John Burroughs

This afternoon a British/French draft of a resolution on Iran was made informally available outside the Security Council chambers.

The draft states that the Council is “acting under Chapter VII” of the UN Charter. This means that it is based upon a finding of a threat to international peace and security, is legally binding and could be the basis for later imposition of sanctions or authorization of force. When asked about the draft outside the chambers, China’s representative, Amb. Wang, said that China will not accept a Chapter VII resolution. Russia’s position has been similar. Some elected members of the Council might also prefer a non-Chapter VII resolution but the “E10″ (the ten elected members of the Council) so far have not attempted to press their views, leaving dealing with Iran up to the “P5″ (the permanent five members).

It is somewhat unusual for a draft to be released before the P5 have reached agreement, indicating that Britain, France and the United States may be seeking to increase the pressure prior to a possible meeting involving foreign ministers in New York next week.

Some quick reactions to the draft: As I told some elected members of the Council in a meeting organized by Greenpeace International yesterday (see “Options for the Security Council”), there is no basis for a finding of a threat to international peace and security. Further, it is hard to see how a hard-line resolution confronting Iran is going to lead to a productive outcome. The draft requires Iran to suspend all enrichment-related activities. Also, going beyond the presidential statement and the February IAEA board resolution, it requires Iran to suspend construction of a heavy water reactor. Previously Iran had been asked only to consider this step. Iran likely would not react positively to these requirements. Iran has said it will continue safeguards implementation, and therefore IAEA monitoring of its enrichment facilities, provided that Iran’s nuclear dossier remains “in full” in the framework of the IAEA. (See April 28 IAEA report, para. 6) So Iran might stop cooperating with the IAEA on safeguards if a Chapter VII resolution is adopted. (more…)

Jackie Cabasso

Readers of this blog have been privy to in-depth information and analysis about the Iranian crisis and what it really means, by my colleagues, Andrew Lichterman, John Burroughs, and Michael Spies. You might wonder about the name of our blog, “DisarmamentActivist.org.” We believe that education and critical thinking are essential building blocks of effective activism. But at the same time, while we’ve been delving into the facts and putting them into context, we’ve also been working with our colleagues on plans for action. (Obviously much more needs to be done!) The initial results can be found on the new United for Peace and Justice No War on Iran! No Nukes! campaign pages. There you can sign and send letters to members of Congress and the U.N. Security Council calling on them to oppose military action against Iran, uphold the law, support diplomatic solutions, and put an end to U.S. nuclear hypocrisy. You can also sign AfterDowningStreet’s petition to Bush and Cheney, and find links to additional educational materials and action items. On April 29, under the banner No Nukes! No Wars! we’ll be marching for Peace, Justice and Democracy in New York City, and hosting an interactive No War on Iran! No Nukes! tent in the Peace and Justice Festival. Join our Nuclear Abolition contingent at 20th Street, east of Broadway, starting at 11:00 am (enter from Park Avenue South)!

This recent activity is the result of a steady, patient, behind the scenes campaign. Since late 2002, during the runup to the Iraq war, we’ve been working with U.S. member groups of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons to bring nuclear disarmament “home” to the peace and justice movement. In the run up to the U.S. attack on Iraq, premised in part on the wholly unsubstantiated claim that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program, a new anti-war movement began to coalesce, with a heightened sensitivity to the domestic impacts of the “war on terror,” including attacks on immigrants, and drastic cuts to social services for the poorest members of our population.

The first National Assembly of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), held in Chicago in June 2003, seemed like a good opportunity to reclaim nuclear disarmament as a peace and justice issue, and to reintegrate it into the broader anti-war movement. A proposal from Abolition 2000 groups to make nuclear disarmament a UFPJ priority was adopted, with little discussion or controversy. It was striking, however, that several delegates voiced objections to the effect that “nuclear disarmament is the Bush agenda!” This turned out to be the tip of an iceberg, exposing a vast lack of awareness in the new anti-war movement–reflecting the general lack of public awareness–about the realities of U.S. nuclear weapons and their central role in our “national security” policy. And it marked the beginning of a continuing internal education process in UFPJ, the largest anti-war coalition in the country, with over 1,300 member groups. The Nuclear Disarmament/Redefining Security Working Group of UFPJ, which I convene, has been working steadily to raise awareness about the historically unbroken U.S. nuclear threat in the context of an increasingly aggressive, unbelievably arrogant and unilateral administration in Washington.

