A recent Iranian celebration of their despotic 'revolution': Missiles on Display

The International Atomic Energy Agency, a Vienna-based U.N. body, said in a confidential report Thursday that Iran has impeded agency efforts to establish the true purpose of Tehran's nuclear program.

The expression of concern over the "weaponization" of enriched uranium is a first for the agency.

The IAEA's first report under its new director general underscores what senior Obama administration officials see as a shift at the agency toward a tougher, factually based approach to Iran's nuclear program. One senior U.S. official said Mr. Amano is sticking strictly to the watchdog's responsibilities of ensuring that nuclear safeguards are obeyed.

Egyptian Mohamed ElBaradei, the last director general, saw the IAEA's role more broadly, asserting it in matters of war, peace and international stability.

Nonetheless, the new report puts the U.S. in an awkward position. Officially, White House officials said, Washington is standing by the 2007 conclusions of its intelligence community that Iran has shelved efforts to "weaponize"—or turn its enriched nuclear materials into a nuclear weapon. At the same time, as President Barack Obama pressed for tougher sanctions, the senior administration officials didn't try to refute the IAEA's conclusions.

Iran's "pattern of behavior is very disturbing," one senior administration official said.

The report also confirmed that Iran has produced its first batch of uranium enriched to 20% purity, a level suitable for use in Iran's medical-research reactor. Iran insists its nuclear activities serve only peaceful purposes. Uranium must be enriched much further to be suitable for a weapon.

In the report, Mr. Amano cites open questions about "possible military dimensions" of Iran's nuclear program, adding that Iran has failed to explain the "procurement and R&D activities of military related institutes and companies."

The IAEA has asked Iran to discuss "the project and management structure of alleged activities related to nuclear explosives," the report says.

At the same time, U.S. administration officials said the report underscores the technical difficulties facing the Iranian nuclear program. The number of operating centrifuges producing enriched uranium has actually dropped since the last IAEA report. The enrichment program is operating at less than half its capacity.

The program is producing about 100 grams of 20%-enriched uranium a day, or about seven pounds a month. At that rate it would take five to seven years to produce enough material to make a bomb, administration officials said.

The secret nuclear site at Qom, which U.S., French and British heads of state unmasked with a flourish in September, is still largely inactive. Iran appears to be running out of raw, mined uranium, or yellowcake, which it needs to enrich.

The agency's board of governors, which includes representatives of the U.S. and other international powers, is expected to discuss the report at its meeting beginning March 1.

Mr. Amano became head of the IAEA in December, replacing Mr. ElBaradei, a lawyer and diplomat who during his 12-year tenure won a Nobel Peace Prize shared with the agency's staff.

Mr. Amano told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month that talks with Iran are at a delicate stage. He declined to provide details.

Earlier this month, Iran notified the IAEA of its intention to enrich uranium to the nearly 20% purity required to fuel its medical-research reactor. That process began Feb. 9, a day before IAEA inspectors arrived at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant located at Natanz, Iran.

Low-enriched uranium can be used to produce electricity in a nuclear power plant, or it can be enriched further in a complicated process to a much higher level of purity, and used to build a nuclear weapon.

In October, Iran offered to export most of its stocks of low-enriched uranium for reprocessing into fuel for a medical research reactor. However, talks with the U.S., Western European countries and Russia faltered and the deal was never sealed.

The draft agreement envisioned Iran shipping out the bulk of its low-enriched uranium to Russia, which would enrich it further for use in an Iranian medical-research reactor. The plan was designed to temporarily keep Iran's store of low-enriched nuclear fuel below the threshold required to build a nuclear weapon.

The deal was seen as an important first step in winning cooperation with Iran over its nuclear ambitions."  -The Wall Street Journal.


Despite Assurances to the Contrary, the Western World has No Reason to Trust Iran's Dictatorship

Whether it takes Iranian Dictator Ahmadinejad six months, one year, or "five to seven" years to enrich enough uranium to produce nuclear weapons, it is painfully clear that nothing, except military action against Iran, will stop the Islamic dictatorial regime's quest to construct (and perhaps use?) a nuclear arsenal.  Once Iran has properly test fired a nuclear missile, containing enriched uranium far above the 20% level, how long will it be until a 'conventional' military conflict between Israel and Iran turns nuclear?

Iran is the titular, if not the actual leader of the Islamic world, and as such, will undoubtedly lead a war against the West.  Why you may ask?  Because Radical Islam fluctuates, back and forth, between intensely insane jealousy of the developed world's economic and military power, and, Radical Islam's irrational hatred of modernity, and gender equality.  Women are merely chattel in the Muslim world, and minorities, where there are any left, are marginalized, and persecuted.  Dictators like Ahmadinejad would like nothing more than to drag the entire world back to a time before the European Renaissance, since that's where Radical Muslims live anyway.

Sir Winston Churchill once said, "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."  President Obama, British Prime Minister Brown, German Chancellor Merkel, etc. are all holding tantalizing morsels of worthless economic sanctions, yet large servings of appeasement, and the anemic leaders of the Western World are all hoping and praying that thugs like Ahmadinejad will fire Iran's nuclear missiles at their nations, last.


Christopher J. Wilmot served as a Legislator in the Monroe County Legislature from 1996-2005.  He also worked briefly in the U.S. Senate, and for the Clinton Transition Team, in 1992.