The Obama administration is concerned Iran is on the verge of being able to enrichuranium at a facility deep underground near the Muslim holy city of Qom, which may strengthen those advocating tougher action to stop Iran’s suspected atomic weapons program.
Iranian nuclear scientists at the Fordow facility appear to be within weeks of producing 20 percent enriched uranium, according to Iran analysts and nuclear specialists who are in close communication with US officials and atomic inspectors. Enriched uranium is used to fuel power plants and reactors, and may be further processed into atomic weapons material.
Administration officials speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue say Iran’s actions may bolster calls for military or covert action against the Persian Gulf country from Republican presidential candidates. It may also fuel pressure on the administration to impose measures approved by Congress to limit Iran’s oil exports.
“Senior advisers to US President Barack Obama privately express concern that Israel might see Iran’s commencement of the Fordow facility” as a justification for a military strike, said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington who has frequent discussions with the White House.
The US and Israel have said military action remains an option if needed to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb.
Sadjadpour said some White House officials are questioning whether Iran is trying to provoke an Israeli strike as a way to rally support and sympathy at home and abroad, and “repair internal political fractures, both among political elites and between society and the regime.”
On Sept. 19, the head of Iran’s nuclear energy program, Fereydoun Abbasi, said 20 percent uranium enrichment would start at the Fordow site within six months, and said the facility was built deep underground “to make the Americans and their allies work tougher to destroy” it.
Gholamreza Jalali, head of Iran’s civil defense organization, said Wednesday that Iran will move its uranium enrichment centers to locations that are safer from attack if necessary, according to the state-run Mehr news agency.
US officials say Iran is now close to starting up Fordow’s two cascades of 174 centrifuges each, fast-spinning machines that enrich uranium for use as a nuclear fuel by separating its isotopes. Uranium enriched at higher concentrations of 90 percent can be used for a bomb. Iran says it needs more 20 percent material for a medical reactor and has plans for more, a claim inspectors have challenged.
US officials say they are in close consultation with Israel, European allies and inspectors over sensitive activities at Fordow, which the US claims would breach Iran’s obligations under UN Security Council resolutions. Defense Minister Ehud Barak is in Washington for meetings with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and Congressional leaders.
Dennis Ross, who was until last month special assistant to Obama and National Security Council senior director for the region including Iran, said yesterday Israel has reason to be concerned about enrichment at Qom.
Iran’s accumulation of low-enriched uranium, its decision to enrich to nearly 20 percent “when there is no justification for it,” its hardening of sites, and other “activities related to possible weaponization” are factors that “affect the Israeli calculus and ours,” Ross, now a counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said in an e-mail. “Qom is important, but it is worth remembering that IAEA inspectors go there, and I would not isolate Qom and say this alone is the Israeli red-line” to spur a military response.
Last month, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency reported Iran moved a large cylinder of 5 percent enriched uranium from the Natanz fuel enrichment plant to the Fordow facility near Qom. Iranian nuclear engineers have installed centrifuges that need only to be connected to cooling and electric lines to become operational, the IAEA said.
Jerusalem Post
No comments:
Post a Comment