Now it seems that like it or not, the threatened use of nuclear weapons by the United States against Iran, reported by Seymour Hersh in the April 17 New Yorker, is forcing the still somewhat reluctant anti-Iraq-war movement to come to grips with the prospect of nuclear war. With the risk of use of nuclear weapons climbing towards levels not reached since the darkest days of the Cold War, where is the public outcry? What happened to the massive anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s? Why has the anti-war movement been so quiet about nuclear weapons?

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Michael Spies

There is renewed buzz and fear-mongering relating to Iranian president Mahmoud Amadinejad’s latest nuclear boasts. According to the New York Times, days after Amadinejad announced Iran has succeeded in enriching uranium to a level suitable for a reactor, he casually dropped that Iran has begun work on the more advanced P2 centrifuge design. To the NYT, reminiscent of the role it played in the lead up to the Iraq war, these statements mean Iran “is pursuing a far more sophisticated way of making atomic fuel that American officials and inspectors say could speed Iran’s path to developing a nuclear weapon.” Taking their cue, U.S. officials expressed the usual scripted shock and dismay meant to convey the sense of hysterical urgency that the Bush Administration associates with every step the Iranians take in their fledgling nuclear development program.

While the P2 program serves as the central plotline in Iran’s ongoing drama with the IAEA inspectors exploring Iran’s past concealment, it is a stretch to see how the announcement to pursue work on the design changes the bigger picture in any meaningful way. After more than 18 years of work to develop the P1, Iran has only recently succeeded in reportedly producing a minute amount of reactor grade plutonium in a 164 machine cascade. This is far short of the 3000 machines Iran would need to operate continuously for a full year in order to produce sufficient material for a single weapon, and shorter still from the 50,000 Iran needs to fuel its present nuclear energy program.

The announcement is notable in light of the fact that the largest remaining issue in the IAEA’s investigation into Iran’s past nuclear program involves the major gap in the history of its work on the P2 design. While the Iranians acquired the design from the Khan network in 1995, they claim they had not worked on them in the period leading up to the revelation of the Natanz facility in 2002. Naturally this raised suspicion with the IAEA, which has been insistently pressing Iran for documentary evidence to prove it did not work on the designs during that time. Iran claims it lacked the resources to carry out R&D on both designs, so it stuck to the easier model.

The IAEA recently confronted Iran with documents related to work allegedly carried out by a contracting company between 2002 and 2003, and the import of centrifuges components. The IAEA inquired about the alleged import to a contracting company of 900 magnets from a foreign entity in mid-2003. Iran replied that only a limited number of magnets were delivered. It should be noted that Iran is not required to report the import of such components under either its Safeguards Agreement (INFCIRC/214) or the Additional Protocol, but it is obligated under the Additional Protocol to provide the IAEA with such information upon the request of the Agency (see: INFCIRC/540, Article 2.a.ix.b; and IAEA, Report on the Implementation of Safeguards in the Islamic Republic of Iran, para. 19, February 2006). (more…)

John Burroughs

The most important step in the current U.S./Iran crisis is for the two sides to talk. Senator Lugar and others agree. It sounds doable, right? But the reality is that the United States and Iran have not been talking in any in-depth, sustained way since the 1979 revolution and the hostage crisis. In the negotiations between the E3 (Britain, France, Germany) and Iran in 2004-2005, the United States was on the sidelines. It was hailed as a breakthrough when Secretary of State Rice just approved those negotiations. But the United States was not there to engage on its priority issues — Iranian support for Hamas and Hezbollah, Iranian policy towards Israel, human rights — nor on priority issues for Iran — its uranium enrichment program, an end to existing U.S. sanctions, security assurances. The Bush administration did, however, exact a price for its backing of the negotiations that virtually assured their failure — that Iran would not be permitted to engage in any uranium-enrichment related activities whatever in the foreseeable future.

In an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now following up on his New Yorker article, Seymour Hersh made the point about the failure to talk vividly:

What’s amazing, Amy, about this is this, and what always surprises me about my country is, here we have a president that doesn’t talk to people he disagrees with. And anybody who’s been around little boys, big boys, knows that when they get out of control, you grab them. If you’re a nursery school teacher, you grab the little four-year-olds by the scruff of the neck, and you pull them together, and you say, ‘You two guys, shake hands and make up, and go play in the sandbox.’

