Monthly Archives: February 2009

Iran: When Should We Panic?

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If you are anything like me, you probably aren’t too thrilled by the idea of Iran with nuclear weapons. There’s something about the Middle East, revisionist ideology, sectarian divisions, and extreme rhetoric that does not mix well with fissile material. And overall, the NPT is, as Martha Stewart might say, a good thing. In terms of the “Sagan-Waltz debate”:http://books.google.com/books?id=FtznHAAACAAJ, mark me down as a Sagan guy.

(Not _that_ Sagan. “This Sagan”:http://cisac.stanford.edu/people/scottdsagan/.)

But then, being like me, you probably aren’t too thrilled by the idea of headlong, precipitous action, either. There’s something about the Middle East, revisionist ideology, sectarian divisions, and extreme rhetoric that does not mix well with desperate measures, either military or diplomatic. So our first inclination is to counsel patience, not panic.

!/images/65.jpg!

But let’s be fair: isn’t there some point when panic should kick in?

The subject arises by way of Jeff’s “jeremiad against the panic-mongers”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2193/iran-panic-induced-by-lousy-reporting the other day, which he “softened a little”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2196/a-correction afterwards.

A body could be forgiven for reading “FT’s lede”:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f367aada-fec8-11dd-b19a-000077b07658.html (or the “Guardian’s headline”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/19/iran-iaea-united-nations-nuclear-weapon) and concluding that Iran had 1 SQ (i.e., one bomb’s worth) of HEU on hand. I don’t mean to “pick on the Brits”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1834/caveat-linker too much: the “LA Times”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-nuclear20-2009feb20,0,3140113.story was just as bad, and the “NY Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/world/middleeast/20nuke.html wasn’t that much better.

Just One Letter Away From “Freakout”

“According to ISIS”:http://isis-online.org/publications/iran/IAEA_Report_Analysis.pdf, what the Iranians actually have achieved is “breakout capability,” meaning the ability to take a stockpile of LEU and rapidly enrich it to 1 SQ (or more) of HEU.

Not everyone agrees. Mohamed ElBaradei, for example, says Iran is “still about a year away from this point”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1860/iaea-iran-report-preview. The differences seem to have to do with just how much (or how little) HEU really constitutes a “significant quantity,” and how much U-235 would be lost during further enrichment. (Ivan Oelrich and Ivanka Barzashka have “a helpful explanation”:http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/02/irans-uranium-dont-panic-yet.php of the latter issue.)

Regardless, it is clear that this threshold will be crossed sooner or later. It does not matter whether every informed person agrees exactly which day or hour it occurred.

It is also clear that this threshold is primarily of a psychological or symbolic nature. It lacks practical significance, by itself. Nor does it translate unambiguously to a particular political outcome. (Would it frighten the neighbors into a more cooperative stance? Galvanize the world into concerted action? My guess is neither, but your guess is as good as mine.)

First, 1 SQ would be one heck of a thing to exit the NPT over. If the Iranians tested their first and only nuclear device to demonstrate that they had it, they would promptly stop having it. So 2 SQ would be the realistic threshold of concern, and even that seems a bit low. The North Korean precedent is instructive: they didn’t proclaim themselves to be nuclear-armed, or prove that point, until they had enough plutonium on hand for maybe half a dozen devices.

Second, breakout would not go unnoticed, for the reasons “spelled out here”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2018/safeguards-at-natanz. The IAEA inspects roughly once a month, not announcing the day in advance. To deliver a true _fait accompli,_ the Iranians would have to act within that window. (There are cameras in the cascade hall, but it’s not clear that they are monitored remotely.) This requires not just a big stockpile of LEU, but having enough SWU on hand, in the form of centrifuges, to get the job done. Perhaps this would be better described as “sneak-out.”

