Neither objective nor conclusive

There has been renewed tension over Iran's nuclear programme since the release last November of a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The report is seen as providing justification for the West to tighten its regime of sanctions against Iran to include oil imports and for Israel to continue its sabre-rattling. But what exactly did the report say and how credible is it? Praful Bidwai scrutinises its findings.

A NUMBER of countries, led by the United States and the European Union, have tightened sanctions against Iran following a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran's nuclear programme, published on 8 November. The report has been hailed in much of the Western media as a 'game-changer'which collects 'a trove of new evidence' and 'meticulously' analyses it. Media reports and analyses endorse the IAEA's conclusion that 'Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device', and that the project may still be continuing.

This, say Western commentators, raises the spectre of a nuclear-armed Iran under the control of radical Islamists, which will potentially further inflame the already volatile West Asia-North Africa region and can become a threat to global security. Iran, they hold, is only months away from becoming a nuclear weapons state.  A debate has ensued on how best this possibility can be countered: through greater diplomatic pressure, tougher sanctions, sabotage of Iran's nuclear activities (including assassinations of its scientists), or direct military action.

Supporters of Iran's nuclear programme, for their part, argue that the evidence in the report, even if it is true, is 'all based on some computerised simulations, not "practical activity"'. That is why the Agency has called the whole project 'studies'. Iran is merely carrying out peaceful nuclear activities relevant to its civilian power programme. It has never hidden anything from the IAEA. The Agency is being vindictive under the influence of its Director-General Yukiya Amano, who is acting at the behest of the US.

No credible evidence

However, a careful analysis of the report shows that while there is strong evidence that Iran carried out clandestine activities in the past to develop a nuclear weapons capability, which go far beyond uranium enrichment, there is no credible evidence that it is continuing with them, and that it is in substantive breach of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or its agreements with the IAEA. Nor has Iran come anywhere near amassing enough weapons-grade highly enriched uranium needed for a single atomic bomb.

The past 'evidence' came to light in 2004 after a laptop computer was spirited out of Iran to US intelligence agencies. Its provenance has been widely attributed to an Iranian dissident group called Mujahideen-e-Khalq - branded a terrorist organisation by the US State Department - and Israel's Mossad secret agency, and its authenticity has been questioned. At any rate, the material it contained pertained to the period 1998-2003. A US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluded in November 2007 that Iran stopped these activities in 2003. The allegation that Iran has since resumed them has not been established through independent and objective corroboration. It remains just an allegation.

More important, there is no evidence whatever that Iran ever crossed the legal 'red line' specified in the 'Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements' it signed with the IAEA - namely, diverting materials from a civilian to a military nuclear programme. Iran has placed the most important component of its nuclear programme, namely uranium enrichment at two facilities, besides a reactor it is building with Russian assistance at Bushehr, under IAEA inspections. It has substantially complied with the Agency's demands for detailed information.

Yet, there is little doubt that Iran tried in the past to develop capabilities, or at least explore the possibility of acquiring the ability, to turn enriched uranium into weapons. That it is continuing with such efforts is not credibly established by the IAEA report. However, it is well known that Iran already has the means to deliver bombs - such as ballistic missiles with a range of 2,200 kilometres, which can reach US bases in the Middle East as well as Israel. Iran may also be experimenting in a rudimentary manner with ways of adapting the missiles specifically to carry nuclear warheads of certain dimensions, although it is probably far from having accomplished this.

Even hawkishly anti-Iranian analysts, such as those with the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), believe that 'it is true and important that there are no indications that Iran has made a decision to actually construct a nuclear weapon'.

The latest IAEA report, like the previous one of last September and others, does not establish that Iran has made the decision to cross the nuclear weapons threshold, or that it is considering walking out of the NPT, like North Korea did. Even less does it suggest that diplomatic options have been, or are about to be, exhausted to dissuade Iran from an explicitly military nuclear programme.    

The 25-page report consists of an 11-page main body, and a 14-page Annex on 'Possible Military Dimensions to Iran's Nuclear Programme'. Most of the 'evidence' that has been cited in media reports highlighting the imminent danger of Iran crossing the threshold - or what Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak calls the 'zone of immunity' beyond which its capacity to acquire nuclear weapons would become irreversible and immune even to military attacks - comes from the Annex. And, as we see below, it is based on questionable, uncorroborated sources. The IAEA goes to great lengths to paint a lurid picture of Iran's nuclear activities in the Annex.

