En hemmelig IAEA-rapport basert på både eksterne og interne kilder, konkluderer med at Iran har gjort store skritt på veien mot å lage atomvåpen og nå har nok informasjon til å kunne fremstille en funksjonsdyktig atombombe.
IAEAs leder, Mohamad ElBaradei, har forsøkt å holde rapporten tilbake. ElBaradei har holdt seg til en offisiell linje om at IAEA ikke vet om Iran forsøker å skaffe seg atomvåpen. Men det skal det være liten tvil om, ifølge ekspertene bak rapporten.
George W. Bush fikk presentert en såkalt National Intelligence Estimate som sa at Iran hadde suspendert den hemmelige delen av atomprogrammet i 2003.
Men stadig flere land tviler på denne suspensjonen, også amerikanerne selv.
But the report’s conclusions, described by senior European officials, go well beyond the public positions taken by several governments, including the United States.
Two years ago, American intelligence agencies published a detailed report concluding that Tehran halted its efforts to design a nuclear weapon in 2003. But in recent months, Britain has joined France, Germany and Israel in disputing that conclusion, saying the work has been resumed.
A senior American official said last week that the United States was now re-evaluating its 2007 conclusions.
Iran skal selv ha foretatt tester som gjør det mulig å fremstille en avansert bombe. Iran har bla. utviklet en avansert løsning for ekspolosjonen:
Weapons based on the principle of implosion are considered advanced models compared with the simple gun-type bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima. They use a blast wave from a sphere of conventional explosives to compress a ball of bomb fuel into a supercritical mass, starting the atomic chain reaction and progressing to the fiery blast. Implosion designs, compact by nature, are considered necessary for making nuclear warheads small and powerful enough to fit atop a missile.
The excerpts of the analysis also suggest the Iranians have done a wide array of research and testing to perfect nuclear arms, like making high-voltage detonators, firing test explosives and designing warheads.
