Iran's Nuke Admission

By Massimo Calabresi

Iran, under fire for its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons, has made some surprisingly forthright admissions in response to questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Sources familiar with Iran's declaration say the country has admitted that it enriched uranium at the Kalay-e electric plant outside Tehran in violation of its agreements with the IAEA. The revelation is part of massive disclosures Tehran made in an attempt to avoid threatened international sanctions for its nuclear activities. The disclosures may at least temporarily thwart U.S. efforts to bring more international pressure on the country over the nuclear issue. "Iran did give a load of information," says a State Department official. "It was very, very specific and very, very extensive."

But Iran's declaration is still incomplete and troubling, say those familiar with the report. Tehran did not adequately account for the presence of highly enriched uranium on some of the specialized centrifuges it has obtained, and it did not admit it ever intended to produce a nuclear weapon. That fuels fears that Iran still harbors nuclear ambitions, despite its pledge to foreign ministers from Germany, Britain and France last month to freeze the nuclear program. And it "raises suspicions that Iran has [another] hidden enrichment plant" or some other illicit supply of uranium, says David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

--By Massimo Calabresi