Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008) and 1835 (2008) in the Islamic Republic of Iran, GOV/2008/59 (November 19, 2008).
Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Syrian Arab Republic, GOV/2008/60 (November 19, 2008).
I think we beat our friends at ISIS, for a change. Enjoy!
(Or they put it up on their cool new Iran blog)
Comment [8]
Reader Allen Thomson sends along this image of the AlKibar dated 23 November 2007 showing an apparently thick slab of concrete over the remains of the BoE and one or two construction cranes erected on it. Credit:GeoEye/Space Imaging Middle East IKONOS Satellite Image.
A very curious set of stories appeared yesterday about the results of environmental sampling that the IAEA conducted at the AlKibar site.
Diplomats — which is to say, not the IAEA staff — told AP’s George Jahn, Reuter’s Mark Heinrich and DPA’s Arthur that the IAEA DG ElBaradei’s report for the 27-28 November Board of Governors meeting will indicate that “samples … contained traces of uranium … was processed and not in raw form.”
ElBaradei is said to be irked at the leak.
Well, that’s not surprising. The presence of processed uranium (it is unclear it is enriched or in the form of metal) has many possible implications. There wasn’t supposed to be any reactor fuel on site and the IAEA didn’t find any evidence of graphite — though that isn’t particularly exculpatory (see: Mark Hibbs, “Evidence form IAEA graphite probe not critical to Syria reactor case,” Nuclear Fuel 33:21, p. 7). Maybe it was cross contamination from the North Koreans. Or maybe Syria has some enrichment efforts.
But, at least today, I think the story hit the papers as part of an effort to press ElBaradei to request a “special inspection” in Syria.
Although Syria allowed the IAEA to visit AlKibar on a voluntary basis, they denied the IAEA access to three sites that are believed to house equipment for the reactor project and have dragged their feet on a follow-up visit. (Having IAEA’s point of contact whacked by a sniper hasn’t helped, either.)
ElBaradei has been reluctant to ask for a “special inspection” under Syria’s INFCIRC/153 safeguards agreement to visit those three sites (see Mark Hibbs, “Key IAEA directors not inclined to press for special Syria probe,” Nucleonics Week 49:41, 9 October 2008, p. 7). ElBaradei’s has taken an exceptionally narrow view of the basis on which he would ask for a special inspection — according to Hibbs “sources close to ElBaradei said last week that unless the IAEA found evidence of undeclared nuclear material, it would not be inclined to request a special inspection to pursue the allegations of an undeclared reactor project.”
The real reason that ElBaradei is reluctant may have more to do with ongoing Israeli efforts to engage Syria. Hibbs has reported that the effort to pressure Syrua has “run aground on a separate diplomatic effort … to encourage Syria to isolate Iran (Hibbs, “Diplomatic efforts to engage Syria hindering US-led campaign at IAEA,” Nuclear Fuel 33:20, p. 4).
So, that’s the rub: Some countries — read the US — want ElBaradei to push for a special inspection — which the Agency has only requested twice in its history. ElBaradei has said that he won’t unless there is evidence of undeclared nuclear material. So, delegations are seizing on the uranium finding — however scant — to force ElBaradei’s hand.
You can see why the DG and the IAEA might be irritated, particularly if the evidence is less clear-cut than the diplomats are suggesting.
And while I won’t condone using a leak to press for a preferred outcome, I would like to see the IAEA request special inspections as a more routine measure in cases when a state does not have the Additional Protocol in force. Syria does not and if there was ever a case for a special inspection, this is probably it.
As I mentioned, the IAEA has only requested special inspections twice — once at the request of a state (newly democratic Romania in 1992, which discovered that the Ceauşescu regime had a clandestine nuclear program) and once in an adversarial relationship (the DPRK rejected the IAEA’s request in 1993, although the inspection was eventually carried out under the Agreed Framework).
Part of the problem, I think, has been the IAEA’s reluctance to request special inspections. By making them rare, they are unnecessarily adversarial.
I highly commend, via James Acton’s recommendation, a paper by John Carlson and Russel Leslie entitled, Special Inspections Revisited, (Australian National Safeguards Office, July 2005). They make the rather compelling point that special inspections ought to be conducted more often, as a normal and nonconfrontational part of the safeguards effort when a state does not have the Additional Protocol in force.