The main report confirms that the Iranian government has been basically compliant with its obligations under the NPT and its agreements with the IAEA. Iran has 'declared to the Agency 15 nuclear facilities and nine locations outside facilities where nuclear material is customarily used'. The IAEA has found no evidence that Iran has hidden any facilities from it. The report repeatedly states in respect of different facilities that 'all nuclear material' there remains 'under the Agency's containment and surveillance' and the Agency 'has concluded that the facility has operated as declared by Iran in the Design Information Questionnaire' sent to it.

As regards the two most important installations that can potentially produce fuel for nuclear bombs, the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) and the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PEP), both at Natanz, south of Tehran, the report lists their capacity and operational history - although this information is confidential, not public.

The Annex is based primarily on some 1,000 pages of information shared with the Agency by US intelligence in 2005, contained in the laptop computer mentioned above, on which the Agency relies despite its extremely dubious nature. This is supplemented with data from more than 10 member states, and what the IAEA says are its own investigations in Iran, Libya, Pakistan, and Russia. As is bound to be the case with classified intelligence, this is not fully documented or supported by references, names, dates, etc.

The report's Annex says: 'The information which serves as the basis for the Agency's analysis and concerns. is assessed by the Agency to be, overall, credible.' But we only have the Agency's word for this. The IAEA concludes that Iran in the past made 'efforts, some successful, to procure nuclear-related and dual-use equipment and materials by military related individuals and entities'; 'to develop undeclared pathways for the production of nuclear material', acquired 'nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network'; and worked 'on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components'.

These efforts were halted in 2003, but the IAEA says that some of them may have been resumed. 'While some of the activities identified in the Annex have civilian as well as military applications, others are specific to nuclear weapons. The information indicates that prior to the end of 2003 the above activities took place under a structured programme [called AMAD].. There are also indications that some activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device continued after 2003, and that some may still be ongoing.'

However, there is no independent corroboration of this. There are serious doubts about the authenticity and credibility of the 'evidence' cited in the Annex. For instance, the Annex makes much of Iran's experiments with 'exploding bridge-wire detonators' (EBWs) and says it recognises that 'there exist non-nuclear applications, albeit few', for these, thus pointing to a likely nuclear weapons connection. But Robert Kelley, a US nuclear engineer and former IAEA inspector, says: 'The Agency is wrong. There are lots of applications for EBWs.'  Analysts say the IAEA has failed to prove that the documents are not forgeries by hostile agencies, similar to the Italian forgeries of 2002 pertaining to Iraq's supposed nuclear links to Niger, which were used by the Bush administration to build up a case for invading Iraq. 

The IAEA has not established the veracity of the data cited in the Annex. Independent experts have questioned its conclusions. For instance, Kelley terms the IAEA's analysis  'amateurish' and says: 'It's very thin, I thought there would be a lot more there.. It's certainly old news; it's really quite stunning how little new information is in there.' Kelley was among the first to review the original laptop data in 2005.

Seymour Hersh, the independent investigative journalist, wrote an article in The New Yorker in June last quoting Mohamed ElBaradei, who served as IAEA Director-General for 12 years, as saying: 'During my time at the agency.we haven't seen a shred of evidence that Iran has been weaponising, in terms of building nuclear-weapons facilities and using enriched materials.' There is evidence that Iranian scientists have studied the issues involved in building and delivering a bomb, he added, 'but the American NIE reported that it stopped even those studies in 2003'.  ElBaradei said: 'I am not God - nobody is - and I don't know the future intentions of Iran, but I don't believe Iran is a clear and present danger. All I see is the hype about the threat posed by Iran.'

The NIE itself reached the following conclusion in 2007, which it would not have made public unless it was fully convinced of its assessment about the halt that Iran called to its nuclear weapons development activities:  'We judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years.. We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons programme as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons. .We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons programme suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005.'

The NIE adds: 'Iran made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges at Natanz, but we judge with moderate confidence it still faces significant technical problems operating them.  We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough HEU [highly enriched uranium] for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame. All agencies recognise the possibility that this capability may not be attained until after 2015.'

The IAEA report's Annex does not establish that Iran has resumed most, or the most critical, of the nuclear activities relevant to weapons development or that it is any closer to producing large enough quantities of weapons-grade uranium for a bomb. It is essentially based on uncorroborated information obtained from US intelligence agencies way back in 2005.

Problems with centrifuges

As for the far more cautious, careful and balanced main report of the IAEA, it says that Iran is working with three kinds of gas centrifuges. Iran has some 8,000 centrifuges, but has not even been able to feed more than 6,200 of them - presumably because of operational problems. Centrifuges are extremely fast-spinning machines, much like kitchen liquidisers, which rotate at ultra-high speeds such as 800 revolutions per second, and are meant to separate the fissile isotope of uranium (U-235) from the bulk of natural uranium which consists of U-238, to yield enriched uranium.

