IAEA reports Iran n-progress but US sees no bomb threat

Atomic watchdogs report says Iran has speeded up fuel production

International nuclear inspectors reported on Friday that Iran was moving more rapidly to produce nuclear fuel than many outsiders expected,at a deep underground site that Israel and the United States have said is better protected from attack than Irans older facilities.

The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency indicated that for the first time,Iran had begun producing fuel inside the new facility,in a mountain near Qum. The agencys inspectors found in their most recent visits that over the past three months,Iran had tripled its production capacity for a more purified type of fuel that is far closer to what is needed to make the core of a nuclear weapon.

The report is likely to inflame the debate over whether Iran is nearing what Israels defence minister,Ehud Barak,calls entering a zone of immunity. The phrase refers to a vaguely defined point beyond which Iran could potentially produce weapon fuel without fear of an air attack.

Iran showed inspectors the progress they had made at the Fordo facility,as part of the regular inspection of declared nuclear sites. They seemed eager to demonstrate that despite sanctions,sabotage and UNSC resolutions,they were forging ahead in building a facility with a capability they insist is purely for energy production and medical research. But the Iranians know that this facility,under 250 feet of granite,is the one that worries Israel and the West the most,and the resources that Iran is putting into equipping it leaves considerable ambiguity about their intent.

For years,the Iranians have refused to answer questions raised by the inspectors about what the IAEA delicately calls possible military dimensions of the Iranian program evidence that some work has been conducted on warhead designs,trigger devices and similar technologies that strongly suggest that the country is contemplating using its fuel for weapons.

When Obama and other Western leaders first made public the discovery of the new facility in 2009,US officials said they believed that its exposure meant it would never be used. However,the report on Friday indicated that 696 centrifuges the tall,silvery machines that enrich uranium by spinning it at supersonic speeds have been installed. An additional 2,088 have been partially installed,meaning the facility is approaching its design capacity.

The report also described how Iran has refused to answer questions raised in the IAEAs last report about experiments that could be linked to nuclear weapons. Inspectors were told they could not visit a site called Parchin,where inspectors suspect work was done on conventional explosives that can be used to trigger a warhead.