Moving toward that norm almost certainly requires requesting that Syria grant a special inspection.
Comment [23]
I apologize deeply for posting without a picture, but it may not arrive for some weeks to come, and this article would then be too old. I’m Andreas Persbo, and I’ve been asked to write a couple of posts once in a while.
Some of you may know me from my blog Verification, Implementation and Compliance. Yet others, like my colleague James Acton, knows me through my work at the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre in London. In a previous life, I used to hang out with UNPROFOR and UNIFIL, and while I forgotten most things about peacekeeping, I still haven’t laid off my deep affection for the Middle East, its lands and its peoples. And for some reason, I really like deserts.
The Syrian desert is a hot, dusty, and surprisingly dirty place. Most visitors expect a serene environment, unsoiled by the boots of man, but are surprised and disappointed at the large amount of junk strewn around the grey sand and hard rock. More often than not, the Syrian desert acts as an improvised landfill. After a September 2007 incursion into Syrian airspace by the Israeli Air Force, one particular patch of Syrian soil was instantly turned into yet another desert junkyard.
Overview of the area (including Tibnah Salt Mine)
We in the open-source community have discussed for some time whether the target on the banks of the Great Euphrates River was or wasn’t a nuclear reactor supplied by the North Koreans. Despite photographs supplied by the US intelligence community, there are many that remains unconvinced by the strength of the evidence. You’ll find skeptics everywhere, on the comment pages of this blog, and even in the Vienna International Center’s staff cafeteria.
The destroyed building by the river bank remains an enigma. In Vienna, the Syrians continues to pretend like nothing has happened. The Israelis themselves keep out of sight whenever the mysterious air-raid is mentioned. The only country that seems to want some closure on the matter is the United States, its diplomats are busy trying to corner and contain the Syrians at the Viennese nuclear court. It is not that difficult. Syria, like its ally Iran, does not have many friends and allies in Vienna. However, many ask what the US have to gain by putting pressure on Damascus at this age of puzzling rapprochement between the Syrian government and its arch-enemies in Jerusalem.
Clearly, Syria wants this thing to disappear. However, it doesn’t want to expose itself too much while covering up its tracks. Indeed, the Syrian statement to the IAEA General Conference this year regretted some of the calls for more transparency and cooperation from their part. It held that its government was, and would continue to be, totally cooperative with the Agency but cautioned that, ‘this cooperation will under no circumstances be on the account of exposing our military positions and of threatening our national security.’
There are strong rumors about a report on Syria being prepared for the next meeting of the IAEA’s Board of Governors, set to convene in Vienna on 27 November 2008. There has been some discussion about whether the report will reveal the presence of nuclear-grade graphite at the site (see, for instance, Mark Hibbs, ‘Evidence from IAEA graphite probe not critical to Syria reactor case,’ Nuclear Fuel, 20 October 2008). The IAEA accumulated experience looking for this type of material during its verification activities in North Korea. However, for any meaningful analysis, the sample has to be large. So far, the IAEA investigation in Al-Kibar has reportedly turned up very little.
A while back, sitting down over a cup of coffee with a friend in Vienna, I heard how the Agency had structured its investigations. Keen to avoid leakage to the wider community and the press, the probe is handled by a small and tight-lipped group of people within the Department of Safeguard’s Middle East Division. Indeed, the Syria analysts keep to themselves, and do not share or discuss their findings with the rest of the division. This has caused disgruntlement amongst some within the Agency, who argue that there are risks with keeping information tight. Eventually the group sees what it want to see.
While there are skeptics in Vienna, the majority view within the Department of Safeguards is reportedly that the facility was a reactor. A recent report in the associated press quotes two diplomats saying that the Agency would press for more visits to Syria. This might be due to some ambiguous results from environmental sampling, but also because the department did not get access to all the sites it wished to visit. The press reports point to three military sites, but the Agency may also want to visit some civilian facilities closer to Al-Kibar itself.
Mining activities abound
While there certainly seems to be no reprocessing facilities around, there are mining activities in the area, including the Tibnah Salt Mine, which is located some 17 kilometers south of the destroyed facility (you’ll find the mine at 35°33’9.72“N 39°48’41.60“E). The Syrian General Company for Phosphates and Mines operates the salt mine, which has been known to operate in the area for years, not least because an Australian firm did the field mission and basic engineering survey for a mine expansion back in 1985.