Third, just getting ahold of 1 SQ (or 2 SQ) of HEU is not the same as having a working weapon. Breakout is a risky undertaking, a way of gambling with the future of one’s country. It does not automatically produce an amulet against attack. In fact, it might invite an attack. But this doesn’t mean that it will never be attempted.

Update: Andreas Persbo provides “some insightful elaboration on these issues”:http://verificationthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/03/iranian-breakout-scenario.html.

OK. So When Should We Panic?

For the time being, let’s set aside Iran’s plutonium pathway, which is not progressing as rapidly as the uranium side.

There are two main uranium-enrichment scenarios to be concerned about. The first is called batch recycle: the Iranians break the seals and feed the LEU through the cascades at Natanz again until they’ve got the desired level of enrichment.

The second scenario, which is favored by ISIS, is diversion: the Iranians break the seals and cart off the LEU in trucks (presumably at night, unseen by spying eyes) to a second centrifuge plant, one not known to the IAEA. When the inspectors show up at Natanz, the Iranians would delay them until it was too late.

The scenarios differ at the margins. A centrifuge (of a given type) is a centrifuge, regardless of location. In the diversion case, we just aren’t aware of the second plant until it is too late. Also, it could be specially configured for more slightly more efficient LEU-to-HEU enrichment.

For simplicity (well, relatively), let’s consider just batch recycle with the IR-1, the centrifuge type that’s being installed and operated at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz. We know they’re there, right? Two newer types are being tested in small numbers at the adjacent Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, but it’s not clear that there is a large-scale production capability yet.

So here, drawn from various IAEA reports, is the pace at which the Iranians have added centrifuge cascades at FEP:

!/images/66.jpg!

What we can gather from this chart is a sense of the minimum rate of centrifuge production. No one can install more than they have. So the solid black line is a floor of about 18 cascades’ worth of machines per year, or one unit. (There are 164 machines in a cascade, so this means close to 3,000 machines/year.) The dashed extension of the line shows the implication of that floor: unless centrifuge production has (for some unknown reason) slowed considerably, a backlog of machines is building up, awaiting installation.

_Update: if the above chart and explanation elude you, “additional explanation”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1887/inferring-iranian-centrifuge-production-rates is now available._

[No, it does not annoy me that Jeff had “a similar idea”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2197/nine-cascades-in-vacuum at the same time. Well, not too much. What really annoys me is that his graphic is nicer-looking and more informative. Grr.]

Some Assembly Required

So, how many centrifuges would it take to deliver a _fait accompli?_

This is going to disappoint you. The answer isn’t so clear. It’s subject to a number of uncertainties. So here are several answers.

It seems there are already a few different views on this question:

* “Houston Wood, Scott Kemp, and Alexander Glaser”:http://scitation.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_61/iss_9/captions/40_1box3.shtml in _Physics Today._

* “Gregory Jones”:http://www.npec-web.org/Essays/20081017-Jones-IranEnrichment.pdf of RAND.

* The “Wisconsin Project”:http://www.iranwatch.org/ourpubs/articles/iranucleartimetable.html.

* “Oelrich and Barzashka”:http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/02/irans-uranium-dont-panic-yet.php at FAS.

* And, although it’s not fully explicit about its assumptions, the “Annual Threat Assessment of the IC”:http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20090212_testimony.pdf, which contains two such estimates:

We judge Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame. INR judges Iran is unlikely to achieve this capability before 2013 because of foreseeable technical and programmatic problems.

Clearly, six is not enough, so I’ve done my own rough-and-ready estimate, working with the “FAS SWU calculator”:http://www.fas.org/cgi-bin/calculators/sep.pl. It’s ever so handy.

What makes this so tricky is that there are six important variables:


  1. The rate at which Iran adds cascades.
  2. The separative power of those cascades.
  3. The desired enrichment level.
  4. The amount of HEU needed per bomb.
  5. The number of bombs that are worth breaking out for.
  6. The time window that is worth the risk.

