Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’ve already seen “this assessment of Iran’s ability to bypass safeguards”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2213/bypassing-safeguards by Andreas Persbo of VERTIC:
At the present, I believe that the likelihood of an Iranian break-out is slim. The principal reason for this argument is that Iran’s installed capacity at the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz is still low, and that a break-out would entail significant political and security risks for the country. As long as Agency safeguards are in place at the Iranian sites, the international community is likely to get advance warning of any attempt to divert material or to use the existing facilities for nefarious purposes.
The problem is that not all of the nuclear fuel cycle is under safeguards. Processes downstream from the uranium conversion facility are generally covered. But uranium mining and milling as well as certain nuclear related activities (such as research centres or centrifuge assembly sites) are not monitored. Since this is the case, it is easy for a fairly technologically advanced state to construct a parallel nuclear fuel cycle, using indigenous uranium resources to fuel a clandestine weapons programme.
(Read “the whole thing”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2213/bypassing-safeguards.)
What you might not have seen, though, is the entire series of in-depth posts appearing lately at his home blog, “Verification, Implementation and Compliance”:http://verificationthoughts.blogspot.com/:
* “Progress at Natanz”:http://verificationthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/02/progress-at-natanz-reposted.html
* “The Iranian breakout scenario”:http://verificationthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/03/iranian-breakout-scenario.html
* And now, of course, “Bypassing safeguards”:http://verificationthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/03/bypassing-safeguards.html.
Now, some of this is not for the faint of heart. When I wrote about “safeguards at Natanz”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2018/safeguards-at-natanz last summer at ACW, for example, I consciously avoided using certain words like “hexapartite.” It’s not that the ACW readership can’t figure that one out; it’s just distracting if you have to. But if you like your nuclear wonkery undiluted and in-depth, then you had better be following VIC.
On August 31, 1998, North Korea conducted its first launch of a multi-stage ballistic missile, which flew over Japan. It failed to deliver a satellite into orbit, notwithstanding the boasts of state broadcasters.
On January 10, 2003, in the course of a dispute with the United States, North Korea declared that it was no longer bound by the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and kicked IAEA inspectors out of the country.
On July 5, 2006, North Korea’s second test of a long-range ballistic missile test ended in catastrophic failure, just seconds into flight.
On October 9, 2006, North Korea conducted its first (and so far only) test of a nuclear explosive device. (It fizzled.) Within days, the UN Security Council had outlawed all exports of nuclear or ballistic missile technology to North Korea.
Despite the technical hiccups, the government of North Korea (or DPRK) seems proud of its accomplishments in the field of strategic weaponry. One “statement from 2008”:http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2008/200804/news04/01.htm#1 reads:
The DPRK is not such state which will meekly yield to the pressure of someone to unilaterally dismantle the nuclear deterrent, a product of great Songun [i.e., military-first politics] and a shield for justice and peace.
Just recently, in January 2009, North Korean officials told a visiting American scholar that they had “weaponized”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/world/asia/18korea.html their stock of plutonium:
“They’ve raised the bar and said, ‘We are a nuclear weapons state, and deal with us on that basis,'” Mr. Harrison said at a news conference in the St. Regis Hotel.
So how it is, then, despite all these fearsome bombs and missiles, that North Korea has become “the Rodney Dangerfield of rogue states”:http://cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/151_gusterson.pdf?
Seriously, have you seen “the t-shirt”:http://store.theonion.com/get-il-p-139.html?
To see just how little respect the DPRK gets, consider how North Korea is treated compared to its fellow surviving member of the Axis of Evil, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
(Remember, despite the amply justified suspicions of the outside world, and a chain of deceptions, violations, failed negotiations, and Security Council resolutions, Iran remains within the NPT. The Iranian authorities insist on the purely civilian nature of their nuclear facilities, “point to continuing IAEA safeguards”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/opinion/l03iran.html, and say they are opposed to nuclear weapons.)
So when Iran launched its first multi-stage missile last month, putting a first-generation satellite into orbit, the American response was one of modulated concern.
And when North Korea announced that it was about to launch a satellite, the “Japanese”:http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20090303_7935.php and “American”:http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20090304_8706.php response was to threaten to shoot it down.
Let’s see how the _Washington Post_ “explained”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/03/AR2009020300285.html Iran’s space launch:
TEHRAN, Feb. 3 — Iran said Tuesday it had successfully sent its first domestically produced satellite into orbit using an Iranian-made long-distance missile, joining an exclusive club of fewer than a dozen nations with such capabilities.
