U.S. to lodge complaint against IAEA chief over Iran

Associated Press
May 22, 2007
International Herald Tribune
Original Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/22/europe/EU-GEN-Nuclear-Iran.php

VIENNA, Austria: The U.S., angered by suggestions from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran should be allowed to keep some elements of its uranium enrichment program, wants to formally protest his statements, diplomats said Tuesday
They said such a concession could undermine U.N. Security Council attempts to pressure Tehran to fully scrap enrichment.
The diplomats, who demanded anonymity because of the delicate nature of the issue, spoke to The Associated Press before the release of a report from IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei that could act as a trigger for a third set of Security Council sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear defiance.
Their revelations exposed a hardening of positions on how to deal with Iran's determination to expand its enrichment program, a potential pathway to nuclear arms. The diplomats said the U.S. was considering a formal diplomatic protest.
ElBaradei has gone public with his view that it is too late to try and force Tehran to scrap its enrichment program — as demanded by the Security Council — and has argued instead for containing it with a view to preventing its further expansion.
I believe that demand has been superseded by events, ElBaradei told Spain's ABC newspaper. Instead, he reportedly said, the important thing now is to concentrate on Iran not taking it to industrial scale.
Iran's ultimate stated goal is running 54,000 centrifuges to churn out enriched uranium — enough for dozens of nuclear weapons a year, should Tehran choose to go along that route.
Some members of the agency's decision-making 35-nation board share ElBaradei's view. But the United States and its closest board allies, including Britain, France, Australia, Canada and Japan, fear such comments could weaken unified Security Council resolve on punishing Iran with further sanctions should Wednesday's report fulfill expectations and state that Tehran continues to defy the council on enrichment and other nuclear activities.
Agency officials refused to comment on details of the report ahead of its release to board members and the Security Council. But it was expected to confirm information leaked over the past weeks that Iran has continued to defy the council and has expanded its enrichment activities instead of suspending them.
With the council's deadline for Iranian compliance ending on Thursday, the report could set the stage for new, tightened sanctions against the Islamic republic.
Uranium gas, spun in linked centrifuges, can result in either low-enriched fuel suitable to generate power, or the weapons-grade material that forms the fissile core of nuclear warheads.
Iran insists it wants to master the technology only to meet future power needs and argues it is entitled to enrich under a Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty provision giving all pact members the right to develop peaceful programs.
But suspicions bred by nearly two decades of clandestine nuclear activities, including questionable black-market acquisitions of equipment and blueprints that appear linked to weapons plans, have led to two sets of U.N. sanctions over its refusal to freeze enrichment.
The report, said the diplomats, would likely confirm that Iran has assembled more than 1,600 centrifuges at its underground enrichment hall at Natanz, and is running about 1,300 of them, producing small amounts of uranium enriched to about 5 percent.
While that level is far below the 90 percent needed to produce weapons, the number of centrifuges running — and producing enriched material — is grounds for concern for the Security Council because it documents an expanding and functioning program. The last report from ElBaradei three months ago had put the number of connected centrifuges at around 1,000 and specified that no enrichment had begun.
One of the diplomats said the report would additionally likely suggest that Iranian experts had ironed out many of the glitches hamstringing enrichment efforts only a few months ago that had caused breakdowns in experimental, smaller-scale centrifuge operations.
This is a program that is well on its way to full development, he said. And if they can enrich to 5 percent, there is no potential limit to how high they can enrich.
The U.S. mission to the IAEA had no immediate comment beyond confirming that mission head Gregory L. Schulte was in Washington for consultations. Diplomats at other missions speculated those meetings would likely review how much support U.S. efforts to launch a formal complaint against ElBaradei would have from other board members.
ElBaradei's views carry weight with nonaligned board members traditionally supportive of Iran.
But the Americans were also apparently concerned that his statements — which essentially urge a new definition of suspension that would allow Iran to keep some elements of its program — could exacerbate traditional splits between Russia and China and the United States, Britain and France, the three other permanent Security Council members.
While the western council members have traditionally pushed for harsh measures, opposition by Moscow and Beijing has led them to settle for watered-down sanctions less rigid than they originally proposed since the first set was agreed on Dec. 23.
The dispute over suspension was not the first between ElBaradei and Washington.
The agency chief and Nobel Peace Prize winner locked horns with the U.S. administration in a very public manner in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war, when he challenged U.S. assertions that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The Americans subsequently lobbied — unsuccessfully — to try to prevent his re-election to a third term two years ago.http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/22/europe/EU-GEN-Nuclear-Iran.php?page=1