SGCPM map of mineral assets
There are also some signs of mined materials being transported on the railway line that runs just west of the destroyed facility. It’s likely that the region, which is relatively rich in certain types of minerals, is home to some open-pit mining activities as well.
Why should this facility be interesting from a safeguards perspective? Well, the mines owners have started to think about ways to make alternative use of its 150 meter deep shafts and sprawling tunnels. One idea has been to study the geology of the site, as well as its hydrological, tectonic and geological settings to find out whether the site could be used for radioactive waste disposal. It goes further than that: a preliminary report on the matter has been produced and published by the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission.
Presumably, the site was assessed for disposal of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM), which are some waste products resulting from oil and gas exploration. Syria has had problems with this type of waste, and the Atomic Energy Commission of Syria has been trying to grapple with this issue for years. Burying it in a disused salt mine makes sense.
Despite the presence of this facility, known to the Agency for some time, inspectors did not visit the site during its assessment of Al-Kibar. Surely the IAEA must have asked for access to the facility?
No, it did not. Allegedly, the Department of Safeguards did not even mention the facility during discussions with the Syrians. In my mind, it would have been a perfectly reasonable request to visit, if nothing else but to find out whether the bombed building was associated, in some manner, with the local mining industry. What would the IAEA have found? Probably nothing much. However, it is part of a wise search logic to look around the inspected area, and pay special attention to activities that may be related, even if the connection is far fetched. And the mine is just a short car ride away.
A visit to a salt mine would surely not threaten Syria’s military interests, now, would it?
Comment [15]
Privet, dear Readers of Wonk,
Greetings from Monterey! By means of an introduction, I’ll say that I’ve been a loyal ACW reader for a long time (we probably have that in common). And as Jeffrey has already mentioned, I’m lucky to share a blog home with ACW alumnus Paul Kerr. I hope you don’t mind having me around this week. Think of me as a modest warm-up act for the other awesome guest blogger(s) that Jeffrey has in store for you.
To kick things off, here is a topic that isn’t oft discussed on ACW — multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle. You’ve undoubtedly read the 2005 IAEA Expert Group report, which argued that “[s]uch approaches are needed and worth pursuing, on both security and economic grounds.” You’re also likely very familiar with the diverse proposals, which followed this report. All of them are available on the IAEA’s Revisiting the Nuclear Fuel Cycle page.
Anyway, last month, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences released a report on a two-year study jointly conducted with the Russian Academy of Sciences on the “Internationalization of the Civilian Nuclear Fuel Cycle.” Check out the project description and definitely download (and read) the whole report.
As part of this joint study, the NAS-RAS committee analyzed the “proposals and options for future international nuclear fuel cycles, including the incentives that might be required for countries to accept the fuel assurance guarantees and not develop enrichment or reprocessing facilities.” Not surprisingly, the committee endorsed creation of a “global system featuring a small number of centers for the sensitive steps of the fuel cycle.” Yet, the study also noted that
“the implementation of those elements that are feasible today, for example, assurance of fuel supply, should not be delayed while other options are being refined or explored both institutionally and technically.”
This concern about timing seems to be somewhat of a recurring theme. For example, the September issue of Arms Control Today has a great article by Fiona Simpson titled Reforming the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Time Is Running Out. Simpson, who also authored this ACT piece on multilateral approaches to the fuel cycle with IAEA’s Tariq Rauf four years ago, argues that
“[t]he next six months are likely to prove critical in determining whether any of [the] proposals becomes a genuine blueprint for a new approach to this issue or whether, like similar efforts three decades ago, they simply gather dust.”
So what say you, Readers of Wonk? Are discussions of internationalizing the nuclear fuel cycle losing momentum? Where do we go from here?
Comment [8]
Warning: long post.
Observing the frequent travels of the IAEA’s Olli Heinonen to Iran of late, Andreas Persbo suggests that the negotiation of new safeguards measures may be underway for the still-incomplete gas-centrifuge enrichment plant at Natanz, currently undergoing low-level operations.
This raises a rather interesting question: just how does the IAEA conduct safeguards at Natanz these days?
