Iran Nuclear Capability Is Growing, Report Finds

WSJ

WASHINGTON—Iran will be capable of producing weapons-grade nuclear fuel in as quickly as two to four months, according to former United Nations inspectors and nuclear experts, because of the Islamic Republic's steady advances in its nuclear program.

The new assessments, released this week, are feeding into growing alarm in the U.S., Europe and Israel that efforts to deny Tehran a nuclear-weapons capability could be rendered futile by as early as next summer.

The reports follow statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the U.N. General Assembly last month that the international community needed to be prepared to strike Iran's nuclear sites by the summer.

The Israeli leader said Iran is expected to have acquired enough higher-enriched uranium by spring or summer to begin conversion to weapons grade. He said Iran then could construct its first nuclear bomb within several weeks or months.

Iran denies it is pursuing atomic weapons and says its nuclear work is solely for civilian purposes.

Washington's Institute for Science and International Security, an independent research institute, released a report this week that concluded Iran could produce enough highly enriched uranium for one atomic bomb, about 25 kilograms, in between two to four months using its largest uranium-enrichment facility near the city of Natanz.

The ISIS report offered a faster timeline than Mr. Netanyahu's because of Tehran's growing stockpile of higher enriched uranium and its expanding numbers of centrifuge machines.

The think tank said Tehran could combine its stockpile of both low-enriched and higher-enriched uranium to make a dash for weapons-grade fuel, which is around 90% purity. The Iranians could do that by synchronizing the enrichment of these two grades of uranium and cut out some intermediary steps that slow the process, ISIS said.

"Growth in the stock of near 20% [purity] reduces the time to break out," ISIS said in its report.

Iran currently has a stockpile 91.4 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20% purity, according to the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Another 25 kilograms of the material is committed for conversion into fuel rods for Tehran's research reactor.

ISIS said its faster estimates for Iran acquiring the highly enriched uranium would require Tehran to use its total stockpile of 20% enriched uranium.

The institute played down Mr. Netanyahu's assertion that Iran could quickly convert the weapons grade fuel into a usable atomic bomb.

"Iran would need many additional months to manufacture a nuclear device suitable for underground testing and even longer to make a reliable warhead for a ballistic missile," the report said.

A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington declined to comment.

The Obama administration has voiced its own concerns about the threat posed by Iran's production of higher-enriched uranium. But U.S. officials have stressed that the IAEA would detect any moves by Iran to reconfigure their centrifuge machines to begin producing weapons grade fuel. The state of Iran's nuclear program has become an issue in this year's U.S. presidential elections.

IAEA inspectors visit the site in Natanz, and an underground uranium-enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom, around twice a month. The agency also has cameras monitoring the sites.

Iran, however, has indicated in recent months that it may further limit its cooperation with the IAEA.

The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, charged the Vienna-based agency last month with trying to sabotage Iran's uranium-enrichment facilities by cutting off electricity supply. Iran also has accused the IAEA of being complicit in the murders of five Iranian nuclear scientists over the past five years and spying for Western countries.

The IAEA has denied these charges.

"If the IAEA has to end or limit these inspections, there could be a serious problem," said Olli Heinonen, a former chief weapons inspector at the agency, during a presentation Tuesday in Washington.

Write to Jay Solomon at [email protected]