To make this manageable, let’s just say 90% enriched HEU in three weeks’ time. That leaves us with amount of HEU per bomb, separative power, number of bombs, and rate of addition. We can bound these variables, though.

The usual range for HEU-per-bomb estimates is 15 to 20 kg. (The IAEA’s official SQ is 25, but that’s generally considered too high.)

Separative power estimates for the IR-1 range between 2 and 3 kg SWU/yr. “Jeff estimates 2.3”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1035/more-fun-with-swu.

Based on reasonable assumptions and the North Korean case, number-of-bombs should range between 2 and 6 or so, but since this is the Bomb we’re talking about, let’s be gloomy and think in terms of 1 to 3.

Then there’s rate-of-addition. Above, we came up with a floor of 18 cascades per year, so let’s say 18 to 36 cascades (1 to 2 units).

All of which gives us:

kg SWU/yr 3 3 2.3 2.3 2 2
Cascades/yr +36 +18 +36 +18 +36 +18
1 x 15 kg 2009 2009 2010 2010 2010 2010
1 x 20 kg 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2011
2 x 15 kg 2010 2011 2011 2012 2012 2012
2 x 20 kg 2011 2012 2011 2013 2012 2014
3 x 15 kg 2011 2012 2012 2014 2012 2015
3 x 20 kg 2012 2014 2013 2016 2013 2017

So there you have it: breakout, broken out. You’re free to ignore any portions of the table that you find unrealistic.

One final note. His graphic design skills may be sweet, but I do have one thing Jeff does not: the “musical bonus”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AlH2oYedfk.

If you got this far, you’ve earned it.

Actually, It’s Simple

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So “nobody can quite square”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1873/more-about-the-bosworth-appointment Stephen Bosworth’s full-time role as North Korea envoy with his full-time role as dean of the Fletcher School. Or puzzle out the difference between Sung Kim, the Special Envoy to the Six-Party Talks, and Stephen Bosworth, Special Representative to the Six-Party Talks.

But you know what? It’s so, so simple.

Sung Kim is Commissioner Gordon. Stephen Bosworth is Batman.

With KJI as the Riddler.

More About the Bosworth Appointment

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The Secretary of State “announced”:http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/02/119421.htm the appointment of “part-time North Korea envoy Stephen Bosworth”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1861/part-time-envoy on Friday.

Acting Deputy Department Spokesman Gordon Duguid had some “excellent adventures”:http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2009/02/119416.htm trying to explain what the job is.

Any other questions? Yes, please.

QUESTION: Secretary Clinton in Seoul announced that Steve Bosworth would be the new Special Representative to North Korea.

MR. DUGUID: Yes.

QUESTION: I’m wondering if you could explain a little bit the difference between Special Representative and Mr. Sung Kim’s position as Special Envoy to the Six-Party Talks.

MR. DUGUID: Okay. We did this a couple of weeks ago. A special envoy, in diplomatic parlance, has the authority to negotiate. A special representative, in this particular case, as well as in Ambassador Holbrooke’s case, is an authority who coordinates across the board for the United States. So Sung Kim will remain our Special Envoy and he will handle the day-to-day contact and discussions with our Six-Party colleagues. And Ambassador Bosworth will be the special representative coordinating the overall U.S. Government effort.

QUESTION: Will that be a full-time position or a part-time position?

MR. DUGUID: It will be a position that will take up a lot of his time. The question is leading to – will he be based in this building the entire time? Sorry. Of course, it’s a full-time position, but I mean, I don’t understand the question properly.

QUESTION: Okay. Yeah, he’s – it’s been reported that he’ll remain the dean of the Fletcher School?

MR. DUGUID: That is correct, he will.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. DUGUID: Yes.

QUESTION: So it’s more like a part-time position?

MR. DUGUID: I won’t – I wouldn’t characterize it that way. He will be fully engaged in the – in the effort to try and denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. That is work enough for anyone, but he will also retain his current position.

QUESTION: So he will be based in this building?