The question is interesting and pertinent, too, because if Iran were to attempt to produce HEU for a nuclear bomb, it would probably happen at Natanz. As David Albright and Jackie Shire have pointed out:
Two basic scenarios capture Iran’s most likely routes to developing highly enriched uranium (HEU) for its first nuclear weapons. The first would be for Iran to build and operate a secret gas-centrifuge plant. The second would be for Tehran to “break out” after producing a stock of low-enriched uranium (LEU) that would then be used to jump-start the production of weapons-grade uranium either at its enrichment plant at Natanz or in a secret site.
Drawing on my own knowledge base, admittedly slender by local standards, I’ll go out on a limb to make a further observation on this point. While Iran stays within the NPT, a breakout attempt is not very likely to occur at an unknown site operating in parallel to Natanz.
(Here is where the apprentice lion tamer, AKA guest blogger, apprehensively pokes his head into the maw of the King of Beasts, AKA commenters with serious domain knowledge.)
Simultaneously producing LEU at Natanz and HEU at a secret centrifuge site would be a fraught undertaking. In part because of the telltale UF6 particles that settle on every surface of a working centrifuge plant — including the clothes and skin of personnel — the two programs would have to maintain a rigorous separation to avoid detection.
It would not simply be a matter of delivering every third or fourth new centrifuge to a secret warehouse on the outskirts of (let’s say) Esfahan: there would have to be a duplicate everything and everyone, with no communication between the two sides.
The potential for secret sites is a serious, serious problem, perhaps the most serious problem. But it would become much greater if Iran were to leave the NPT and kick the IAEA out of Natanz.
(No snapping of jaws? Good, let’s continue.)
Just how the IAEA conducts safeguards at Natanz is not directly publicized, so far as I can tell, but there are some good hints available. A likely starting point, recognizing that it is somewhat dated, is a paper delivered by D.W. Swindle to the March 1990 meeting of the American Physical Society, titled, aptly enough, “Realities of Verifying the Absence of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) in Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plants.”
The processes described by Swindle, which were developed in the early 1980s, serve two major purposes: to ensure that plant operators can’t make HEU onsite without having it detected, and to ensure that they can’t divert LEU produced there to some other location without having that detected, either. (LEU can be further enriched into HEU.)
LEU diversion is deterred mainly by taking a periodic inventory. The centerpiece of the process for deterring HEU production consists of Limited Frequency Unannounced Access (LFUA) inspections. Between four and 12 times a year, inspectors show up and give two hours’ notice for an inspection, within 24 hours of entering the country. Things they do:
More current information can be gleaned from a 2004 paper by five members of the IAEA Safeguards Department, titled “IAEA Experience with Environmental Sampling at Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plants in the European Union.”
The authors describe LFUA in terms of visual observation, “application of surveillance systems,” and NDA. (“Surveillance systems” presumably means cameras, like the one in the picture at the top of this post.) Then the authors describe a new technique introduced in the mid-1990s, environmental sampling (ES):
Environmental samples at enrichment plants are collected by swiping selected areas of the plant with squares of cotton cloth (10×10cm) from sampling kits prepared in ultra clean conditions. The squares of cotton cloth sealed in plastic bags are sent for analysis to the Safeguards Analytical Laboratory (SAL) and/or the Network Analytical Laboratories (NWAL). The analysis includes the measurement of uranium isotopic composition in uranium-containing particles by Thermal Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (TIMS) or Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS).
[I was remiss in not pointing out James’s explanation of a more up-to-date technique, FT-TIMS, in another context.]
Anyone who has bothered to read this far probably already knows that ES has played the starring role in the Iran-IAEA drama. The accuracy of the technique, combined with the persistence of trace amounts of uranium, certainly came as a shock to the Iranians.
Beyond ES, and in some ways even better, there is also continuous monitoring with radiation detectors hooked up to pipes. Basically, this amounts to 24×7 NDA. But the Iranians appear to have managed to resist this measure so far.
We’re now in a position to interpret the previous IAEA Director-General’s reports on nuclear safeguards and compliance in Iran. The latest such report is dated May 26. It reads, in part:
4. Between 28 January and 16 May 2008, Iran fed a total of approximately 19 kg of UF6 into the 20-machine IR-1 cascade, the single IR-2 centrifuges, the 10-machine IR-2 cascade and the single IR-3 centrifuges at PFEP. All nuclear material at PFEP, as well as the cascade area, remains under Agency containment and surveillance.
