While press reports claimed that Iran had virtually frozen its nuclear program in the last few months, they missed a key point made in the IAEA’s latest report.
The report states that “preparatory installation work” had been completed for another 12 IR-2m cascades at Natanz. A “cascade” contains 164 centrifuges.
That means Iran has laid the groundwork for another nearly 2,000 advanced centrifuges.
Thus, not only has Iran been enriching more uranium, it has also been quietly working on a big expansion of its Natanz facility.
A sharp increase in the number of fast centrifuges totally changes the scenario regarding the importance of 20%-enriched uranium.
As Gary Samore, who served on the U.S. National Security Council during President Obama’s first term, has recently warned: “Ending production of 20%-enriched uranium is not sufficient to prevent breakout because Iran can produce nuclear weapons using low-enriched uranium and a large number of centrifuge machines.”
{Andy Heller-Matzav.com Newscenter}