MR. DUGUID: He will have an office here.

QUESTION: So it’s almost as if he were the U.S. ambassador to North Korea if U.S. had relation with North Korea?

MR. DUGUID: No, that’s not correct. The – Ambassador Bosworth will be our senior official handling North Korea issues and reporting to the Secretary of State as well as the President. The Secretary has asked Ambassador Bosworth to oversee U.S. efforts in the Six-Party Talks to achieve verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner. He will serve as our senior emissary for U.S. engagement with North Korea in close consultation with allies and partners. With regard to the Six-Party Talks, his involvement will facilitate high-level engagement with the North Koreans and other members of the Six-Party Talks. He will work closely with Sung Kim on this.

QUESTION: Will he travel to Pyongyang?

MR. DUGUID: I don’t have any plans – travel plans for him at the moment.

QUESTION: You seem to be suggesting that Bosworth will have a role and a dialogue with the North Koreans outside of the Six-Party.

MR. DUGUID: I am not. He is our senior–excuse me–Special Representative for the Six-Party Talks.

QUESTION: But he is going to be above the Special Envoy for the Six-Party Talks? Or who is going to decide? Who’s going to be the boss relative to —

MR. DUGUID: Secretary Clinton is the boss.

QUESTION: And so the two of them are equal?

MR. DUGUID: The two of them are working on the Six-Party Talks. Sung Kim does the day-to-day negotiating, and Ambassador Bosworth will work across the process in – for the U.S. Government. Therefore, Sung Kim is doing the State Department part on a day-to-day basis, and Ambassador Bosworth will work across the process coordinating all the U.S. Government efforts. They will work in close consultation.

QUESTION: How is Ambassador Bosworth’s job not a part-time job if he’s maintaining his other position? I mean, can you defend that in any way?

MR. DUGUID: I refer you to – well, I refer you to his – you know, Ambassador Bosworth himself on what he will be doing with his current position. He will not be leaving. But the work that he will do will fully engage his talents as we need them.

QUESTION: Right, but I mean, he’s not going to – if it’s not his only job, how is that not a diminished role than it was under the Bush Administration?

MR. DUGUID: The role that the Ambassador will play will be significant. He will lead our efforts and it will be – not be any diminution of the responsibilities that previous special representatives have had.

QUESTION: Not in terms of responsibilities, but in terms of effort.

MR. DUGUID: I think that he will engage 100 percent of his effort when the Secretary calls upon him to engage in these matters.

Yes. In the back, please.

QUESTION: Just wanted to clarify. Is Ambassador Bosworth – is he going to be attending head of delegation meetings when they have Six-Party meetings, or will that Sung Kim who will attend those meetings?

MR. DUGUID: I don’t think we’ve got that down for you yet. We’ll make the announcement of our delegation when we have those meetings, and it will be based on the conditions at the time.

You can “watch the video”:http://www.state.gov/video/?videoid=13775861001, too. The fun and games start at 1:54.

Backchannel Iran Diplomacy

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I’ve long thought that Iran may try use its influence over Iraq to extract concessions on its nuclear program. But a “BBC report”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7901101.stm has UN ambassador Sir John Sawers saying that Iran tried to do exactly that before restarting uranium conversion:

“There were various Iranians who would come to London and suggest we had tea in some hotel or other. They’d do the same in Paris, they’d do the same in Berlin, and then we’d compare notes among the three of us,” he told the BBC.

“The Iranians wanted to be able to strike a deal whereby they stopped killing our forces in Iraq in return for them being allowed to carry on with their nuclear programme: *’We stop killing you in Iraq, stop undermining the political process there, you allow us to carry on with our nuclear programme without let or hindrance.’*

Also interesting is this admission from Nicholas Burns:

bq. “We had advocated regime change,” said Mr Burns. “We had a very threatening posture towards Iran for a number of years. It didn’t produce any movement whatsoever.”

The admission is obviously what is of interest, not the information.

