Iran moves closer to making a nuclear bomb
Pastor Dale Morgan
Iran moves closer to making a nuclear bomb*
By David Blair, Diplomatic Correspondent
Last Updated: 4:53pm BST 22/06/2007
Iran claimed today to have stockpiled 100kg of enriched uranium, enough
in theory to create two nuclear bombs of the kind that destroyed Hiroshima.
An exhibition in Teheran in 2005 to commemorate the Iran-Iraq war: Iran
has moved closer to acquiring the ability to build a bomb
A war exhibition held in Iran in 2005
The news will once again stoke fears that President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's regime is seeking to build a nuclear weapon.
Iran would need 50kg of weapons-grade uranium in order to make one
nuclear weapon equal in power to the one dropped by the Americans in 1945.
So far, the regime’s uranium has only been enriched to the level needed
for generating electricity in civilian nuclear power stations.
But if Iran chooses to enrich it to 84 per cent purity, it would reach
weapons-grade level and become the essential material for building a bomb.
Mustapha Pourmohammedi, Iran's interior minister, told the official news
agency that the moment of maximum international pressure on his country
had passed and that Teheran would press ahead with its nuclear programme.
"When the world saw that the nation is pursuing this goal with unity,
the world has surrendered. We have passed the dangerous moment," he said.
By storing such a high quantity of low-enriched uranium, President
Ahmadinejad's regime is widening its options.
It could choose to enrich the stockpiled uranium to weapons-grade level
in a matter of months – perhaps after formally withdrawing from the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty and breaking out of all international
safeguards.
Iran claims that its nuclear ambitions are entirely peaceful and
designed to do nothing more than generate electricity for its growing
population of 70 million. But western governments disbelieve this assertion.
Iran is defying three United Nations resolutions with its nuclear
programme. In spite of international pressure to halt the programme it
announced in April that it had started enriching uranium on an
"industrial scale".
Uranium is enriched using machines called centrifuges. These have now
been installed in Iran's nuclear plant at Natanz. A snap inspection by
the International Atomic Energy Agency last month found that 1,312
centrifuges were operating.
Iran's official target is to bring 3,000 into action – enough to produce
sufficient weapons-grade uranium for one bomb in about a year.