–compared with how the same publication “framed”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/24/AR2009022400324.html North Korea’s plans to do the _exact same thing_:
TOKYO, Feb. 24 — By announcing that it is preparing to launch a “communications satellite,” North Korea on Tuesday dressed up its planned test of a long-range ballistic missile — which may be able to reach Alaska — as a benign research project.
Honest, it’s not just the “elevator shoes”:http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk02300&num=157 and the bouffant hairdo. The anticipation turns out to be a bigger deal than the reality. When it comes to staring down the Western imperialists, actually having the bomb ain’t everything it’s cracked up to be.
“Cross-posted to ArmsControlWonk.Com”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2210/how-much-respect-does-a-nuclear-arsenal-get. See “the comments at ACW”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2210/how-much-respect-does-a-nuclear-arsenal-get#comment.
If you’ve become hooked on “this”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2018/safeguards-at-natanz “Iran”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1871/iran-when-should-we-panic “breakout”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1887/inferring-iranian-centrifuge-production-rates “stuff”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1889/sound-bites-man, then don’t miss these recent additions:
* Andreas Persbo, “The Iranian breakout scenario”:http://verificationthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/03/iranian-breakout-scenario.html
* R. Scott Kemp and Alexander Glaser, “Statement on Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon and the significance of the 19 February 2009 IAEA report on Iran’s uranium enrichment program”:http://www.princeton.edu/~rskemp/can-iran-make-a-bomb.pdf
And, in a different vein,
* M.A. Mohammadi, “To the editor”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/opinion/l03iran.html
One of the shortcomings of breakout lit so far may be its emphasis on on a single site. A hidden site is also a possibility, conceivably involving technologies other than the IR-1. The plutonium pathway is also starting to loom as an issue of concern.
Viewing things more broadly, the more time passes, the more this question becomes one of political will, not technical capacity. This is a gradual change; there really is no bright line separating these two “regions.” And in a highly factionalized system, political will is not such a simple matter as it sounds.
An added thought. In the face of such complexity, there may be a temptation to fall back on a worst-case scenario. Without wanting to ignore such a scenario entirely, I’d urge caution before embracing it.
It is _very_ easy to get confused about this stuff. Nuclear technology, I mean. And it’s even easier to confuse others — _especially_ if you try to give a crisp answer to a misleadingly phrased question. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff “ADM Mike Mullen”:http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/biographydetail.aspx?biographyid=139 was the latest to stumble over a sharp-edged soundbite this Sunday, with a big assist from CNN’s John King:
King: The International Atomic Energy Agency said last week they think they were wrong in the past, that Iran might now have enough fissile material to make a bomb. Does Iran have enough to make a bomb?
Mullen: We think they do, quite frankly.
Here’s the “video”:http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2009/03/01/sotu.mullen.iran.weapons.cnn. The gaffe embarks at 2:19.
For anyone not deeply immersed in the issue, it would be natural to conclude that Mullen had affirmed exactly what King said. And that’s just what “news”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090302/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/mullen_iran “outlets”:http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/464683EAE58045FC6525756D002B584C?OpenDocument “around the world”:http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1235898316271&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull did. Most balanced Mullen’s alarmist-sounding claim with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s “more judicious remarks”:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29453246/ given that same day, but the damage was done. Some “people who should know better”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/washington/02military.html even chose to privilege Mullen’s statement over Gates’s, although the SecDef speaks more authoritatively than anyone in uniform.
The Pentagon public affairs office had its hands full “straightening this one out”:http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ishAxQzRl5C3ybc1Y3di0WAeft3g afterwards. As usual, the media was blamed, which is partly true, but probably not in the manner intended.
Long story short, King and Mullen gave renewed life to a “more-than-week-old error”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2193/iran-panic-induced-by-lousy-reporting.
Further responses have varied. Greg Thielmann of ACA was “irked”:http://www.armscontrol.org/node/3540. The good folks at ISIS tried to “square the circle”:http://www.isisnucleariran.org/news/detail/mullen-vs-gates-on-iran-this-sunday-did-they-really-contradict-each-other/.
This cautionary tale was the hook for “an NPR story that aired earlier tonight, March 2”:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101354866, quoting Jeff Lewis of NAF / ACW fame, Jackie Shire of ISIS, and Yours Truly of “TotalWonkerr.Com”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1871/iran-when-should-we-panic. Give it a listen if you’d like to hear what we all sound like, assuming you don’t already know.
