IAEA concludes Iran experimenting with nuclear warhead designs

09 November 2009

Senior experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have concluded that Iran has already acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” nuclear weapon. The IAEA asked Tehran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’ reports. According to documentation in a dossier compiled by the IAEA, scientists in Iran may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was described by nuclear experts as "breathtaking" and added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.

The technology allows for the production of smaller and simpler warheads compared with older models and makes it easier to put a nuclear warhead on a missile. Documentation referring to experiments testing a two-point detonation design are part of the evidence of a nuclear weapons program gathered by the IAEA and presented to Iran for its response. The dossier, titled "Possible Military Dimensions of Iran's Nuclear Program", is drawn in part from reports submitted to it by western intelligence agencies.

The agency has in the past treated such reports with skepticism, particularly after the Iraq war. But its outgoing director-general, Mohamed ElBaradei, said the evidence of Iranian weaponization "appears to have been derived from multiple sources over different periods of time, appears to be generally consistent, and is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed that it needs to be addressed by Iran".

Extracts from the dossier have been published previously, but it was not previously known that it included documentation on such an advanced warhead. Iran has rejected most of the IAEA material on weaponization as forgeries, but admitted carrying out tests on multiple high-explosive detonations synchronized to within a microsecond. Tehran has told the agency that there is a civilian application for such tests, but has so far not provided any evidence for them. Western weapons experts say there are no such civilian applications.

In December 2007, the US National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran had ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. However, in recent months, several European countries disputed that conclusion, saying weaponzation work had been resumed. A senior American official said last week that the United States was now re-evaluating its 2007 conclusions.

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