Excerpts from previous status reports, by subject
Removed on June 27, 2006
Iran resumes uranium enrichment
In early January 2006, Iran announced plans to resume uranium enrichment.
By mid-February, Iran had curtailed access to nuclear sites by IAEA
inspectors and had begun running uranium gas through centrifuges at
the Natanz pilot enrichment plant. As the IAEA meeting in late February
drew to a close, and it became clear that Iran would be unable to avoid
the Security Council, the head of Iran’s delegation warned that "the
United States may have the power to cause harm and pain, but it is
also susceptible to harm and pain." A few days later, on March
12, Iran finally rejected a compromise that would have moved its enrichment
work to Russian soil.
The IAEA was forced to yield control of Iran’s nuclear dossier to the U.N. Security Council on March 8, after struggling for three years to investigate Iran’s nuclear work on its own. Whether the Council will convince Iran to reverse course and reinstate its enrichment freeze is far from clear—especially if veto-wielding countries like Russia and China continue to oppose applying pressure.
U.N. Security Council statement
After three weeks of deliberation, the U.N. Security Council agreed on
March 29, 2006 to a statement giving Iran 30 days to stop enriching
uranium. At the end of this period, on April 28, the IAEA was to report
back to the Council on whether Iran had complied. One day after the
Council’s statement on March 29, Iran’s IAEA representative
said that “the enrichment matter is not reversible,” and
that it was “impossible to go back to suspension.” In addition,
Iran had installed a 164-centrifuge cascade at its Natanz pilot enrichment
plant, some two months earlier than the IAEA had predicted.
The Council’s statement also called on Iran to put on hold a heavy water reactor project, to accept the IAEA’s Additional Protocol on enhanced inspections, and to allow Agency inspectors access to sites, individuals and documents that would further their investigation of Iran’s nuclear past. To accommodate Russia and China, the final version of the request dropped language calling Iran’s nuclear effort a “threat to international peace and security.” The United States and Europe wanted that phrase, but Russia and China feared it could trigger sanctions. In comments on March 30, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “Russia does not believe that sanctions could achieve the purpose of settlement of various issues.”
Iran’s nuclear dossier was first taken up by the Security Council in early March 2006, but the move was set in motion months earlier. In September 2005, the IAEA found Iran in “non-compliance” with its nuclear obligations—language which, according to the Agency’s statute, necessitates involving the Security Council. However, in the hope of avoiding escalation, the IAEA put off sending Iran to the Council in September, and again in February. In a resolution passed on February 4, the IAEA gave Iran one month to comply with a series of requests. Its failure to do so finally landed it in the Security Council.
Incremental approach to
sanctions
The IAEA has been troubled by Iran’s effort to delay and inhibit
the work of the Agency’s inspectors. In 2004, Iran postponed
a visit by the IAEA aimed at verifying Iran’s pledge not to manufacture
or assemble centrifuges. The visit—initially planned for mid-March—did
not take place until mid-April, and even then the inspectors were either
delayed or prevented from visiting several centrifuge workshops. And
the Agency was not granted access to the Parchin military complex south
of Tehran until January 2005, some eight months after its initial request.
During the visit, inspectors were only allowed into certain parts of
the sprawling site, and were limited in where they could take environmental
samples. It then took nine months and repeated IAEA requests for Iran
to allow inspectors to make a follow-up visit. This visit was conducted
on November 1, 2005.
And earlier, after receiving what was expected to be a full accounting of Iran’s nuclear program in October 2003, the Agency discovered that Iran had failed to include any information about its work with the more advanced P-2 centrifuge. Then in early 2004, after Iran admitted to a small-scale P-2 program, the IAEA concluded that based on Iran’s procurement attempts, its P-2 program was far more extensive than previously admitted. Earlier still, when IAEA inspectors were finally allowed to take environmental samples from the workshop at Kalaye in August 2003—after asking to do so for several months—they reported that there had been “considerable modification of the premises” since their visit earlier that year.
U.S. military strikes?
As Iran’s nuclear capability has grown, reports have emerged
that the United States is studying military strikes against Iran. Though
no such action appears imminent, two main options are reportedly being
considered. The first would be limited to nuclear facilities, including
the enrichment plant at Natanz and the uranium conversion facility
at Isfahan. The second would include military and political targets
in addition to nuclear ones, including Iranian government sites, air
defenses and air force. A third, more limited option would be to strike
a single "choke point" that would be sufficient to disrupt
Iran’s nuclear progress. U.S. planners are also studying how
to penetrate Iranian nuclear sites that are hardened, buried or camouflaged.
According to reports in the Washington Post and the New Yorker, Pentagon
planners are even contemplating the use of tactical nuclear weapons,
an allegation U.S. President George W. Bush dismissed as “wild
speculation.”