A Modest Proposal
This is going to sound strange coming from a blogger, but how about slowing down a little? The community of nonproliferation experts may simply be moving too fast to interpret IAEA Director-General’s reports and other milestone documents. The “race to put documents online”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1868/isis-v-acw is dandy. The race to explain their implications, not so much. Reporters are hungry to comprehend this stuff, but it takes time to think it through and then to explain it carefully enough to avoid sparking a game of telephone in the headlines.
(If you are able to listen to the “NPR story”:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101354866, you may gather that I try. To choose. My words. With some care. But I’m new at this, too.)
Since this is all kinda heavy, just to take the edge off, how about a “musical bonus”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoWF2YalYvI?
_Warning: Mind-numbingly detailed and self-referential._
Someone requested a fuller explanation of one corner of “last week’s post on when Iran might achieve breakout capability”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1871/iran-when-should-we-panic, specifically the chart showing patterns of centrifuge installation at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plan (FEP) in Iran. So this is for anyone who didn’t quite grok the chart. It’s shown here with the original text that surrounded it:
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.
It’s like this. We’re assuming that the Iranians are still churning out new IR-1 centrifuges somewhere, working towards the 50,000 or so that are supposed to go in the Natanz FEP, eventually. We don’t know exactly how fast the machines can be produced, but breakout capability — the subject of the blog post — is sensitive to this question, so we need to come up with a reasonable range of possibilities. Just to be pessimistic, let’s assume that, in the future, they can installed and made operational more or less as soon as they are produced.
The approach explained here is really pretty simplistic, just one part of a “rough and ready” analysis of the larger issue of breakout capability. A more sophisticated analysis is probably possible for those interested in attempting it. Presently, at least, I’m not.
Anyhow, it went like so:
First was reconstructing from IAEA reports just how many cascades (linked groups of 164 centrifuges) were present in the Natanz FEP when the IAEA actually counted them. Those are the colored bars.
_(You can find all but the most current IAEA report on Iran at the “official site”:http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/IaeaIran/index.shtml. ACW may post first, but ISIS rolls up “everything in one spot”:http://www.isisnucleariran.org/documents/iaea/. [I could have saved myself a little time if I’d noticed that the Wisconsin Project had already compiled most of this info in a table and “posted it here”:http://www.iranwatch.org/ourpubs/articles/iranucleartimetable.html. Sigh.] As you can see, for simplicity’s sake, I collapsed a couple of categories of information into one.)_
Second was drawing a simple inference about the lowest possible rate of production for the period (February 2007 to February 2009) from the height and spacing of the bars. This is the solid black line. You will notice that introduction of centrifuges for the period actually peaks in May 2008. So I drew the line from February 2007 to May 2008. That’s the _minimum_ cumulative level of production that would explain the observed number of centrifuges present at the Natanz FEP — assuming, of course, that there wasn’t a big stockpile of centrifuges already sitting around somewhere. Probably there wasn’t, either. What little we know suggests that production wasn’t that rapid in the past. See the bottom of page 9/top of page 10 in “GOV/2004/60”:http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2004/gov2004-60.pdf.
In case the graphic has scrolled off your screen, here it is again.
!/images/66.jpg!
_You’ll notice that the line kinks at May 2007. If it had been drawn straight from the top of February 2007 to May 2008, it would have sliced through May 2007, which clearly would have violated the assumptions set out above: such a cumulative level of production would not have sufficed to explain the observed number of centrifuges present at the Natanz FEP. Thus the kink. In hindsight, I should have just made the line perfectly straight, so it would intercept the y-axis a bit above the February 2007 bar. Gimme a break, it’s a blog post._
Third was extending the line to the right, in dashed form. This illustrates another assumption: that the pace of production over the entire 25-month period has been roughly constant, _at a minimum_. This would mean that the reason new machines were not introduced to the FEP after May 2008, whatever it was, wasn’t because the machines were unavailable. This interpretation is supported by the gradual ramp-up in operations that you can see in the colors of the bars.
Fourth was eyeballing an annual rate of centrifuge production. I came up with 18 cascades’ worth, which happens to be how many there are in a “unit” (or module) of cascades inside the Natanz FEP. Peering at it again, it looks closer to 19 cascades’ worth, but 1) we’re trying to come up with a low-end estimate, so let’s round down and 2) 18 is more convenient because of its relationship to the structure of the FEP.
