U.N. Report Details ‘Credible’ Case that Iran is Working Toward a Nuclear Weapon
United Nations weapons inspectors released a trove of new evidence on Tuesday that they say makes a “credible” case that “Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device” and that the project may still be under way.
The long-awaited report, the harshest judgment that the International Atomic Energy Agency has ever issued in its decade-long struggle to pierce the secrecy surrounding the Iranian program, has already rekindled a debate among the Western allies and Israel about whether increased diplomatic pressure, sanctions, sabotage or military action could stop Iran’s program.
The report offered no estimate of how long it would be until Iran would be able to produce a nuclear weapon. But it laid out the case that Iran had moved far beyond the blackboard to create computer models of nuclear explosions in 2008 and 2009, and conducted experiments on nuclear triggers. The report said that starting in 2000, the Iranians constructed a vessel to conduct those tests, which was not shown to inspectors who visited the site five years later.
Those tests “are strong indicators of possible weapon development,” it said.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/world/un-details-case-that-iran-is-at-work-on-nuclear-device.html?emc=na
