Report says nuclear work ongoing in Iran (We need a 6 page report from the IAEA to tell us that?)

VIENNA, Austria - Iran has expanded its uranium enrichment program instead of complying with a U.N. Security Council ultimatum to freeze it, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday in a finding that clears the way for harsher sanctions against Tehran.

"Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities," the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report.

Although its information was based on material available to it as of Feb. 17, a senior U.N. official familiar with Iran's nuclear file, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the issue, suggested the IAEA's conclusion remained valid as of Thursday.

The IAEA detailed recent activities showing Tehran expanding its enrichment efforts — setting up hundreds of uranium-spinning centrifuges in an underground hall and bringing nearly 9 tons of the gaseous feedstock into the facility in preparation for enrichment. It added that Iranian officials had informed the agency that they would expand their centrifuge installations to have thousands of them ready by May.

The conclusion — while widely expected — was important because it could serve as the trigger for the council to start deliberating on new sanctions meant to punish Tehran for its intransigence over its nuclear program.

In the report, written by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency also said the Islamic republic continues building both a reactor that will use heavy water and a heavy water production plant — also in defiance of the Security Council.

Both enriched uranium and plutonium produced by heavy water reactors can produce the fissile material used in nuclear warheads. Iran denies such intentions, saying it needs the heavy water reactor to produce radioactive isotopes for medical and other peaceful purposes and enrichment to generate energy.

The six-page report also said that agency experts remain "unable ... to make further progress in its efforts to verify fully the past development of Iran's nuclear program" due to lack of Iranian cooperation.

That, too, put it in violation of the Security Council, which on Dec. 23 told Tehran to "provide such access and cooperation as the agency requests to be able to verify ... all outstanding issues" within 60 days.

The report — sent both to the Security Council and the agency's 35 board member nations — set the stage for a fresh showdown between Iran and Western powers.

Even before it was issued, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. and its allies would use the Security Council and other "available channels" to bring Tehran back to negotiations over its nuclear program.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply concerned ... that the Iranian government did not meet the (Wednesday) deadline set by the Security Council."

"I urge again that the Iranian government should fully comply with the Security Council" as soon as possible, he told reporters in Vienna, saying Iran's nuclear activities had "great implications for peace and security, as well as nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction."

In addition to the sanctions, the U.S. government has been raising the pressure on Tehran on other fronts, from arresting Iranian officials in Iraq to persuading European governments and financial institutions to cut ties with the Islamic Republic.

Rice, speaking in Berlin, said U.S., European and Russian diplomats all want Iran back at the bargaining table.

"We reconfirmed we will use available channels and the Security Council to try to achieve that goal," she said following a breakfast meeting with her counterparts from Germany, Russia and the European Union.

The Security Council is demanding an immediate and unconditional stop to enrichment, after which European-led negotiations over an economic reward package could begin. Iran has long insisted it will not stop its nuclear activities as a precondition for negotiations.

In moderate remarks Wednesday directed at Washington — the key backer of tougher U.N. action — Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the dispute "has to be decided peacefully with the United States."

But other top Iranian officials used harsher language, and none showed signs of compromise on the main demand of the U.S. and other world powers — a halt to enrichment and related activities.

"The enemy is making a big mistake if it thinks it can thwart the will of the Iranian nation to achieve the peaceful use of nuclear technology," Iranian state TV's Web site quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying Wednesday.

With the United States bolstering its naval forces in the Gulf and cracking down on Iranians within Iraq it says are helping Shiite militias, concerns have grown that Washington might be planning military action.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said "the only sensible way" to solve the crisis was to pursue political solutions, but that he could not "absolutely predict every set of circumstances."

Still, "I know of nobody in Washington that is planning military action on Iran," Blair told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. "Iran is not Iraq. There is, as far as I know, no planning going on to make an attack on Iran and people are pursuing a diplomatic and political solution."

The Security Council sanctions targeted Iran's nuclear and missile programs and persons involved in them.

Discussions on a new resolution aimed at stepping up pressure on Iran to suspend enrichment were expected to start next week, a Security Council diplomat said in New York, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Part of the sanctions target companies suspected of involvement in Iran's nuclear program — a measure that an Iranian dissident group said Tehran was circumventing by renaming the companies and otherwise disguising them, or setting up new ones.

The National Council of Resistance in Iran said firms under sanctions that were renamed were the Farayand Technique Co. and the Pars Thrash Co. It named new companies set up to work on Iran's enrichment programs while avoiding sanctions as Tamin Tajhizat Sanayeh Hasteieh, Shakhes Behbood Sanaat and Sookht Atomi Reactorhaye Iran.

All are headed by Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's atomic energy programs, and some employ others on the Security Council's list of those involved in Iran's nuclear program, said the group, the political wing of the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, which advocates the overthrow of Iran's Islamic government.

There was no independent confirmation of the information provided by the group, which the United States and the European Union list as a terrorist organization. But it has revealed past secret Iranian nuclear activities subsequently verified by the IAEA or governments.

In Tehran on Thursday, 400 students burned British and Israeli flags and urged the government not to scale down the nuclear program.

Associated Press writers Anne Gearan in Berlin and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations in New York contributed to this report.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, from left, leave a news conference in Berlin on Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2007 after a meeting of the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers. The European Union, the U.S. the U.N. and Russia convened in Berlin on Wednesday in search of a way to advance stalled Middle East peace efforts amid strong skepticism about the Palestinians' planned unity government. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pose for the media before talks in Berlin February 22, 2007. REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz (GERMANY)

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei speaks to reporters in December 2006. UN chief Ban Ki-moon will hold talks Thursday on Iran's disputed nuclear program with the head of the UN atomic watchdog, who is expected to issue a damning report that could pave the way for tougher sanctions against Tehran(AFP/File/Yoshikazu Tsuno)

UN chief Ban Ki-moon will hold talks Thursday on Iran's disputed nuclear program with the head of the UN atomic watchdog, who is expected to issue a damning report that could pave the way for tougher sanctions against Tehran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, seen here on February 4, has vowed that Iran will continue its contentious nuclear drive(AFP/File/Atta Kenare)

Next of several steps. I sincerely hope FedGov doesn't use the WMD word again.

In this picture made available by the Austrian foreign ministry United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, right, shakes hands with Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei prior to a lunch given at the foreign ministry in Vienna, on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007. (AP Photo/Bernhard J. Holzner, handout)

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon adjusts his glasses during a news conference after a meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, in right photo, at the foreign ministry in Vienna, on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007. Ban Ki-moon arrived in Austria for a three-day visit. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)

OH...NO...Can't do that....

Related thread (it's from the BBC):

BBC: New tensions over Iran's nuclear plans ~ Analysis By Paul Reynolds

He mentions the Carriers....

9 posted on 02/22/2007 9:34:49 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (The DemonicRATS believe ....that the best decisions are always made after the fact.)

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