5. The results of the environmental samples taken at FEP and PFEP indicate that the plants have been operated as declared. The samples showed low enriched uranium (with up to 4.0% U-235), natural uranium and depleted uranium (down to 0.4% U-235) particles. Iran declared enrichment levels in FEP of up to 4.7% U-235. Since March 2007, fourteen unannounced inspections have been conducted.
So from March 2007 to May 2008, 14 LFUAs took place — an average of one per month, the maximum based on past IAEA practice elsewhere. ES has confirmed Iran’s claims that only LEU has been produced so far. (Natural uranium is what’s fed into the enrichment process, and depleted uranium is what’s left over from it.)
There’s been a fair amount of pushing and shoving between Iran and the IAEA about safeguards measures. (Recall the earlier fight over entry visas for inspectors.) But the story boils down to this: If Iran wants to use Natanz to break out undetected, they’ll have to keep the inspectors out.
Scott Kemp and Alexander Glaser have argued that with enough LEU on hand, and with the right kind and numbers of centrifuges, under the right conditions, it would be feasible (in the absence of continuous monitoring) to do an undetected breakout at a centrifuge plant in the space of a couple of weeks. And who am I to argue with them? But at a minimum, they’d have to fool the cameras, and would be gambling with randomly timed LFUAs.
You knew there was a point to this, right?
It’s commonly assumed that once the Iranians accumulate a certain number of centrifuges, voilà, they will have crossed the nuclear threshold. This idea is sometimes called “the point of no return.”
That’s why it’s also widely believed that anyone who wants to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons must deliver high explosives on Natanz at some point soon.
If you’ve followed all of the above, you’ll probably see already why that conclusion does not follow (setting aside what for essentially the same reasons that Albright, Brannan, and Shire have argued about the (in)feasibility of such a plan). But just in case it’s not apparent, here’s why:
Bottom line: using force to prevent Iran from going nuclear would be a much bigger undertaking than just an air campaign. Regime change really would be necessary. But the Iranians could instead be deterred from attempting breakout.
Still, if the Iranians don’t want to tempt fate, agreeing to continuous monitoring would help.
Comment [10]
US Ambassador to the IAEA, Greg Schulte, was in London yesterday selling the US-India deal. I saw him talk at the IISS.
Given all the speculation that both the US and North Korea want the IAEA to have a minimal role in the verification process, I couldn’t resist asking the ambassador what role he thought the Agency should have. His answer surprised me.
He said that the US foresees a large role for the Agency both because it has relevant expertise and because the ultimate aim of the denuclearisation process is to get North Korea back into the NPT under IAEA safeguards. He wasn’t too specific about the exact division of labour between the US and the IAEA but he was much more positive about the Agency’s role than I had expected. He added that Chris Hill is in Vienna today discussing this issue with the DG and the safeguards people.
UPDATE: Andreas reports a contradictory picture from another discussion meeting at the IISS today. The plot thickens.
Comment [6]
The Institute for Science and International Security has obtained a copy of IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei’s report on Iran.
The report makes it clear that Iran has no intention of addressing the most sensitive of the outstanding questions, namely those that are most closely associated with a nuclear weapons development program. Iran continues to insist that it never had any such program, and considers allegations to this effect to be entirely baseless and not worth addressing. If that’s the case, then ElBaradei’s transparency process may have reached its limits. At any rate, it is high time for a third UNSC sanctions resolution coupled with a real multilateral negotiation process.
The report does not give Iran a clean bill of health, but it does say that Iran has addressed certain issues to the IAEA’s satisfaction. In the past six weeks, Iran has suddenly come up with a raft of documents, reports, and other physical evidence in support of its claim that the polonium-210 experiments, the Gchine uranium mine complex, uranium particle contamination at a technical university, and suspicious procurement activities by the former head of Iran’s Physics Research Center are all civilian in nature. The IAEA now considers these matters closed, but Iran’s sudden change of heart really stinks: why has it waited so long to address these activities and put up with so much grief if it possessed such a convenient array of exculpatory documents? I wonder…
Iran continues to refuse to address evidence of activities that have a much more clear-cut weapons purpose, such as the green salt project, high explosive testing and the design of a missile re-entry vehicle. The IAEA report says much of the evidence comes from an unnamed “Member State,” probably the United States. Iran asserts that the evidence is fabricated and, according to the report, has made it abundantly clear that it has no intention of entertaining these matters any further.
