Hyping Iran's Nuke Capabilities

News stories on the latest International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report suggested new reasons to fear that Iran is closer to a "breakout" capability than ever before, citing a nearly 50-percent increase in its stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium and the installation of hundreds of additional centrifuges at the Fordow enrichment installation.

But the supposedly dramatic increase in the stockpile of uranium that could theoretically be used to enrich to weapons grade is based on misleading figures in the Nov. 16 IAEA report. The actual increase in the level of that stockpile appears to be 20 percent.

The IAEA report created understandable confusion about the stockpile of uranium enriched to 20-percent -- also called 20 percent LEU (low enriched uranium). It does not use the term "stockpile" at all. Instead, it says Iran produced 43 kg of 20-percent enriched uranium during the three months since the August report and cited a total of 135 kg of 20-percent uranium now "in storage," compared with only 91.4 kg in August.

Based on those figures, Reuters suggested that Iran might already be two-thirds of the way to the level of 200-250 kg that "experts say" could be used to build a bomb. The Guardian's Julian Borger wrote that Iran was enriching uranium at a pace that would reach the Israeli "red line" in just seven months.

But analysis of the figures in the last two reports shows that the IAEA total for 20-percent LEU "in storage" actually includes 20-percent LEU that has been sent to the Fuel Plate Fabrication Plant in Esfahan for conversion to powder for fuel plates to be used by Iran's medical reactor but not yet converted.

The November IAEA report includes the information that, as of Sept. 26 -- six weeks after the data in the August report were collected -- the total amount of 20-percent LEU fed into conversion process in Esfahan stood at 82.7 kg. That figure is 11.5 kg more than the total of 71.25 kg fed into the conversion process as of the August report. The difference between the two indicates that 11.5 kg had been taken out of the stockpile and sent to the Fuel Plate Fabrication Plant at Esfahan during September 2012.

In another indicator of the difference between the IAEA's "in storage" figure and the actual stockpile size, the current IAEA report gives the figure of 73.7 kg of 20-percent LEU from the Fordow facility "withdrawn and verified" by the IAEA over the entire period of such enrichment. That total is 23.7 kg higher than the total of 50 kg from Fordow "withdrawn and verified" given in the August report.

A total of 23.7 kg of 20-percent LEU was evidently taken out of the stockpile available for higher level enrichment and sent for conversion to powder for fuel plates during the last quarter. The current IAEA report nevertheless uses the same overall total of 96.3 kg of 20-percent LEU fed into the conversion process that it used in the August report.

Subtracting the 23.7 kg additional uranium "withdrawn and verified" by the IAEA during the quarter from the total 20-percent enriched uranium production of 43 kg during the quarter reduces the amount added to the stockpile of 20-percent LEU to 19.3 kg. Adding the 19.3 kg to the August total of 91.4 kg gives a total for the stockpile of 110.7 kg -- a 20-percent increase over the August level rather than the nearly 50-percent increase suggested by news stories.

The IAEA declined to respond to the substance of an IPS e-mail query citing the apparent inconsistencies in the data presented in the last two reports. IAEA Press Officer Greg Webb said in an e-mail that safeguards department officials who had been sent the query "reply that the report is clear and accurate as it stands."

However, the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, D.C., which normally supports everything in IAEA reports, said in a Nov. 16 commentary that the current report "does not make it clear if Iran has sent additional near 20 percent LEU hexafluoride to the Esfahan conversion site after August 2012."

The Washington think tank added, "However, it if did, the near 20-percent LEU remains in the form of hexafluoride." The comment implied that the IAEA may have included 23.7 kg of 20-percent enriched uranium sent to the Fuel Plate Fabrication Plant during the quarter as being "in storage."

The IAEA report also said Iran had halted its conversion of 20-percent LEU for fuel plates during the quarter, although it did not indicate how long the halt might last. Reuters cited that halt as "another potentially worrying development." But in light of the actual level of the stockpile, that halt could simply reflect the fact that Tehran is content to keep the figure from rising too far above 100 kg.

The spokesman for the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee, Hossein Naqavi, said Oct. 6 that Iran was taking "a serious and concrete confidence-building measure" by converting some of the 20-percent LEU into powder for fuel plates.

More surprisingly, an Israel official leaked to an Israeli daily that Iran was believed to have consciously avoided allowing its stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium to go much beyond 110 kg by diverting much of it for conversion to fuel for its scientific research reactor.

Citing "defense sources," Ha'aretz military correspondent Amos Harel wrote Oct. 9 that the Israeli policymakers had new information they considered "highly reliable" that each time new production of 20-percent enriched uranium could have brought the total above 130 kg, Iran had "diverted 15 or 20 kg to scientific use." Harel indicated that the new information was the justification for the Israeli position that the threat of Iranian threat of a breakout capability had receded for many months.