Laura Rozen has an “article”:http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/laura_rozen/2007/05/the_hardliners_lose_a_round.html in the _Guardian_ about the demise of ISOG. It includes a good discussion about N Burns’ motivation for getting rid of it.

Part of it was because Burns thought ISOG

bq. *was leading to confusion – and turf battles – over the thrust of US policy toward Iran.* While many factions inside and outside the US government favour regime change in Iran, Condoleezza Rice recently said that the US is instead forging an international coalition to pressure Iran to change its roguish behaviour. “We’re very clear. The policy of the US government is behaviour change. We’re on the record, a million times,” said one US official involved with Iran policy says of the demise of ISOG.

Moreover, ISOG became irrelevant once regime change was off the table:

bq. Another Iran hand in the US government says *Burns’ problem with ISOG was more pragmatic: he thought ISOG was having too many meetings and wasn’t doing anything.* “ISOG started with a more robust expanse and aim…. but it had become somewhat irrelevant,” says a congressional staffer knowledgeable about US policy toward Iran. “*Once regime change was taken off the table, the raison d’etre of ISOG was somewhat removed. People were meeting for the sake of meeting, and it lost its salience.*”

Given that ISOG was “pretty damn busy”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1446/end-of-hot-isog-action a few months ago, it seems reasonable to infer that its mission was indeed about regime change.

Laura also notes that

bq. one US official suggested that the Senate Foreign Relations committee may want to ask some new questions – such as whether any entities have been created to succeed ISOG.

Good idea.

Sorry to disappoint…

The “_Boston Globe_”:http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/05/26/us_unit_created_to_pressure_iran_syria_disbanded/ had a good article over the weekend about the end of ISOG. Nicholas Burns told Sen. Casey’s office that “the group was disbanded in March 2007 in ‘favor of a more standard process’ of coordinating between the White House, the State Department, Defense Department, and intelligence agencies.”

A “senior State Department official” gave the _Globe_ a slightly different version, saying that

bq. the group was shut down because of a widespread public perception that it was designed to enact regime change. State Department officials have said that the focus of the group, known as ISOG, was persuading the two regimes to change their behavior, not toppling them.

I suspect that this maneuver might have been Burns’ way of shutting down a process that was meant to undermine diplomacy with Iran. Laura Rozen “wrote”:http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0118nj1.htm in January that the ISOG was pretty busy:

bq. U.S. officials say that multiple *inter-agency meetings on Iran are going on every day under the auspices of the Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group, and that the pace of activity has quickened.* “There are so many meetings; we’re doing stuff, writing papers; actions are being taken,” said one person involved with the group. “It’s very intense.”

On top of that, it looked like the OVP was going to be running the ISOG show:

bq. Denehy has recently told some associates that he plans to move sometime early this year to the Office of the Vice President, where he would continue to coordinate the Iran-Syria group

Just a thought.

[Via “Laura Rozen.”:http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006173.html ]

Previous hot ISOG action “here”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1338/more-hot-isog-action and “here.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1317/isog-in-action

For those who need more…

In “this post,”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1443/more-thoughts-on-iaea-iran-report I talked about the quality of Iran’s UF6 and excerpted an item from “this”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_04/iranmurky.asp _ACT_ article:

Iran has had difficulty producing uranium hexafluoride of sufficient purity, but its conversion capabilities appear to be improving, said both the Vienna diplomat and the State Department official. Uranium hexafluoride with high levels of contaminants can corrode centrifuges when used as feedstock.

The United States assesses that Iran’s uranium hexafluoride is now of high enough quality that it will not damage the centrifuge, the State Department source said

Anyway, while doing research for my forthcoming _ACT_ masterpiece, I found something “more recent”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_07-08/IAEAIran.asp that I wrote about the subject:

bq. Asked about the purity of Iran’s uranium hexafluoride, sources close to the IAEA told _Arms Control Today_ June 7 [2006] that, *based on the large amount of feedstock Iran has produced, the agency assumes that the material is “of reasonable quality.”*

As I “said”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1443/more-thoughts-on-iaea-iran-report, “There are legitimate questions about the quality of Iran’s UF6, but I wouldn’t be too sanguine that all of it sucks.”

A few more things about that report. Previous deep thoughts “here.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1442/thoughts-on-iaea-iran-report

p=. *More on Centrifuges*

First, CFR’s Gary Samore allowed me to use some information (which originated from an email exchange with some other folks) that might shed more light on an issue I mentioned “before.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1442/thoughts-on-iaea-iran-report

I wrote:

bq. The fact that Iran is feeding this much UF6 into the centrifuges seems to suggest that it has overcome other past technical difficulties. A source told me in April that, at the time, Iran was
“being ‘cautious’ by introducing small amounts” of UF6 into the centrifuges so they wouldn’t crash. [Last sentence paraphrased.]

Maybe not so much. According to Gary,

bq. My sources tell me that the machines are *NOT* operating at full capacity (i.e. they are spinning at lower than optimal speeds to avoid crashing). [ _Emphasis his._ ]

p=. *Iranian UF6*

According to the report, “Iran presented 269 tonnes of UF6 for
Agency verification” when IAEA inspectors conducted the annual PIV at Iran’s conversion facility.

That number is consistent with past Iranian statements. For example, AEOI head Gholamreza Aghazadeh “said”:http://www.iribnews.ir/Full_en.asp?news_id=234729 early last month that Iran has produced 270 tonnes of UF6 “over the past one year.” More recently, his deputy, Mohammad Saeedi, claimed that Iran has 280 tonnes of UF6.