Bush doesn’t talk to people he’s mad at. He doesn’t talk to the North Koreans. He didn’t talk to the insurgency. When the history is done, there were incredible efforts by the insurgency leaders in the summer of 2003. I’m talking about the Iraqi insurgency, the former Sunni generals and Sunni and Baathist leaders who were happy to see Saddam go, but did not want America there. They wanted to talk to us. Bush wouldn’t. Whether it got to Bush, I don’t know, it got in to four stars. Nobody wanted to talk to them. He doesn’t talk to the president of Syria; in fact, specifically rejects overtures from al-Asad to us. And he doesn’t talk to the Iranians. There’s been no bilateral communication at all.

Iran has come hat-in-hand to us. A former National Security Council adviser who worked in the White House, Flynt Leverett, an ex-C.I.A. analyst who’s now working at Brookings, wrote a piece a month or so ago, maybe six weeks ago, in the New York Times, describing specific offers by the Iranians to come and ‘let’s deal.’ Let’s deal on all issues. I’m even told they were willing to talk about recognizing Israel. And the White House doesn’t talk. And it’s not that he doesn’t talk, it’s that nobody pressures him to talk. There’s no pressure from the media, no pressure from Congress. Here’s a president who won’t talk to people he’s walking us into a confrontation with.

With other NGOs, Michael Spies and I, on behalf of Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy, have been meeting with diplomats from the countries on the Security Council and other key countries. We’re picking up indications that there’s a desire to get the United States and Iran talking. There’s also a feeling that the E3, who are nursing grievances over what they regard as Iranian misbehavior during the negotiations, need to get over it and find a way to engage both Iran and the United States.

Let’s say that the United States and Iran did talk, either bilaterally or in a wider setting, for example in the context of a proposal Britain would like to see put forward by the E3 plus Russia, China, and the United States. Are the issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program capable of resolution? It certainly seems possible, assuming the United States is willing to drop the posture of simply delivering to Iran the ultimatum that it must cease all enrichment-related activities. It should be stipulated that this all would have been much easier before Ahmadinejad came into office. He continues to stoke the fires of confrontation. (more…)

Andrew Lichterman

There have been two related sets of news stories in the past week involving nuclear weapons. Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker, and the Washington Post ran stories regarding planning for a possible use of nuclear weapons in an attack on Iran. The reported rationale for considering nuclear weapons use is that some underground Iranian facilities might be difficult to destroy with conventional weapons. A scattering of newspapers have reported that a large conventional test explosion called “Divine Strake,” planned for June at the Nevada Test Site, will simulate nuclear weapons use. One purpose of the program of which that test is a part, according to Department of Defense budget documents, is to “develop a planning tool that will improve the warfighter’s confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage.”

Both reports subsequently were denied by government sources. Nonetheless, It is virtually certain that they are to a large extent true. There undoubtedly are plans being prepared for possible attacks on Iran, and that process likely includes examining (if not choosing) nuclear options for hard to destroy facilities. All the evidence except the government denials themselves suggests that data from the “Divine Strake” test will be used to refine understanding of nuclear weapons effects on underground structures, and that such understanding will be incorporated into the tools and procedures used to plan and execute nuclear strikes (In a previous post I provided a summary of the Divine Strake coverage, including government denials and responses to them).

What is important is what these two chains of events mean. They can be understood along a continuum that ranges from the normal grinding along of an immense military apparatus that always is refining its understanding of nuclear weapons and always is preparing contingency plans to attack a variety of potential adversaries, to danger signs of a near-term attack on Iran that could involve nuclear weapons use if certain factions within the government have their way. I would place these events somewhere in the middle of this range, with nuclear weapons use still highly unlikely but some kind of attack on Iran growing steadily more likely, although not on the immediate horizon. This is an extraordinarily secretive administration, making its intentions difficult to discern. It is also a very fluid political moment domestically, with an ongoing constitutional crisis that evidently is viewed by the incumbent government mainly as a political problem to be managed using all the tools at its disposal, which could include the distraction of a conveniently timed, and, from its perspective, “manageable” use of military force. This is a government that has shown itself willing to roll the dice, and it may include dominant elements (and not only in the Executive branch) who believe that the worst outcome– widespread war in the Middle East and Persian Gulf region and some measure of global economic chaos– will one way or another allow it to consolidate an increasingly autocratic form of rule. (more…)

Andrew Lichterman

Jeffrey Lewis at Armscontrolwonk.com responded today to the Seymour Hersh article on U.S. preparations and planning for an attack on Iran. Hersh reports that a debate is raging in the government over use of nuclear weapons against certain hard to destroy targets. Lewis suggests that it is unlikely that use of nuclear weapons is under consideration, arguing that the underground facility built for Iran’s uranium enrichment operations can be destroyed with existing U.S. conventional weapons. But there remain unanswered questions, and Hersh’s report that vigorous debate regarding nuclear weapons use against Iran is going on inside the government is as important as how “practical” such use might be.

