Pittsburgh trumpeted that the site has been known to American intelligence ‘for years’ is another issue. We’ll see on Thursday when the Geneva talks of the P5+1 and Iran commence whose strategy will finally prevail.

Classified and Declassified

On the eve of this year’s visit to New York president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave Ann Curry of NBC a rare interview at his official residence in Tehran. While the interview itself has carelessly been prepared, completely ignoring the mere facts of the brutal crackdown of the opposition movement after Iran’s highly disputed election, one insisting (albeit amateurishly formulated) question was obviously not answered by the president: “Is there a condition under which Iran would weaponize (meaning, creating a nuclear weapon)?”

There is a high risk that the visibly nerved president’s reluctant response will only serve as just another piece of evidence that Iran still has a covert military nuclear program. That he considers nuclear weapons as belonging to the past will not be sufficient in certain western circles.

In November 2007, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran of US America’s 16 intelligence agencies had concluded that, “with high confidence, until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons.” And that, “with moderate confidence, Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons programs as of mid-2007, but we don’t know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.” (Emphasis added.)

Most of the 2007 NIE is classified. What has been released so far should be considered as a summary of intelligence findings. The declassified summary of the NIE has been heavily discredited and its release criticized since the estimate gives the impression that Iran, at least until mid-2007, has no covert military nuclear program (with moderate confidence). The estimate had been released when the former Bush-Cheney administration was just about to strike Iran’s nuclear sites. It effectively prevented any strike since.

What does moderate confidence actually mean? The authors of the NIE define:

“Moderate confidence generally means that the information is credibly sourced and plausible but not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence.”

Given that most of the NIE is still classified, referring to the declassified summary of the NIE and its main conclusion that Iran does not have, since 2003 and until mid-2007 and with moderate confidence, a military nuclear program, has been questioned by David Albright and Christina Walrond in a recent report of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). They criticize a 2008 German court (Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt) decision which dismissed all charges against a German-Iranian businessman, Mohsen Vanaki, who had allegedly “illegally brokered the transfer of dual-use equipment to Iran with applications in a nuclear weapons program” (high-speed cameras, radiation detectors, night vision goggles), which had recently been overturned by Germany’s Federal Court of Justice. The Bundesgerichtshof decided on March 26, 2009 that the Oberlandesgericht should not have dismissed the findings of Germany’s federal intelligence service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) which provided the court with additional evidence to the NIE. While the Oberlandesgericht had correctly recognized that the BND’s assessment did not contain proof of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, it failed to recognize that the NIE’s judgment about the program was also not proof.

Circular reasoning has it that no proof formulated twice might cast enough doubt on Iran. The mere fact that Germany’s federal court had ordered a retrial may be considered by interested parties almost as proof that Iran indeed has a covert military program. Albright and Walrond’s report has been published just when American intelligence agencies, in an update of the 2007 NIE, reported to the White House that Iran has not restarted its nuclear weapons development program.

Albright and Walrond’s concluding claim that

“[G]iven difficulties faced by courts and governments in interpreting the declassified NIE and its relevance to international initiatives being taken to address Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. government should declassify more of the 2007 NIE and any future one,”

sounds reasonable at first sight. But what they actually want to say is: there is more behind the curtain. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its outgoing Director General Mohamed ElBaradei have recently faced similar rumors, in both ways. While in particular Israel has blamed the IAEA to hide incriminating evidence about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program, others claim that the IAEA conceals exculpatory evidence that the so-called alleged studies were forged, an issue which has been mentioned in numerous IAEA reports on Iran in recent years.

One may in fact conclude that highly diverse interpretations of classified intelligence information and declassified parts of it eventually would only serve the dictator(s) in Tehran.

Something to Work With

Iran’s long-awaited diplomatic proposal (not really a package) to the P5+1 world powers, the US, the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, has disappointed many. The harshest reactions were coming from the US. American lawmakers may even want to use the five pages as further argument for new and ‘crippling’ sanctions.

The response may be premature. After a difficult situation following the disputed presidential election with unprecedented power struggles within the ruling establishment, which still seem not to be settled, the proposal may be considered a first and quite constructive contribution in preparation of new talks with Iran.

After all, it had to be expected that the issue of Iran enriching uranium (for merely peaceful purposes only, as Tehran continues to pretend) is not mentioned in the document. Rather, a fundamental reform of the UN, its Security Council and the IAEA is claimed. The latter might in fact be overdue. However painful, Tehran might be right when demanding, under para 2.6, “Promoting the universality of NPT (the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty Iran is a signatory of) mobilizing global resolve and putting into action real and fundamental programmes toward complete disarmament and preventing development and proliferation of nuclear, chemical and microbial weapons.” Desirably, international double standards as regards existing and/or presumed military nuclear programs (Tehran does not explicitly mention Israel in the document, a non-signatory of the NPT possessing a stockpile of possibly 300-400 nuclear weapons) have in fact to come to an end.

That Iran raises security issues first shows that the country takes threats of new sanctions, regime change and, first and foremost, possible attacks of its nuclear facilities serious. Irrespective of a perceived lack of legitimacy of the current cabinet under President Ahmadinejad, the country, as other sovereign states, just demands respect.

That Iran raises eventually economic issues shows its present vulnerability.