ISIS v. ACW

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A friendly back-and-forth can be found in the comments section of “this post.”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2192/iran-and-syria-reports

After ISIS contended that they had posted the reports first, Jeffrey responded as follows:

Your email to my inbox is time-stamped 10:44 am.

The time stamp on my post is 10:28.

The impressive feat, of course, is that you have actually read the report, which I cannot claim even at 4:20 pm.

IAEA Iran and Syria Reports

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“ISIS”:http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/IAEA_Report_Iran_Feb_2009.pdf and the “Wonk”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2192/iran-and-syria-reports have the latest IAEA reports about Iran and Syria. ISIS also has some “analysis”:http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/IAEA_Report_Analysis.pdf of the Iran report.

Just A Little Bit More Information

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So what’s the status of the fresh fuel stored at Yongbyon, and the “process lines”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1865/more-than-you-wanted-to-know-about-magnox to make more? For that, we have SIGINT.

From “Dr. Sigfried (Sig) Hecker’s account of a February 2008 visit”:http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2008_rpt/dprk.pdf:

They have in storage less than a quarter of a reactor load of clad fuel rods. They also have in storage a full load of bare uranium fuel rods (our best estimate is 12,000) for the 50 MWe reactor. It appears that these can be used for the 5 MWe reactor, but may require some machining, and would have to be clad with magnesium alloy cladding. These operations would require the reconstitution of parts of the fuel fabrication facility, including the machine shop. Such actions would most likely take close to 1 year.

[snip]

Fuel Fabrication Facility. The front end of fuel fabrication (Building 1) had been operating making uranium dioxide (UO2) from uranium ore concentrate right up to the time the facility was shut down on July 15, 2007. The back end was operational with seven conversion furnaces, two casting furnaces, and eight machining lathes. However, the middle part, the fluorination facility, had deteriorated so badly during the freeze (1994 to 2003) that the building has been abandoned (as we were shown in August 2007). However, the DPRK had recently completed alternate fluorination equipment (using dry rather than wet techniques) in one of the ancillary buildings. However, this was a makeshift operation that has limited throughput potential. It was not put into full operation by the time of the shutdown on July 15.

The disablement steps taken at the fuel fabrication facility focused on those buildings and equipment that were in reasonable working order. The removal of the three uranium dissolver tanks and the disassembly of the seven conversion furnaces (with thousands of refractory bricks) are serious disablement steps. The removal of the casting furnaces and the machining lathes also constitute significant steps. The DPRK has not been willing to take steps to render the fresh fuel in storage not usable for a reactor restart. These fuel rods could be bent, making it necessary to recast and remanufacture the rods to precise tolerances. Or, since the uranium metal content is substantial (close to 100 metric tons of natural uranium metal), the fresh fuel rods could be sold to one of the five parties, which could use the uranium as feed material for light-water reactor fuel. DPRK officials say that they await additional corresponding measures by the United States before they are willing to take actions on the fresh fuel rods. If the fresh fuel rods are bent, the DPRK would have to recast and remachine, which would add several months to a restart time. If the fresh fuel were sold, then the DPRK would have to restart the entire fuel fabrication facility and produce new uranium metal, which would add approximately a year to a restart time.

There are some “pictures”:http://iis-db.stanford.edu/evnts/5220/gallery/, too.

It’s been reported that “Hecker and colleagues may visit Yongbyon again soon”:http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20090209_4835.php.

Oh yeah. I almost forgot about the “musical bonus”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmwlzwGMMwc. Silly me.

More Than You Wanted To Know About Magnox

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Paul “raises a really important point”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1863/north-korea-heuwhat-about-the-uf6 about North Korea’s uranium conversion capabilities. It’s a timely subject, too.

The fuel fabrication complex at Yongbyon is reported to involve a series of process lines for uranium conversion. Uranium ore concentrate (i.e., yellowcake) is converted to UO3, which is converted to UO2, which is converted to green salt (UF4), which is then converted to metal to produce Magnox fuel rods. (“Have a look”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2179/nork-fuel-rod.)

