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IAEA Says Foreign Expertise Has Brought Iran to Threshold of Nuclear Capability

(Washington Post) Joby Warrick - Intelligence provided to UN nuclear officials shows that Iran's government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings. Documents and other records provide new details on the role played by a former Soviet weapons scientist who allegedly tutored Iranians over several years on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction. The records reinforce concerns that Iran continued to conduct weapons-related research after 2003 - when, U.S. intelligence agencies believe, Iranian leaders halted such experiments in response to international and domestic pressures. The new disclosures fill out the contours of an apparent secret research program that was more ambitious, more organized and more successful than commonly suspected. According to David Albright, a former IAEA official who has reviewed the intelligence files, one key breakthrough that has not been publicly described was Iran's success in obtaining design information for an R265 generator. The device is a hemispherical aluminum shell with an intricate array of high explosives that detonate with split-second precision. These charges compress a small sphere of enriched uranium or plutonium to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.
2011-11-07 00:00:00
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