Iran Doubles Enriched-Uranium Stockpile, Goes Beyond 20%

Bloomberg.com

                     By Jonathan Tirone and Indira A.R. Lakshmanan – May 25, 2012 10:00 PM ET

Iran increased its output of enriched uranium that world powers are concerned may eventually be used for a nuclear weapon, according to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors.

While the United Nations agency verified that Iran hasn’t diverted its declared nuclear material for weapons use, the inspectors reiterated past statements that they can’t give assurances that Iran isn’t concealing nuclear activities.

The reactor building at the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran. Photographer: Majid Asgaripour/AFP/Getty Images

Iran almost doubled its stockpile of 20 percent medium- enriched uranium, to 145 kilograms (320 pounds), from 73.7 kilograms in February, the IAEA said yesterday in an 11-page report. Iran had tripled its production of the material in the three months ending Feb. 24.

IAEA inspectors reported they found the presence of particles of 27 percent-enriched uranium at Iran’s Fordo facility. The particles were a result of “technical reasons beyond the operator’s control,” Iran told the Vienna-based agency, which is looking into the matter. Uranium enriched over 20 percent is considered highly enriched, though most nuclear bombs use the heavy metal purified to 90 percent levels.

The report is the first since IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano returned from Iran on May 21 with a commitment from the Islamic republic’s government to improve cooperation with inspectors. While the Persian Gulf nation insists that its atomic work is peaceful, it has been under IAEA scrutiny since 2003 over evidence that it seeks nuclear-weapon capabilities.

‘A Glitch’

The uranium particles enriched to 27 percent could be the result of a transient condition that can occur when the material is fed into centrifuges, according to two senior international officials familiar with the investigation. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

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About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

2 Replies to “Iran Doubles Enriched-Uranium Stockpile, Goes Beyond 20%”

  1. Sadly, I am comforted by the distance that lays between me and those whose heaven and redemption lays in the scorched earth and mass graveyard of an Islamic lie….

    David Horowitz made a chilling observation when he spoke recently, at UCLA, of lighting up one of muhammad’s equalizers over Tel Aviv…..the evocation of images of millions dead…..the carnage……the misery…..all to satisfy the blood lust of the insatiable….

    This, if for no other reason, is my consent to engage these madmen with a strategy of a first strike…either with a low mega-tonnage tactical weapons strike or a program of drone actions….the end result in either case is to reduce the entire military complex of Iran to dust.

    Somehow I feel as if there will be no solution and the islamo-sympathizers in Washington will dither until its too late…..let us hope that the stewards of Israel are made of stronger stuff……stronger stuff gifted with great clarity of insight…..greater depth of resolve……..and maybe, just maybe, the Iranian people will storm the houses of power in Tehran and drag from them the human garbage that has enslaved them all……..to butcher the butchers and serving up some Mussolini-esque just deserts hang from lamp posts the lunatics whose madness has hijacked once proud Persians but somehow, I think not….

    So, perhaps the inevitable……one evening across the Negev desert comes a distant rumbling and curiously…..two suns in the sunset…..

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH4YEFkQ638

    Regards, Don Laird
    Edson, Alberta, Canada

    Then, if

  2. Israel may well make a first strike, the problem is that even if they use nukes they can’t be sure they have taken out the program, and without nukes they don’t have the assets to take out the program. Courage and skills aren’t enough, you need many more planes and missiles, planes and missiles Israel doesn’t have because of their size.

    Israel probably doesn’t have a choice but to hit, and despite the rhetoric coming from Obama and is Obots he isn’t going to attack and Iran knows this.