U.N. Agency Says It Got Few Answers From Iran on Nuclear Activity and Weapons 
By Elaine Sciolino
February 28, 2006
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/28/international/middleeast/28iran.html

VIENNA, Feb. 27 — Iran has accelerated its nuclear fuel enrichment activities and rejected demands of international inspectors to explain evidence that had raised suspicions of a nuclear weapons program, according to a report by a United Nations agency. That could make it easier for the United States and its European partners to seek punitive action in the Security Council.
But the assessment, contained in an 11-page report released Monday by Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, made no definitive judgment about whether the program was peaceful, or intended to create the capacity to produce weapons. That surprised some governments and even some agency officials who had predicted that the report would be harsher.
The report laid out a long list of fresh examples in which it said Iran had stonewalled the agency, responding with incomplete and ambiguous answers and refusing repeated requests to turn over documents and information.
It called it regrettable and a matter of concern that Iran has not been more forthcoming after three years of intensive agency verification.
In an indication that Iran is prepared to take a tougher line against the agency and even against the United States, Iran told inspectors on Sunday that documents obtained by American intelligence suggesting links between Iran's nuclear activities and its missile program were forgeries, the report said.
The documents make reference to a secretive entity in Iran called the Green Salt Project, and seem to suggest that the project established administrative interconnections between Iran's uranium processing, high explosives and missile warhead design. If accurate, the documents would be the first to tie what Iran says is its purely civilian nuclear program to military activities. 
But those allegations are based on false and fabricated documents, Iranian authorities were quoted as telling an agency inspection team on Sunday, an assertion that came after months of pledges by Iran to provide information on the matter. They also declared that no such project had ever existed.
The report, released to the 35 countries that sit on the agency's decision-making board, also left unclear whether the Iranians had taken possession of copies of the disputed Green Salt documents, which would seem to be a necessary step if Tehran were to subject them to serious forensic examination and pass judgment on their authenticity.
But the shift in the Iranian position seemed intended to call into question the reliability of American intelligence reports on Iran, and to remind the international community of the far-reaching American intelligence failure in overstating Iraq's nuclear program in the months before the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
A senior administration official in Washington, who declined to speak on the record because of the delicate nature of the intelligence, said that Iran had been shown only a limited number of documents from the laptop computer that American intelligence agencies had obtained from an Iranian source.
We knew they would question the credibility of the intelligence, the official said, but the other countries that have seen it can judge for themselves.
In another development, Iran informed the agency that it was planning at the end of this year to set up 3,000 centrifuges that enrich uranium as it moves toward industrial-scale enrichment, ignoring international demands that it return to a freeze on its uranium enrichment activities at its vast facility at Natanz, the report said. That would be enough to make a weapon if all technical problems were resolved. 
The site is eventually to hold 50,000 of the machines, which would give Iran the technical ability to purify large amounts of uranium for either nuclear reactors or atomic bombs.
The report also documents a number of contradictions between claims by Iranian authorities and the inspectors' evidence.
An example of the serious discrepancies found by the atomic agency center on Iranian research on plutonium, one of the main fuels of nuclear arms. The report said the agency took a number of Iranian plutonium disks to Vienna for analysis of their makeup.
The investigators found a major disagreement between the disks and what was said to be the solution from which they were made. The analysis revealed that eight of the disks had significantly lower amounts of plutonium 240. That finding is important because plutonium 240 is considered a pollutant in the making of nuclear arms, and nuclear engineers work hard to limit its presence.
The report made no link between the plutonium 240 finding and its potential usefulness for making nuclear arms. Rather, in the agency's usual understated style, it simply noted the discrepancy.
The story is not as straight as it has been presented to us, said a senior official with knowledge of the agency's investigation.
As for its enrichment activities, the report added that Iran forged ahead with the program by feeding uranium gas in mid-February into a research cascade of 10 centrifuges that process it into enriched uranium. On Feb. 22, it said, Iran tested a 20-machine cascade that is now ready to receive the uranium gas.
Under a November 2004 agreement with Britain, France and Germany, Iran agreed voluntarily to freeze all of its uranium conversion, enrichment and reprocessing activities.
But when promised economic and political rewards in exchange for the freeze were not forthcoming, Iran broke the agreement, first by restarting uranium conversion last August and then by beginning tests of enriching uranium on Feb. 11, feeding the toxic, gaseous form of the element into a single centrifuge and then expanding the program.
Despite the wealth of new information about Iran's nuclear activities, the report concluded that the agency has not seen any diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. It reiterated, however, the analysis of past reports that it is not at this point in time in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran.
The United States, Britain, France and a number of other governments have been strongly critical of Dr. ElBaradei for not taking a tougher stance against Iran.
But he is said to be determined to have the agency continue to play a leading role in negotiations with Iran and have as much access on the ground in Iran as possible, and is reluctant to turn Iran against him or the agency he heads, said a number of Vienna-based officials who speak with him regularly.
In recent weeks, he has even told member states that the world might have to accept the fact that Iran will not capitulate to agency demands that it renew a freeze of its enrichment activities, a stance that has enraged the United States in particular, the officials said.
But Dr. ElBaradei's report is certain to be used by the United States and the Europeans to push for a resolution critical of Iran when the agency board meets next week. On Feb. 4, the board voted to report Iran's nuclear case to the Security Council, a move that reflects increasing suspicion around the world that Iran is determined to develop nuclear weapons.
William J. Broad contributed reporting from New York for this article, and David E. Sanger from Washington.