First, Hersh is not the only one reporting that the government is considering nuclear weapons use in its ongoing planning for a possible attack on Iran. The Washington Post had a passage, buried far down in its story on U.S. options for an attack on Iran today, stating

“Pentagon planners are studying how to penetrate eight-foot-deep targets and are contemplating tactical nuclear devices. The Natanz facility consists of more than two dozen buildings, including two huge underground halls built with six-foot walls and supposedly protected by two concrete roofs with sand and rocks in between, according to Edward N. Luttwak, a specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
‘The targeteers honestly keep coming back and saying it will require nuclear penetrator munitions to take out those tunnels,’ said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA analyst. “Could we do it with conventional munitions? Possibly. But it’s going to be very difficult to do.’”

This is a bit garbled regarding potential target depth, perhaps referring to one of the sources also cited by Lewis, stating that the Natanz facility is 8 meters (not feet) underground. GlobalSecurity.org reports, however, that Natanz has been reinforced substantially since that time:

“By mid-2004 the Natanz centrifuge facility was hardened with a roof of several meters of reinforced concrete and buried under a layer of earth some 75 feet deep.”

The 75 feet figure is consistent with Hersh’s story. Lewis notes the diverse accounts regarding depth, and believes that Natanz likely could be destroyed with conventional earth-penetrating weapons. Natanz has been the main focus of public discussion regarding possible nuclear targeting; one unanswered question is whether there are other hard to destroy underground targets in Iran on the U.S. target list.

Hersh’s discussion of planning for possible nuclear weapons use is not limited, however, to inferences from the nature of Iran’s facilities, and what it might take to destroy them. What caught my attention in his piece were the detailed comments (although from anonymous sources) regarding the heated debate over potential nuclear weapons use at the top levels of government:

“The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it ‘a juggernaut that has to be stopped.’ He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. ‘There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,’ the adviser told me. ‘This goes to high levels.’ The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. ‘The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.’”

In the end, the internal debate as Hersh reports it supports the view that use of nuclear weapons in a “counterproliferation” attack against Iran remains unlikely, if only because the military itself would be strongly opposed. But if it is true that a significant faction at the top levels of government is seriously contemplating nuclear weapons use here, it should be a matter of the utmost concern, and should be met with unambiguous condemnation. A “preventive” war against Iran, a country that has attacked neither us nor its neighbors and shows no imminent signs of doing so, would be illegal, another act manifesting the rejection by the United States of the international legal framework that it played a leading role in constructing after World War II. An unprovoked nuclear attack would be an atrocity of historic proportions, definitively marking the United States as an outlaw state, ruled by criminals deserving of comparison with the most terrible regimes of the past.

John Burroughs

In a stunning article, “The Iran Plans,” to appear in the April 17 New Yorker, Seymour Hersh reports that the Bush administration has intensified planning for bombing Iran; that it is giving serious attention to the option of using nuclear weapons to attack buried targets; and that U.S. combat troops are already in Iran preparing for military operations and recruiting local supporters from minority groups. As a whole, the article conveys that the administration is prepared to launch an attack should Iran not accede to U.S. demands, above all not to proceed with uranium enrichment activities. But the potential conflict goes beyond that: the administration seems committed to regime change regardless of whether the nuclear issues are capable of resolution (which they probably are, given any willingness to compromise on Washington’s part).

If executed, U.S. military action would apply the Bush doctrine of preventive war in an unprecedented way that would set the template for years or decades of regional and global violence, unrestrained by law. While the doctrine was a pretext for the Iraq invasion, that lawless action could at least be seen as a continuation of hostilities going back to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. U.S. use of nuclear weapons against Iran would be an atrocious act violating the existing near taboo that has held since U.S. devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That would in turn make it far more likely that the weapons will be used elsewhere as well–including against American cities.

