The Looming Threat from Teheran

November 20, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Iran 

The IAEA is reporting that Iran has enough nuclear material for an atomic weapon:

Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in Wednesday’s report, has to date produced some 630 kilograms of low-enriched uranium suitable for nuclear fuel. That milestone is enough to produce a single nuclear weapon, about the size of the bomb dropped by the US on Nagasaki, Thomas B. Cochran, a senior scientist in the nuclear program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington group that monitors atomic arsenals, was quoted by the Times as saying.

and

Meanwhile, Ephraim Asculai, a former top official in the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, refuted the New York Times report, telling The Jerusalem Post Thursday that Iran will only have enough highly-enriched uranium (HEU) to produce its first nuclear weapon by the end of 2009.

According to the IAEA report, Iran was enriching uranium with just over 3,800 centrifuges it had installed in an underground facility in Natanz, and was working to install another 2,200 centrifuges in the near future.

Asculai said that Iran was working to integrate the P2 – a more advanced centrifuge it has developed based on blueprints received from Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Kahn – into the facility. The new centrifuge is capable of enriching uranium faster and at higher levels.

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