IAEA Inspectors: Iran not Producing Weapons-grade Uranium

IAEA Inspectors: Iran not Producing Weapons-grade Uranium

As I mentioned yesterday, Iran is not producing weapon-grade uranium, and could not easily do so without detection. The Hindu, which despite its name is left of center (and which is one of India's finest newspapers) writes:

' Iran has not converted the low-grade uranium that it has produced into weapon-grade uranium, inspectors belonging to the International Atomic Energy Agency have said.

The Austrian Press Agency quoted an IAEA expert as saying that the uranium substances that Iran has produced at its Natanz enrichment facility have been carefully recorded and remote cameras have been installed to supervise part of the stockpile.

If the Iranians intend to transport these uranium substances to a secret location for further processing, agencys inspectors will find out, he said.

The expert added that so far, Iran has carried out good cooperation with us in relevant verifications.

IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei has said that Iran has slowed down its uranium enrichment programme.'

US newspapers are complaining that they are losing money and may not survive. After they put all sorts of falsehoods about Iraq on their front pages, it may be that they fatally wounded their credibility with the US public. In any case, the above report does not show up anywhere on the web or in Lexis that I can find, except here in The Hindu, which tells me that someone is not doing their job.

(See also Dr. Jeffrey Lewis.

posted by Juan Cole @ 2/22/2009 12:03:00 AM