The U.N. atomic agency found traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian site linked to the country's defense ministry, diplomats said Friday, adding to concerns that Tehran was hiding activities aimed at making nuclear arms.
The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential information, said the findings were preliminary and still had to be confirmed through other lab tests. But they said the density of enrichment appeared to be close to or above the level used to make nuclear warheads...
(Never saw this coming, did you?)
...To argue that it never enriched uranium domestically to weapons grade, it cites the IAEA's tentative conclusion last year that weapons-grade traces collected from other sites within the country with no suspected ties to that military came in on equipment from Pakistan.
The origin of the samples now under perusal created some concern in that regard.
One of the diplomats told The Associated Press that the samples came from equipment that can be used in uranium-enriching centrifuges at a former research center at Lavizan-Shian. The center is believed to have been the repository of equipment bought by the Iranian military that could be used in a nuclear weapons program.
The United States alleges Iran had conducted high-explosive tests that could have a bearing on developing nuclear weapons at the site.
The State Department said in 2004 that Lavizan's buildings had been dismantled and topsoil had been removed in attempts to hide nuclear weapons-related experiments. The agency subsequently confirmed that the site had been razed.
In an April 28 report to the U.N. Security Council and the IAEA's 35- nation board of governors, agency head Mohamed ElBaradei said the agency took samples from some of the equipment of the former Physics Research Center at Lavizan-Shian. The diplomat said the evaluation of those samples revealed the traces in question.
As I reported earlier, the Iranian 'Presidential Letter' to President Bush amounted to nothing more than a 'call to Islam', which Muslims are obliged to offer before declaring war. Now today we find out that weapons-grade Uranium traces have been found.
Take the blinders off people, this nutjob is serious.
Technorati Tags:
War, Military, Iran, Tehran, Ahmadinejad, Nuclear, weapons, uranium, enriched, weapons grade, Letter, Islam, Muslim, Haddith
