From Associated press, 31/10/08, by GEORGE JAHN [my own emphasis added - SL]:
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Iran has recently tested ways of recovering highly enriched uranium from waste reactor fuel in a covert bid to expand its nuclear program, according to an intelligence assessment made available to The Associated Press.
The intelligence, provided by a member of the 145-nation International Atomic Energy Agency, also says a report will soon be submitted to the Iranian leadership for a decision on whether to go ahead with the project.
... the alleged experiment appears plausible — if not as a fast track to weapons capability then as an incremental step that could move it further along that path.
....The 3-page intelligence report, drawn from Iranian sources within the country, says the source material would be highly enriched — some at above 90 percent, the rest at 20 percent.
In contrast, Iran's enrichment program under constant IAEA monitoring has churned out material that is less than 5 percent enriched, in line with the fuel needs of modern reactors....
...The laboratories and the Tehran Nuclear Research Center, where the research reactor is located, have figured in numerous experiments that have raised the suspicion level about Iran, including plutonium separation attempts that Iran owned up to only after it was pressed by IAEA experts probing its nuclear past.
If the information is accurate then Iran is "trying to get their nose in the tent" of reprocessing material potentially suitable for a warhead, said David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security tracks suspect secret proliferators.
....Both Albright and a senior Vienna-based diplomat agreed that the alleged experiment roughly jibed with Saddam's efforts to chemically process research reactor fuel to recover enriched uranium — in the case of Baghdad, enough and at a sufficiently high level of enrichment to make a bomb.
... Iranian reprocessing plans could be part of Tehran's attempts to push the nuclear envelope.
U.S.-led efforts for swift and tough U.N. sanctions on Iran have been consistently blocked by Russia and China, which have strategic and economic ties to Tehran. It also has support of developing countries traditionally suspicious of Washington.
That has allowed the Islamic Republic to forge ahead with uranium enrichment, defying weak and delayed sanctions and moving further toward developing weapons capability — now anywhere from six months to several years away, depending on the source.
Iran may be banking on further international inaction if it announces it will reprocess spent fuel from the TNRC reactor, perhaps arguing that it will need it as a source for new fuel for that facility .... If allowed to do so, it will have moved another step ahead on the path to being able to develop warhead material.
"It's the idea that Iran wants to slowly develop nuclear weapons capability under the tent and it does it slowly so that people will accept it," said Albright. "It's (a matter of) keeping your head down, moving slowly and deliberately and winning at each step."
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