There are legitimate questions about the quality of Iran’s UF6, but I wouldn’t be too sanguine that all of it sucks. For example, “I wrote more than a year ago”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_04/iranmurky.asp that Iran’s ability to produce UF6 “appear[s] to be improving,” according to a “Vienna diplomat” and a “State Department official.”

Specifically,

The United States assesses that Iran’s uranium hexafluoride is now of high enough quality that it will not damage the centrifuge[s], the State Department source said.

Anyone who knows anything else is free to tell me.

p=. *Wanted: Transparency*

One of the most striking things about the report is its emphasis on what the IAEA _doesn’t_ know about Iran’s program because of Tehran’s lack of transparency. Not only has Iran refused to cooperate (for the most part) with the IAEA’s requests for information about Iran’s nuclear program(s), but Iran still won’t implement the additional protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement.

The UN Security Council, BTW, has required Tehran to cooperate with the investigation and ratify its additional protocol.

Anyway, this lack of cooperation is clearly impairing the IAEA’s investigation. According to the report:

bq. because the Agency has not been receiving for over a year information that Iran used to provide, including under the Additional Protocol, *the Agency’s level of knowledge of certain aspects of Iran’s nuclear related activities has deteriorated.*

That information includes

bq. information relevant to the assembly of centrifuges, the manufacture of centrifuge components or associated equipment and research and development of centrifuges or enrichment techniques.

Personally, I have thought for a while that getting Iran to suspend its program is increasingly less important than getting it to ratify the additional protocol. Obviously, Iran should do both.

There are a few new things. But if you wish to read no further, read this summary paragraph:

bq. Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities. Iran has continued with the operation of PFEP [Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant]. It has also continued with the construction of FEP [Fuel Enrichment Plant] and has started feeding cascades with UF6. Iran has also continued with its heavy water related projects. Construction of the IR-40 reactor and the operation of the Heavy Water Production Plant are continuing.

Here are some preliminary thoughts. I may change some of them.

p=. *Enrichment Progress*

According to the report, Iran has been operating 8 164-Centrifuge cascades (1,312 centrifuges, by my math.) That’s “the same number”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2007_05/IranNuclear.asp that the Iranians reported to the IAEA, according to an 18 April letter from IAEA Deputy Director-General Olli Heinonen. The report also says that Iran has “two other similar cascades” that have been vacuum tested. Three more are “under construction.”

Incidentally, I wonder if Iran’s AEOI Deputy Secretary Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli was referring to the 2 vacuum-tested cascades “when he recently said”:http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=488271 that Iran “currently has 1,600 active centrifuges.” The inclusion of those cascades would give Iran a total of 1,640 centrifuges.

Bottom line: the number installed hasn’t changed in the last few weeks.

Where Iran seems to have made the most progress is in actually enriching uranium in its cascades. The report says that Iran

bq. has fed approximately *260 kg of UF6* into the cascades at FEP. Iran has declared that it has reached enrichment levels up to *4.8% U-235* at FEP, which the Agency is in the process of verifying.

That enrichment level isn’t new – the IAEA has reported that before. And note that the report doesn’t say how much enriched uranium Iran has produced.

However, the feeding of that much UF6 does appear to represent some progress. In the “last issue of ACT,”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2007_05/IranNuclear.asp I reported that

bq. Iran is feeding an unspecified amount of uranium hexafluoride into the cascades… [But] Tehran is not actually enriching uranium, a knowledgeable source told _Arms Control Today_ April 18. Instead, Iran is injecting small amounts of feedstock into the centrifuges to ready them for operation. This process produces trace amount of uranium enriched to very low levels.

So it seems that Iran fed 260 kg of UF6 into the centrifuges between April 18 and around now (inspectors visited the FEP on 13 May.) By contrast, Iran fed a total of 106 kg into the PFEP between Jun 2006 and this past February. (Yes, I know it’s not quite apples-apples, but still…)

[ *Update:* To give some context, it takes “roughly 5 tonnes of uranium hexafluoride… to make enough HEU for a nuclear weapon,” “according to ISIS.”:http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iran/clockticking.pdf ]

The fact that Iran is feeding this much UF6 into the centrifuges seems to suggest that it has overcome other past technical difficulties. A source “told me”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2007_05/IranNuclear.asp in April that, at the time, Iran was

bq. being “cautious” by introducing small amounts of feedstock. Previously, the centrifuges would spin properly but would break when uranium hexafluoride was introduced into them, the diplomat explained.

If Iran has linked all of the cascades together, that would represent even more progress. The report says that the cascades are “operating simultaneously.” I don’t _think_ that means that they’re linked together, but I wouldn’t swear to it.

More later…

*Update:*

Sean-Paul Kelley was nice enough to quote me “here.”:http://agonist.org/sean_paul_kelley/20070523/the_report_is_in When I talked to him, I hadn’t thought as much about the amount of UF6 that Iran was feeding into its centrifuges. But I think he captured my thoughts pretty well.

“According to FNA,”:http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8603010625 the Mousavian investigation is still “open” and centers around his ill-advised dealings with a foreign embassy.

Mohseni Ezhehyee, Iran’s Intelligence Minister, said in a briefing session at the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission that the case is

bq. security oriented and pertains to the leakage of information to foreign countries, specially to the embassy of a foreign country in Tehran…

According to an unnamed “source,” the accusations against Mousavian

bq. “are not related to today or yesterday but have to do with (actions) many years ago” adding that the investigation had so far only focused on security issues.

Previous Mousavian posts “here”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1429/mousavian-freed and “here.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1426/more-mousavian-details

In other news, the IAEA report has already “leaked.”:http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL161201720070523

Awaiting the full text…

*Update:*

“Here it is.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1441/iaea-report