The abhorrent consequences of military action, and of possible nuclear use, are referred to in the Hersh article and elsewhere. But it’s worth dwelling on issues relating to international law constraints that receive far too little attention in the United States (for example, they go unmentioned by Hersh).

First, as Andy Lichterman explained in a recent post, an attack on Iran would be an act of aggression, barred by the UN Charter and prosecuted at Nuremberg. That is, it would be aggression unless authorized by the Security Council or in response to an Iranian attack. (For in-depth analysis, see the piece I co-authored in Human Rights, and Peter Weiss’s presentation to the New York session of the World Tribunal on Iraq.) The Security Council, however, may not even be able to agree on a resolution requiring Iran to cease enrichment-related activities, let alone a resolution imposing sanctions. The Council barely was able to agree on the recent non-binding presidential statement, given Russian and Chinese reluctance to engage in a confrontational course. Absent some very major change in circumstances, a resolution authorizing force is out of the question.

Second, as I explained in a 2003 paper, a U.S. nuclear attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would violate international law requirements of necessity, proportionality, and discrimination acknowledged by the United States and affirmed by the International Court of Justice in its advisory opinion on nuclear weapons. The Court put the principle of discrimination, which it described as “fundamental” and “intransgressible,” as follows: “States must never make civilians the object of attack and must consequently never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets.” (emphasis added) Given the blast, heat and widespread radiation effects of an attack–the spread of radiation is elevated by an underground explosion by an earth penetrator–that requirement cannot be met. (more…)

Andrew Lichterman

The American Society of International Law adopted the following resolution at its recent annual meeting:

The American Society of International Law, at its centennial annual meeting in Washington, D.C. on March 30, 2006, Resolves:

1. Resort to armed force is governed by the Charter of the United Nations and other international law (jus ad bellum).

2. Conduct of armed conflict and occupation is governed by the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 and other international law (jus in bello).

3. Torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of any person in the custody or control of a state are prohibited by international law from which no derogations are permitted.

4. Prolonged, secret, incommunicado detention of any person in the custody or control of a state is prohibited by international law.

5. Standards of international law regarding treatment of persons extend to all branches of national governments, to their agents, and to all combatant forces.

6. In some circumstances, commanders (both military and civilian) are personally responsible under international law for the acts of their subordinates.

7. All states should maintain security and liberty in a manner consistent with their international law obligations.

The fact that this resolution even should be necessary reflects the depths of our current crisis. As Scott Horton, a leading international lawyer, put it in a PBS interview following the Abu Ghraib revelations, “…if adherence to the Geneva Convention becomes a political issue in this country, we have fallen into a deep moral gutter.”

Regarding resort to armed force, the ASIL resolution similarly states what should be the obvious. When considering both the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and the possibility of military action against Iran, it is important to begin with the basic framework of modern international law. It is a framework this country played a major role in creating.

In the war crimes trials conducted after World War II, the United States and its allies declared aggressive war to be the most serious of all international crimes. Robert L. Jackson, the U.S. Representative to the International Conference on Military Trials, declared,

“We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.” Statement by Justice Jackson on War Trials Agreement; August 12, 1945.

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John Burroughs

On a listserv dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons on which I participate, there’s been a lot of chatter over the past few weeks about the possibility of U.S. use of nuclear weapons against Iran. Some cite this possibility as a major reason, even the main reason, for opposing military action. I offered the following comment:

“Military action, probably of a different kind (special forces, bombings) than we saw with Iraq, is well within the realm of possibility over the next weeks, months, or years re Iran; the longer term seems more likely to me. A U.S. nuclear attack as part of the opening stages of military action is not within the realm of possibility. The nuclear danger arises from the fact that wars are unpredictable. Just because in the 60 years since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in numerous wars, the United States did not consider the circumstance to arise where nuclear use was appropriate, doesn’t mean that the circumstance cannot develop in future conflicts. But it would be a very dire situation – use your imagination – involving escalation drawing in other states, or large-scale attacks in the US, or etc.. So what we need to do is to work to prevent military action and also to support outcomes that help or at least don’t hurt non-proliferation/disarmament.”

My reasons for saying U.S. nuclear attack as part of opening stages of military action would not happen:

First, “strategists” in the United States are well aware (how could they not be?) that a U.S. nuclear use anywhere in the world, but certainly in the Middle East, raises very dramatically the odds that a nuclear explosive will be detonated in a U.S. city one day, in months, years, or decades.