There is a clear pattern here. For activities that have a colorable civilian rationale, Iran is suddenly happy to offer one. Since the IAEA is not in the business of second-guessing the sincerity of its member states in the absence of a technical rationale, it must accept these explanations unless and until new data comes along that calls the original rationale into question. And for activities that only have a weapons purpose, Iran plays the “How can you trust the Americans?’ card and simply refuses to engage the evidence.
It is hard to see what happens next in this process. There are a few lingering issues that the report suggests could be resolved, such as the uranium metal document (the report says that Pakistan is the roadblock). But on the most sensitive issues relating to alleged weapons-related activities, this report makes it clear that Iran has no interest in addressing them.
So what next? The UNSC should enact the third sanctions resolution, but this won’t be enough to induce a change of behavior in Iran. I can’t imagine Iran ever coming fully clean—or adopting the kinds of transparency measures needed to verify the peaceful nature of its program, such as the IAEA Additional Protocol—unless it is given a face-saving way out of this mess. Such a pathway cannot emerge until the United States gets serious about meaningful multilateral diplomacy with Iran that includes credible incentives to accompany the sanctions.
Comment [61]
I am sitting in a very cool meeting that the New America Foundation is co-sponsoring with the Stanley Foundation and American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The meeting is invitation only, and off-the-record, but I can share the agenda:
Iran: Fuel Cycles, Verification, and Multinational Fuel Assurances Workshop
September 5, 10:30am – 3:30pm
at
The Stanley Foundation (co-located with the Henry L. Stimson Center)1111 19th St., NW, 12th Floor, Washington, DC
Note: Each session will begin with a pair of five-minute introductions to the key technical aspects of the topic by two of the workshop participants, with the balance of time dedicated to a structured discussion moderated by one of the hosts.
Coffee and pastries will be available beginning at 10:00 am.
10:30 am Welcome and Introductions
10:45 am – 12:00 pm Status of Iran’s Nuclear Programs
Mr. Mark Fitzpatrick, International Institute for Strategic Studies
Ms. Corey Hinderstein, Nuclear Threat Initiative
Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, New America Foundation, Moderator12:15 pm – 1:30 pm Verifying a Suspension or a Pause
This will be a working lunch.Mr. David Albright, Institute for Science and International Security
Ms. Sharon Squassoni, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Dr. Benn Tannenbaum, AAAS, Moderator1:45 pm – 3:00 pm Multinational Nuclear Arrangements
Dr. Geoff Forden, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Frank von Hippel, Princeton University
Mr. Matt Martin, Stanley Foundation, Moderator3:00 pm Wrap up and next steps
We will adjourn by 3:30 pm.
Comment [19]
So.
We know that Iran operated 8 cascades between 18 April- 19 August. That is seventeen weeks, 119 days or 2856 hours.
Eight cascades, fed 70 grams of hex per hour, should have consumed 1,600 kg of hex.
Assume the four additional cascades began operating on May 13 (about 14 weeks). The additional four cascades should have consumed another 650 kg, for a grand total of 2,250 kilograms.
Instead, Iran consumed 690 kilograms of hex during that period, for an operating efficiency of about 30 percent.
That’s very low.
What is very odd that is that 260 of those kilograms were consumed between 15 April-22 May.
As a result, all twelve cascades consumed only 430 kilograms in the not quite 13 weeks that followed. Twelve cascades, over the course of 89 days or 2136 hours, should consume almost 1800 kg of hex. That means Iran’s centrifuges operated close to one-quarter of their efficiency, a substantial decrease from the relatively continuous operation between 15 April – 22 May (about half their maximum feed).
Are the Iranians husbanding that Chinese hex?
Do the centrifuges with indigenously produced components not work right?
Is Iran holding back for political reasons?
Comment [4]
GOV/2007/28, like clockwork, is out on the ISIS website.
Items of note:
Update: Ahem, I am eating a little crow today. The looks like the “no feed” reference is only to the PFEP. Don’t have the dates on the FEP cascade operation, yet. That let’s Sanger off the hook — maybe — and drops the operating rate down substantially.
Comment [7]
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