The United Nations' nuclear agency said Iran has developed technologies needed to produce nuclear weapons, a finding that puts new pressure on the Obama administration to act more forcefully against Tehran.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, in its first public airing of such charges, said Tuesday that Tehran appears to have conducted advanced research on a miniaturized warhead that could be delivered by medium-range missiles. The watchdog agency also cited evidence that Iran has worked to develop the uranium metal used for warheads and said it has conducted computer simulations of nuclear detonations.
The 25-page report represents the loudest alarm yet sounded by the agency in a decade-long standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, and comes as Israeli officials have discussed a possible military strike. It will also raise questions over which avenues the U.S., already under pressure domestically and internationally to ratchet up penalties against Tehran following several rounds of sanctions, has left to pursue.
While U.S. officials say Washington will try to use the report to bring new sanctions, the Obama administration has stepped back from one potential target—sanctioning Iran's central bank, the principal conduit for Iran's oil sales. Administration officials have voiced fears that blacklisting the bank could significantly drive up international oil prices and hurt the U.S. economy.
Iran, which has steadfastly denied that its nuclear program aims to produce weapons, quickly attacked the contents of the IAEA report. Tehran's ambassador to the agency, Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, told diplomats in Vienna that the agency's work was "unbalanced, unprofessional and politically motivated.''
Some of the information in the report was contained in a secret paper that the IAEA had developed on the state of Iran's nuclear program in 2008 and 2009. But the IAEA's director general at the time, Mohamed ElBaradei, ruled against making the report public, according to diplomats based in Vienna, due to concerns the information wasn't sufficiently substantiated.
Successive U.S. and European governments have pressed the IAEA to take a more aggressive public line on the state of Iran's nuclear program. Officials in President George W. Bush's administration complained that Mr. ElBaradei had softened reports on Iran's nuclear program in hopes of brokering a diplomatic agreement with Tehran, a charge he denied.
U.S. officials successfully lobbied last year for Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano to succeed Mr. ElBaradei. As Mr. Amano has taken a tougher line on Iran, relations between Tehran and the IAEA have deteriorated.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday accused Mr. Amano of being a pawn of Washington. "It's unfortunate that they have put a person as the head of this agency who has no will of his own," Mr. Ahmadinejad said in a speech to Iranian students.
The report is based on more than 1,000 pages of documents generated by the IAEA itself, from Iran and from more than 10 member states of the U.N. agency. "All of this information, taken together, gave rise to concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program," the IAEA report said.
The White House had already been seeking to impose new sanctions on Iran in retaliation for an alleged plot by Tehran—uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last month—to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington.
U.S. officials wouldn't say Tuesday what additional measures the U.S. might pursue, and said they would allow Tehran some time to respond more substantively to the IAEA's report.
"We don't take anything off the table when we look at sanctions," said a senior U.S. official. "We fully anticipate ratcheting up our pressure."
The White House is facing its own increasing pressure to act more aggressively toward Iran—from Capitol Hill, as well as from its closest allies in the Middle East, including Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israeli officials in recent days have publicly warned that they might take military action against Iran if a more robust international effort doesn't materialize to contain Tehran.
Arab states in the Persian Gulf have also been seeking an acceleration of arms purchases from the U.S. to thwart what they call Iran's increasingly aggressive actions in their region.
"I am not optimistic about the ability to drum up the desire" for crippling sanctions on Iran, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio on Tuesday. "We can't forget that the government of Israel is ultimately responsible for its own future."
While some of Iran's nuclear work could have civilian purposes, the IAEA report said much of it is "specific to nuclear weapons" development.
The report said Iran's Defense Ministry allegedly oversaw a formalized and coordinated nuclear-weapons research program from 1998 to 2003. But Tehran razed the offices of the program's headquarters and moved to disperse its nuclear-weapons research following the initial exposure of some of its clandestine activities in 2002.
The IAEA said a senior Iranian defense official, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, is a constant in the apparent weapons work, moving in recent years from the Defense Ministry's offices to Malek Ashtar University in Tehran. From here, the Iranian official has continued to oversee a range of studies relevant in nuclear-weapons work, the agency said.
The report appeared to contradict the U.S. government's most recent intelligence assessment on Iran's nuclear program from 2007, which concluded that Tehran suspended its weapons research in 2003. The assessment said Iran made this decision, in part, in response to the U.S. government's invasion of neighboring Iraq the same year.
But the IAEA detailed a number of areas where Iran allegedly continued to conduct experimentation after 2003. One key area of continuing research is in the computer modeling of nuclear detonations, which is used in developing warheads. The IAEA said Tehran conducted research in 2008 and 2009 on developing the core of such a warhead, which would use highly enriched uranium.
The IAEA report said Iran has produced enough fissile material for as many as four bombs, if it is enriched further to weapons grade.
The IAEA also said evidence it gathered indicates that Iran has continued research into triggering devices for nuclear bombs. The report said Tehran acknowledged to the agency in 2008 that it had developed such technology for civil and conventional military applications. But the IAEA said Iran "has not explained…its own need for application for such detonators."
U.S. officials declined to say if the IAEA's report would cause U.S. intelligence agencies to reassess their conclusions on Iran.
"The report hasn't concluded that [Iran] put in place the same structured program" as before, said an administration official. "It also doesn't say how advanced it is."
The report also details what the IAEA believes has been expansive support for Iran's nuclear program from overseas scientists. Though the IAEA didn't name all of these alleged collaborators, diplomats briefed on the report said they include North Korea, the nuclear-smuggling network run by the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan and a senior Russian nuclear scientist.
The report reaffirmed long-held beliefs that Mr. Khan sold centrifuges for uranium enrichment to Iran. But it also raised concerns that Tehran may have also obtained warhead designs from the Pakistani official.
Officials briefed on the report also said the IAEA believes North Korea is the foreign government named in the report as assisting Tehran in conducting computer modeling of nuclear detonations.
They said a former Russian nuclear scientist, Vyacheslav Danilenko, is the official cited in the report as making a string of visits to Tehran from 1996 through 2002 to help Iran develop a high-explosive initiation system, which can be used to trigger a nuclear device. The IAEA said they were told during consultations that this work was for non-nuclear applications.
The report's publication is expected to set off another round of deliberations among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council on what measures to take next on Iran. Diplomats at the IAEA said Russia and China had lobbied against making public the latest report for fear that it will make Tehran more recalcitrant in its dealings with the international community.
The U.N. Security Council has passed four rounds of sanctions against Iran since 2006 that have significantly hampered Iran's ability to conduct business and access the international financial system. But few Iran experts believe the current measures will be enough to cause Iran's theocratic leadership to engage in serious negotiations with the U.S. on constraining its nuclear work.
Iran has taken an increasingly aggressive posture in recent days in response to Israeli threats and in anticipation of the IAEA report. Senior officials in Iran's elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have said they will directly target U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan if they are attacked by Israel.
They have also said they would deploy naval vessels in the Gulf of Mexico if the U.S. takes a more aggressive posture in the Persian Gulf.
"The American military should not forget that its generals are present in the region," Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, senior Revolutionary Guards officer, told Iranian state media Tuesday. "For every one of us killed, we will kill 10 of them."
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