The metallic fuel is natural (unenriched) uranium, which is cast into cylindrical shapes, machined smooth, and placed inside “cans” made of a magnesium alloy. “Here’s how the last conversion step is done in the UK”:http://www.westinghousenuclear.com/Products_&_Services/docs/flysheets/NF-FE-0010.pdf:

Uranium tetrafluoride (UF4) is converted to uranium metal for Magnox fuel by mixing it with magnesium metal. When heated in a furnace to 600oC, the UF4 and magnesium react together. Uranium melts and flows into a catchpot at the bottom of the furnace and a layer of fluoride slag forms on the top. After cooling, the billet of uranium is separated from the slag, remelted, and cast into rods.

And that’s why Yongbyon doesn’t have a UF6 process line (that anyone knows about). Now you know.

Now, as far as anyone knows, the only place this process has taken place in recent years, besides Yongbyon, is the “Springfields”:http://www.westinghousenuclear.com/Businesses/nuclear_fuel/springfields_site.shtm facility in Preston, Lancashire, England.

This is a timely subject because the IAEA’s latest report on Syria, “GOV/2009/6”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/file_download/159/Syria.pdf, mainly concerns the uranium traces found at the suspect site in the wadi at al-Kibar (AKA Dair Alzour), which appears for all the world to have been a Yongbyon-style Magnox reactor. It says that

analysis of the environmental samples taken from the Dair Alzour site revealed a significant number of anthropogenic natural uranium particles (i.e. produced as a result of chemical processing)…

Now, perhaps these particles weren’t traces of Magnox fuel or one of the related compounds mentioned above. But if they were from Magnox fuel, there are only three possible sources I can think of:

Now consider the following excerpt from the IAEA’s Syria report of November 2008, “GOV/2008/60”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/file_download/142/gov2008-60.pdf:

14. Satellite imagery and other information available to the Agency concerning installations at the three other locations in Syria referred to above suggest that those locations may be of relevance to the activities at the Dair Alzour site. As indicated above, the Agency requested access to the three locations on 2 May 2008. Analysis of satellite imagery taken of these locations indicates that landscaping activities and the removal of large containers took place shortly after the Agency’s request for access. While these activities may be unrelated to the Dair Alzour site, it would be helpful if Syria were to provide an explanation for these activities and to permit the Agency to visit the three locations.

Unfortunately, these three locations are mentioned only glancingly in GOV/2009/6. It doesn’t sound as if access has been granted, or will be anytime soon. And as for those “large containers,” what was in them and where they went is anybody’s guess.

Congratulations. You made it to the “musical bonus”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K18p1tDHtxI&feature=related.

DNI Blair on Iran

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Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified before the SSCI on 12 February about, among other topics, Iran’s nuclear program. He stated that, in essence, the 2007 NIE is still operative:

bq. The assessment that was in our 2007 National Intelligence Estimate about Iran’s nuclear weapons programs are _generally_ still valid today. Tehran, at a minimum, is keeping open the option to develop deliverable nuclear weapons. The halt in the recent past in _some aspects_ of the program was primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure. [Emphasis added].

I’m not sure what, if anything, the italicized portions mean, but I thought it’d be useful to highlight them.

More interesting, however, is a statement that Blair made later during the hearing. To me, it may be in tension with the language cited above.

Blair said

bq. Iran is clearly developing all the components of a deliverable nuclear weapons program — fissionable material, nuclear _weaponizing capability_ and the means to deliver it. Whether they take it all the way to nuclear weapons and become a nuclear power I think will depend on — it will depend a great deal on their own internal decisions. [Emphasis added].

Since the “2007 NIE”:http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf stated that “Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” the definition of which included “nuclear weapon design and weaponization work,” one can’t be blamed for wondering what Blair was talking about.