Second, while the Bush administration is obviously quite impervious to world and domestic public opinion (perhaps less so now than a few years ago), still even they cannot fail to take into account the incredibly deleterious effects that a nuclear use would have on US standing in the world and on the viability of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the UN, and other international institutions/arrangements. Regarding domestic opinion, they would have to make a huge propaganda effort to manage it; however, this is possibly within their capability. (Another large-scale terrorist attack in the US would be a possible occasion, regardless of whether it was clearly established who perpetrated it.) (more…)

Michael Spies

The US and the EU3 have said that Iran’s resumption of uranium enrichment activities amounted to crossing a “red line“. But a story run by Reuters on Sunday indicates that IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei may also be stepping over that line. Reuters quotes a diplomat close to the IAEA who said ElBaradei “told diplomats that Natanz (pilot enrichment plant) is Iran’s bottom line, a sovereignty issue, a reality we may have to deal with.” In any deal involving the pilot plant, Iran would be expected to foreswear proceeding with plans to establish a commercial scale enrichment facility.

The compromise proposal would allow for Iran to conduct low scale enrichment within its territory, under the close supervision of the IAEA. The enrichment would be conducted at Iran’s pilot fuel enrichment plant (PFEP) in Natanz, where Iran recently resumed activities. The 164 centrifuge cascade installed there is believed to have suffered extensive corrosive damage from disuse during Iran’s suspension of fuel cycle activities under the negotiations with the EU.

The PFEP has floor space for about 1,000 centrifuges. At full capacity, not likely to be attained for several years, this plant would be capable of churning out enough highly enriched uranium for no more than two bombs per year. David Albright, demystifying the myth of an imminent Iranian nuclear threat in technical detail, describes “Iran’s last technical hurdle to building a centrifuge plant“:

A key part of the development of Iran’s gas centrifuge program is the operation of a 164-machine cascade at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Facility (PFEP) at Natanz. The installation of the first such test cascade was finished in the fall of 2003 but it never operated with uranium hexafluoride prior to the start of the suspension in November of 2003. It was not operated during the suspension. Until the start of the suspension, Iran had used uranium hexafluoride in single machine tests and a small cascade of 19 machines. Several of these tests encountered problems.

To operate this cascade at the pilot facility, Iran needs to take several steps before it can introduce uranium hexafluoride into the system. It first has to repair or replace any damaged centrifuges. According to IAEA reports, about 30% of the centrifuges crashed or broke when the cascade was shut down at the start of the suspension. In addition, Iran disconnected some of the pipes and exposed the pipes to humidity which could have caused corrosion. After making necessary repairs, Iran then has to finish connecting all the pipes, establish a vacuum inside the cascade, start the process of turning on the centrifuges and then running them under vacuum for several weeks, and prepare the cascade for operation with uranium hexafluoride. Iran may start enriching uranium in a subset of this cascade sooner, but it could take two or more months to ready the whole cascade for the use of uranium hexafluoride. If Iran does not encounter any significant problems, such as excessive vibration of the centrifuges or leakage of the vacuum, Iran could then introduce uranium hexafluoride into the entire cascade and start enriching uranium. Iran would want to operate the cascade for several more months to ensure that no significant problems develop and gain confidence that it can operate the cascade with uranium hexafluoride. Absent major problems, Iran will need roughly six months to one year to demonstrate successful operation of this cascade.

According to Albright,

Once Iran overcomes the last technical hurdle of operating its test cascade, it can duplicate it and create larger cascades. Iran would then be ready to build a centrifuge plant able to produce significant amounts of enriched uranium either for peaceful purposes or for nuclear weapons.

The PFEP can hold a total of six, 164-machine cascades for a total of about 1000 machines, although Iran may build fewer cascades or change the number of centrifuges per cascade. Without major modifications, this facility is unlikely to be used to make significant amounts of highly enriched uranium (HEU) for nuclear weapons.

Despite the final conclusion that the PFEP is unlikely to produce much HEU, Albright was quoted in the Reuter’s story as suggesting ElBaradei’s idea is “naïve” because it could lead to further concessions to Iran. But from the perspective of Iran’s implacable defense of its “rights” recognized under Article IV of the NPT, it’s unclear who would be conceding what to whom.