All these are in a gaseous form - uranium hexafluoride. Non-enriched or very slightly enriched gas is put through centrifuge cascades repeatedly to obtain progressively higher enrichment. This process is iterated over many cycles to yield the desired enrichment level. All this is more complex and delicate than may appear. The centrifuges operate at ultra-high speeds. Therefore, the tiniest material imbalance or wear and tear can lead to their breakdown. So can mild seismic tremors.

Most of Iran's centrifuges are configured to produce 3.5% enriched uranium, which is only fit for use in civilian power generation. (To be weapons-grade, uranium must be enriched to 90% of U-235.) Some of Iran's centrifuges also produce smaller quantities of uranium enriched to 19.75%, to feed the small Tehran Research Reactor (TRR). This is done by iterating the enrichment process by feeding centrifuge cascades with 3.5% enriched uranium. This 19.75% enriched  material is also considered Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) by the IAEA, as distinct from the HEU needed for a bomb.

Iran has primarily deployed centrifuges of the IR-1 type, believed to be based on a rather crude first-generation P-1 design developed by the AQ Khan Laboratories in Pakistan. It has also deployed a small number of somewhat more advanced IR-2m and IR-4 machines. However, it is known that the performance of the IR-1 centrifuges is not stable and reliable and has declined in recent months even according to ISIS estimates. Says an ISIS report: 'The P-1 centrifuge was derived from a Dutch design that also suffered excessive machine breakage. The new performance data suggests that Iran has not succeeded in overcoming these design problems.'

Further, 'Ten years after the start of construction at the Natanz enrichment site, the probability that Iran will build tens of thousands of IR-1 centrifuges seems remote based on their faulty performance. [B]ecause of sanctions, Iran is also facing a shortage of a key material, [a special type of steel known as maraging steel]. needed to make IR-1 bellows...  The number of IR-1 centrifuges installed at the FEP climbed steadily to a peak of almost 9,000 in November 2009 before falling in late 2009 or early 2010 [to less than 4,000] ostensibly due to the effects of the Stuxnet malware.' (This software is suspected to have been introduced by Israel.) 'By late 2010 or early 2011, about 6,000 IR-1 centrifuges were enriching, and this remains the current value.'

The IR-2m and IR-4 centrifuges are based on AQ Khan's P-2 design, which is less prone to breakdowns. But the original design is based on maraging steel, which is nearly impossible to procure. So Iran has tried to substitute the steel with high-strength carbon fibre. But, says an ISIS report, 'building a reliable carbon fibre bellows may pose technical challenges that increase the risk of centrifuge failure.' 

Further, says the ISIS, 'Iran has failed on numerous occasions to buy high quality carbon fibre abroad. Such purchases by Iran violate sanctions, and states have exerted considerable effort in detecting and thwarting Iranian efforts to obtain carbon fibre in recent years. [I]n late August 2011, Iran announced that it had begun to domestically produce its own carbon fibre. However, this carbon fibre is judged to be of relatively poor quality and not adequate for gas centrifuge rotors.'

Improbable assumptions

Iran has since 2007 enriched about 5,000 kg of uranium to 3.5%. It has also enriched a little less than 80 kg to 19.75% since production began in February 2010. This is enough to feed the TRR for some years. It is theoretically estimated that 1,290 kg of 3.5% LEU is needed for one Hiroshima-type bomb. So the first stockpile can produce fuel for almost four bombs - if it can be converted into HEU, and assuming that there is no wastage whatever.

There lies the rub. Usually, a lot more than (about double) the theoretically estimated 1,290 kg is needed for the first bomb because some wastage is inevitable. More important, Iran is highly unlikely to be able to put the LEU through the long iterations necessary to convert it to weapons-grade HEU without being caught in the act during one of the IAEA's surprise inspections. These have recently taken place roughly once every month.

There are two ways of converting LEU to HEU: either reconfigure the piping of the centrifuges extensively and use a multi-stage iterative process; or use 'batch recycling' where the LEU would be re-run through the existing cascade without any re-piping in a one-stage process. But the first possibility is fraught with extreme risk: the re-piping would almost certainly be detected. And the second method is untested. All existing nuclear states are believed to have used a multi-stage process, including Pakistan.

So those who warn that Iran is only some months away from producing enough fissile material for a bomb base themselves on a series of worst-case assumptions which seem improbable. Besides holding that Iran would somehow master the complex 'batch recycling' method, or successfully cheat IAEA inspectors, they underestimate the practical difficulty in ensuring that Iran would have produced enough HEU before it is caught.

