EU projection counters NIE: Iran could have nukes within a year
Thursday, February 28, 2008 Free Headline Alerts
LONDON — The European Union has conducted a simulation that found Iran could assemble a nuclear bomb within a year.
The European Commission Joint Research Center, based in Ispra, Italy, completed an exercise to determine Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities. The center, assuming an Iranian arsenal of at least 3,000 gas centrifuges, projected that Teheran could produce sufficient amount of enriched uranium for its first indigenous atomic bomb.
The simulation disputed the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, released by the American intelligence community in December 2007. The controversial NIE asserted that Iran would probably be "technically capable of producing enough HEU [highly enriched uranium] for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 timeframe."
The Joint Research Center's simulation was based on the assumption that Iran's centrifuges were fully operating. Under such a scenario, Iran would produce 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, sufficient for a nuclear warhead, by the end of 2008.
In another scenario, Iran's centrifuge fleet was assessed to have reached 25 percent operational capability. Under this model, Iran would produce sufficient HEU for a weapon by the end of 2010.
The center also conducted simulations of Iranian centrifuge cascades. Another scenario was that Iran would operate the improved IR-2 carbon-fiber centrifuge, said to be 2.5 times more effective than the Pakistan-origin P-1 aluminum centrifuge.
JRC director-general Roland Schenkel called on the EU to reevaluate its assessments of Iran's nuclear program. Schenkel told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston in mid-February that the International Atomic Energy Agency must bolster its capabilities to determine secret nuclear weapons programs.
"The IAEA needs a real weapons control program," Schenkel told the German weekly Der Spiegel. "As it stands now, the IAEA must focus solely on fissile material and on nuclear facilities. The goal should be checks in the service of non-proliferation. The checks need to have more bite."