Either way, that’s around 3,000 machines/yr, or 250 machines/mo. Minimum. To come up with a reasonable guess at a maximum figure, I simply doubled the minimum. Thus, my working estimate was that Iran produces enough machines to stock one to two new units (or 18 to 36 cascades) per year.
Like it says, rough and ready.
Now, could that minimum figure actually be 3,000 machines/yr too high? Is it possible that the Iranians actually ran out of some key ingredient after May 2008? (Rotor juice? Ball grooves? Handles for the bellows?) Let’s not count on it. The latest report, “GOV/2009/8”:http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/IAEA_Report_Iran_Feb_2009.pdf, observes that
Installation work at Units A25, A27 and A28, including the installation of pipes and cables, is also continuing.
Hmm. Maybe that range should have been _one to three_ new units.
For your reference, here again is the link to “Jeff Lewis’s near-simultaneous post with a near-identical graphic”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2197/nine-cascades-in-vacuum. What’s fascinating is that we independently produced these illustrations to make two different points. Seriously, “what’s the chance”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1855/whats-the-chance-ctd?
Hopefully that clarifies things. Yes, it’s pretty long for a footnote to a blog entry.
You’ve suffered enough. Enjoy the “musical bonus”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKH_XpNZcqI.
Tehran, 25 February: Iran has confirmed its interest in the international uranium enrichment centre in Angarsk, but insists on retaining its own uranium enrichment programme, Vice-President Gholamreza Aqazadeh has told Russian journalists.
“We have given an affirmative reply long ago,” he said, answering a question about Iran’s interest in participating in this project. “On condition that this cooperation will not create obstacles for us in achieving our aims,” he added.
Aqazadeh recalled that Iran has its own enrichment plant. “But this is not an impediment (for taking part in the international enrichment centre),” he said. He added that Iran has a large nuclear energy development programme.
Aqazadeh positively evaluated the progress in implementing the construction project of the first Iranian nuclear power plant Bushehr. “Everything now looks very effective,” he said, commenting on the results of visiting the construction site.
Speaking about possible projects with Russia, he said that in this “everything depends on the Russian side”. “Iran may be a good market for Russian industry,” Aqazadeh added.
He said that Russia and Iran plans to set up a joint venture to use the Bushehr nuclear plant after its launch, and “this is a great step for our further cooperation”.
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.
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:
The rate at which Iran adds cascades.
The separative power of those cascades.
The desired enrichment level.
The amount of HEU needed per bomb.
The number of bombs that are worth breaking out for.
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.
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.
IAEA DG Mohamed ElBaradei made some public remarks. It’s a mixed picture.
Update: see “the actual report”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/file_download/158/Iran.pdf.
Highlights from “Reuters”:http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE51G5JL20090217:
“They haven’t really been adding centrifuges, which is a good thing,” ElBaradei said at a think-tank in Paris, adding: “Our assessment is that it’s a political decision.”
[snip]
“Natanz is supposed to have 50,000 centrifuges. Right now they have 5,000,” he said, adding that Iran had not added a “significant” number of centrifuges.
[snip]
“No, I’m not obviously happy with the degree of cooperation … They shut off any cooperation with the agency over the past few months,” said ElBaradei, who has for years called on Iran to do more to help his agency’s investigations.
“Iran right now is not providing any access or any clarification with regard to those studies or the whole possible military dimension,” he added.
ElBaradei played down fears of an imminent Iranian bomb.
“They will have probably in a year or so enough low enriched uranium which, if converted to highly enriched uranium, and if they have the know-how to weaponise it and to deliver it, then they can have one nuclear weapon,” he said.
But many other steps would have to be taken to produce a weapon, such as walking out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, expelling U.N. nuclear inspectors and mastering the technology to produce a nuclear explosion, he said.
“If I go by the intelligence community in the U.S., they are saying that they still have 2-5 years to be able to do that — to develop a weapon — which to me means that we have at least enough time for diplomacy,” he said.
Related: ElBaradei’s last term is winding down. The AP’s George Jahn “profiles”:http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jiRSE2djCKxpy0LYT6SaecqOfCyQD96E21DO0 the two leading candidates for IAEA Director-General.
We have all heard that negotiating with Iran about its enrichment program without first securing Iranian suspension of that program would be bad because Tehran could use those negotiations as cover to keep enriching. Since Iran is enriching now, this is not a cost to negotiating without a suspension. The above is also true because, absent such a suspension, the UNSC would maintain its sanctions on Tehran and could impose new ones.
Oh, and Josh blogs a lot, if you haven’t noticed. I doubled his salary.