They also believe that once Iran produces enough HEU, it can quickly convert it into a bomb. This too is not easy. Converting the hexafluoride gas into uranium metal, shaping the metal, and assembling it into an explosive device with a detonation mechanism could take at least six months. Nor is Iran likely to take the risk of producing just one bomb. A single weapon might turn out a dud, or not deliver the designed explosive yield. It would have to be tested. And at least one more bomb would be needed for a second-strike capability.

Besides, it seems unlikely that Iran would gamble and take all the risks that walking out of the NPT would entail, including inviting military strikes on its nuclear facilities and more - all for the sake of just one bomb. Making more than one weapon would demand more time, probably two years.

Not irrational

Iran may have Islamist zealots in its leadership, some of whom oppose any reconciliation with Israel. But it is not an irrational irredentist state which plays wild cards to the point of taking existential risks. It has recently played a highly responsible role in Iraq and Afghanistan when it could have easily stirred up trouble for the US through its influence with the Shias in the first case and the Northern Alliance in the second. Iran is not averse or unamenable to diplomacy.

However, Iran cannot be blamed for feeling it is being repeatedly and unfairly cornered. Even when it was willing to accept serious constraints on its nuclear programme, including a swap or trade-off between confining itself to uranium enrichment to 3.5% in return for having 20% enrichment done abroad for domestic use under IAEA supervision, the US put a spoke in the wheel of the deal being brokered by Turkey and Brazil in 2010. 

Raising false alarms about Iran's nuclear pursuits is not new. There have been claims since the 1990s that Iran was a few years away from a bomb. For instance, in 1992, the then Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said that Iran would have nuclear warheads by 1999. Similar predictions have been made more recently. They have never been substantiated.

Yet, Iran's nuclear activities raise many questions which have not been fully answered. Why is it producing more 20% enriched uranium than needed to feed the TRR? What was the motive behind the pre-2003 flirtation with dual-use technologies? Why is Iran building a new underground enrichment plant at Fordow near the holy city of Qom? Why did it suspend complying with the Additional Protocol, involving more intrusive IAEA inspections, after two-and-a-half years?

Some tentative answers have been offered: e.g. that Iran is building up 20% enriched uranium stockpiles because it may have plans for more research reactors in case the TRR is bombed or fuel supply is militarily interrupted. Fereydoun Abbasi, the head of Iran's nuclear programme, has also been quoted as saying that Iran intends to build four or five more research reactors.

Iran is aware of how Iraq's Osirak reactor was bombed by Israel in 1981 while still under construction, and has decided to protect its latest facility in a fortified, deeply buried bunker near Qom. As for the Additional Protocol, it is a voluntary commitment. Signatories Argentina and Brazil also do not permit full IAEA inspections under it.

How one views these arguments depends on one's assessment as to whether Iran is preparing for a 'breakout scenario' because it has decided to acquire nuclear weapons. But there is no firm evidence of this. Last year, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper confirmed in a Senate hearing that he has a 'high level of confidence' that Iran 'has not made a decision as of this point to restart its nuclear weapons programme'. Since then, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has said: 'Are they [Iranians] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that's what concerns us.'

As many Israeli analysts, including former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, argue, a military strike will not cripple Iran's nuclear programme; it will at best retard it and provoke a conflagration in the region, with unpredictable consequences for Israeli civilians' safety. Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund says US military strikes against hundreds of Iranian targets will at best buy one to three years of time. 'A less powerful Israeli attack could only damage, not destroy, Iran's facilities. Worse, after such a bombing, the Iranian population. would probably rally around the regime, ending any internal debates on whether to build a bomb. Iran would put its nuclear programme on fast-forward...'

Even sanctions have limited value. Since the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran in 2006, the number of centrifuges has increased eight times. Instead of one in 2006, Iran now has two enrichment facilities. Besides, the fact the US sanctions are not readily reversible increases Iran's scepticism about Washington's intentions. Offering Iran real incentives for cooperation with the West remains the greatest diplomatic challenge today.         

Praful Bidwai <prafulbidwai@gmail.com> is a New Delhi-based columnist, researcher, and activist in the environmental, human rights, peace and global justice movements. He is a Fellow of the Transnational Institute and holds a Chair in Social Development, Equity and Human Security at the Council for Social Development in New Delhi. His books include South Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament (co-written with Achin Vanaik)(Oxford University Press, 2001) and, most recently, The Politics of Climate Change and the Global Crisis: Mortgaging Our Future (Orient BlackSwan, India, and Transnational Institute, international edition, 2012).

*Third World Resurgence No. 257/258, January/February 2012, pp 18-22