Yet another reminder: Iran still closing in on bomb.

Yet another reminder: Iran still closing in on bomb.(TheOptimisticConservative).

So, who’s up for another round of graphs showing that Western diplomacy, sanctions, and technology have yet to out-maneuver Iran in the mullahs’ push for a bomb?

A long-time IAEA expert, Olli Heinonen, predicted this past week that, using her newer, advanced centrifuges, Iran could produce enough high-enriched uranium (HEU) for a first nuclear warhead in as little as two weeks from making the decision to go for the “breakout.”  (See here also.)

For clarity, this does not mean Iran is “two weeks from a bomb.”  It means that once Iran decides to take the final enrichment step, it could take as little as two weeks to bring enough of her current stock of 19.75-percent-enriched uranium to HEU purity, or above 90 percent. 

That estimate shortens the already brief month or so projected by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), one of the chief think tanks tracking Iran’s nuclear progress.  (The longer projection assumes Iran would use the older centrifuges that form the backbone of her current mass-scale enrichment effort.)

When might Iran make the “breakout” decision?  We don’t know.  We do know that the three graphs below, which bring us up to date on Iran’s enrichment activities, are bracketed by intelligence on Iran’s nuclear-weapons and missile programs.  Let’s review it briefly.

As early as 2004, the U.S. had intelligence indicating Iran had worked with designs for an implosion-type nuclear warhead, and had probably done high-explosive testing for a detonation device at Parchin, southeast of Tehran, in the early 2000s.  Additional intelligence at the time indicated design studies for fitting a nuclear warhead on a Shahab-III type medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM).

As early as 2006, Western analysts identified an underground missile-silo complex being constructed at Tabriz.  Construction began at least as early as 2003, but may have started even earlier, in the 1990s.  (See pp. 28-30 of this Congressional Research Service report from 2012.)

Recent campaign statements by new Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator from 2003-2005, indicate that Iran’s installation and use of centrifuges for uranium enrichment were much more extensive and advanced during that period than the UN’s IAEA monitoring agency knew.

In fact, IAEA’s knowledge appears to have been at least two years behind the timeline laid out by Rouhani.  This should give us pause in viewing all subsequent assessments, including the ones reflected in the graphs below, which derive their information from IAEA inspections.Read and see the full story here.