USA TODAY August 31, 2006
Analysis: Iran's brinkmanship raises calls for action, war concerns
By John Yaukey
WASHINGTON — Iran's refusal Thursday to stop nuclear research as the United Nations has demanded is part of a larger pattern of behavior that has prompted calls for a tougher U.S. stance against Tehran and raised concerns that a drumbeat for military action has started.
A senior American general recently for the first time accused Tehran of backing death squads in Iraq, which U.S. forces soon may be forced to confront.
Meanwhile, Iran has been staging war games that showcase its advancing missile capabilities while its leaders call for the eradication of Israel.
"If this continues, at some point the Israelis are going to say to us, either you take care of this with some well-placed bombs, or we'll have to," said John Pike, a military analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, which analyzes military arsenals and strategy.
A new report by a key House committee portrays Iran as a growing threat and lambastes the intelligence agencies for what it claims are overly cautious assessments of the Islamic Republic's weapons programs. The report is similar in tone to some of the rhetoric that led to the Iraq war.
Bush has said he remains committed to diplomacy through economic sanctions. But in a Thursday speech in Salt Lake City he stressed that "there must be consequences for Iran's defiance, and we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon."
Here's what Iran has been doing that's causing so much concern and how dangerous experts and military officials say it is based on official intelligence and United Nation's weapons inspections.
Enriching uranium
Iran is still in the early stages of uranium enrichment, which can be used to make energy and bombs.
Iranian scientists have enriched trace amounts of uranium in a cascade of 164 linked centrifuges, and a second cascade is under construction, according to a report issued Thursday by the International Atomic Energy Agency. It would require 1,500 centrifuges to produce enough material for a bomb in a year.
Physicist David Albright, a former nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq who has analyzed Iran's enrichment capability, concluded Iran is not likely to have enough enriched uranium for a weapon until at least 2009.
"They're not moving as fast as we thought, and we're not sure why," Albright said. "Maybe it's technical problems; maybe they don't want to rock the boat too much."
A National Intelligence Estimate on Iran completed last summer by the U.S. intelligence agencies, concluded it's "unlikely that Iran could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb before early to mid-next decade."
Iran is also capable of making uranium gas, the material that undergoes enrichment in the centrifuges. It already has enough gas to make 10-20 nuclear weapons, according to the IAEA.
Concealing key facilities
Satellite photos show underground construction at Iran's two most important nuclear facilities at Natanz and Isfahan, south of Tehran.
This would allow Iran to hide a nuclear weapons program and protect it from U.S. or Israeli airstrikes.
An earlier IAEA report raised troubling questions about what appears to be secretive research in casting uranium metal into hemispheres — a necessary step for making a uranium warhead.
Building heavy-water technology
Iran claims to have completed a heavy-water production facility in Arak, south of Tehran, and is scheduled to finish work on a heavy-water reactor to produce electricity nearby in 2009.
U.S. and European officials have called on Iran to stop this work, fearing it could also lead to a nuclear weapon.
The spent fuel from heavy-water reactors can be used to produce bomb-grade plutonium.
Albright estimated Iran wouldn't be capable of extracting plutonium from spent fuel for at least five to 10 years.
Developing missiles
Iran's nuclear capability is so worrisome in part because of the country's sophisticated missile research.
Iran's most advanced missile, the Shahab-3, has a range of about 800 miles, capable of reaching Israel, which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said should be eradicated.
The Jerusalem Post reported Israel responded recently with the purchase of two German-made Dolphin submarines capable of launching nuclear weapons. These would give Israel strike-back capability in the event of a nuclear attack that destroyed its command centers.
Backing Iraq's militias
For more than a year, the Pentagon has accused Iranian factions of supplying Iraq's Shiite militias and death squads but has stopped short of pointing a finger at the government in Tehran. That ended in late August.
"I think it's the policy of the central government in Iran to support the Shiite extremist groups in Iraq," Army Gen. Michael Barbero told reporters at the Pentagon.
So far, U.S. troops in Iraq have largely left the death squads and militias up to the Iraqis.
If American soldiers are sucked into confrontations with the militias, they could find themselves fighting Iranians as they try to cut supply lines. That could spark a wider U.S.-Iranian conflict.
© Copyright 2006, USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
