Hummm.....
For links see article source....
Posted for fair use.....
http://csis.org/publication/rethinking-our-approach-irans-search-bomb
Rethinking Our Approach to Iran's Search for the Bomb
*
By Anthony H. Cordesman
May 7, 2012
We badly need to rethink our approach to Iran’s nuclear programs. We are putting far too much emphasis on Iran’s nuclear efforts without considering how these programs fit into Iran’s over military and strategic objectives. At the same time, we are placing too much emphasis on whether Iran has revived its formal nuclear program and the current shape of its nuclear facilities. The ironic result is to put too much emphasis on both the wrong form of arms control negotiations and preventive military strikes.
To begin, it is essential to understand that Iran has moved far beyond the point where it lacked the technology base to produce nuclear weapons, or where searching through the statements of senior Iranian officials provides any meaningful picture of its progress and intentions. Iran has pursued every major area of nuclear weapons development, has carried out programs that have already given it every component of a weapon except fissile material, and there is strong evidence that it has carried out programs to integrate a nuclear warhead on to its missiles.
The threat Iran’s nuclear efforts pose are not simply a matter of its present ability to enrich uranium to 20% U-235, and efforts to control its enrichment activities will not halt its ability to move forward in many areas even if its current enrichment facilities and stocks of highly enriched uranium are fully secured.
Iran’s efforts are part of a far broader range of efforts that have already brought it to the point where it can pursue nuclear weapons development through a range of compartmented and easily concealable programs without a formal weapons program, and even if it suspends enrichment activity. These are also programs that have been examined in depth in recent reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Understanding Iran’s Nuclear Progress to Date
Many of the details of Iran’s efforts, and the sources of that information, have to be kept classified. The IAEA has however, issued unclassified reports based on inputs from many member countries that clearly outline just how far Iran may have gotten.
The IAEA reports for May 24, 2011 noted seven major areas of concern that covered every major aspect of a nuclear-armed missile program:
o Neutron generator and associated diagnostics: experiments involving the explosive compression of uranium deuteride to produce a short burst of neutrons.
o Uranium conversion and metallurgy: producing uranium metal from fluoride compounds and its manufacture into components relevant to a nuclear device.
o High explosives manufacture and testing: developing, manufacturing and testing of explosive components suitable for the initiation of high explosives in a converging spherical geometry.
o Exploding bridgewire (EBW) detonator studies, particularly involving applications necessitating high simultaneity: possible nuclear significance of the use of EBW detonators.
o Multipoint explosive initiation and hemispherical detonation studies involving highly instrumented experiments: integrating EBW detonators in the development of a system to initiate hemispherical high explosive charges and conducting full scale experiments, work which may have benefitted from the assistance of foreign expertise.
o High voltage firing equipment and instrumentation for explosives testing over long distances and possibly underground: conducting tests to confirm that high voltage firing equipment is suitable for the reliable firing of EBW detonators over long distances.
o Missile re-entry vehicle redesign activities for a new payload assessed as being nuclear in nature: conducting design work and modeling studies involving the removal of the conventional high explosive payload from the warhead of the Shahab-3 missile and replacing it with a spherical nuclear payload.
The IAEA report for November 8, 2011 went further, and provided far more unclassified data than has been made available by any Western intelligence source or outside report. Its summary noted that, “The Agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program. After assessing carefully and critically the extensive information available to it, the Agency finds the information to be, overall, credible. The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. The information also indicates that prior to the end of 2003, these activities took place under a structured program, and that some activities may still be ongoing.”
It is the Military Annex to the November 8, 2011 report that provided the best unclassified overview of Iran’s nuclear efforts that has yet been made available. The Annex is long and complex – evidently so long and complex that some commentators on Iran’s nuclear programs never really seem to have read it. However, even a series of key excepts illustrate the scale of Iran’s military efforts, and provide an essential starting point for any assessment of Iran’s progress and intentions:
The History of Iran’s Programs
Since late 2002, the Director General has reported to the Board of Governors on the Agency’s concerns about the nature of Iran’s nuclear program. Such concerns coincided with the appearance in open sources of information that indicated that Iran was building a large underground nuclear related facility at Natanz and a heavy water production plant at Arak.
Between 2003 and 2004, the Agency confirmed a number of significant failures on the part of Iran to meet its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with respect to the reporting of nuclear material, the processing and use of undeclared nuclear material and the failure to declare facilities where the nuclear material had been received, stored and processed.
Specifically, it was discovered that, as early as the late 1970s and early 1980s, and continuing into the 1990s and 2000s, Iran had used undeclared nuclear material for testing and experimentation in several uranium conversion, enrichment, fabrication and irradiation activities, including the separation of plutonium, at undeclared locations and facilities.
….Between 2003 and early 2006, Iran submitted inventory change reports, provided design information with respect to facilities where the undeclared activities had taken place and made nuclear material available for Agency verification. Iran also acknowledged that it had utilized entities with links to the Ministry of Defence in some of its previously undeclared activities.
Iran acknowledged that it had had contacts with intermediaries of a clandestine nuclear supply network in 1987 and the early 1990s, and that, in 1987, it had received a handwritten one page document offering assistance with the development of uranium centrifuge enrichment technology, in which reference was also made to a reconversion unit with casting equipment. Iran further acknowledged that it had received a package of information related to centrifuge enrichment technology that also included a 15 page document (hereafter referred to as the “uranium metal document”) which Iran said it did not ask for and which describes, inter alia, processes for the conversion of uranium fluoride compounds into uranium metal and the production of hemispherical enriched uranium metallic components.
The Agency continued to seek clarification of issues with respect to the scope and nature of Iran’s nuclear program, particularly in light of Iran’s admissions concerning its contacts with the clandestine nuclear supply network, information provided by participants in that network and information which had been provided to the Agency by a Member State.
This last information, collectively referred to as the “alleged studies documentation”, which was made known to the Agency in 2005, indicated that Iran had been engaged in activities involving studies on a so-called green salt project, high explosives testing and the re-engineering of a missile re-entry vehicle to accommodate a new payload. All of this information, taken together, gave rise to concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.
…Between 2007 and 2010, Iran continued to conceal nuclear activities, by not informing the Agency in a timely manner of the decision to construct or to authorize construction of a new nuclear power plant at Darkhovin and a third enrichment facility near Qom (the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant). The Agency is still awaiting substantive responses from Iran to Agency requests for further information about its announcements, in 2009 and 2010 respectively, that it had decided to construct ten additional enrichment facilities (the locations for five of which had already been identified) and that it possessed laser enrichment technology.
The Agency has continued to receive, collect and evaluate information relevant to possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program. As additional information has become available to the Agency, the Agency has been able, notwithstanding Iran’s lack of engagement, to refine its analysis of possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.
The Management of Iran’s Programs
The Agency received information from Member States which indicates that, sometime after the commencement by Iran in the late 1980s of covert procurement activities, organizational structures and administrative arrangements for an undeclared nuclear program were established and managed through the Physics Research Centre (PHRC), and were overseen, through a Scientific Committee, by the Defence Industries Education Research Institute (ERI), established to coordinate defense R&D for the Ministry of Defence Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL). Iran has confirmed that the PHRC was established in 1989 at Lavisan-Shian, in Tehran. Iran has stated that the PHRC was created with the purpose of “preparedness to combat and neutralization of casualties due to nuclear attacks and accidents (nuclear defense) and also support and provide scientific advice and services to the Ministry of Defence”. Iran has stated further that those activities were stopped in 1998. In late 2003/early 2004, Iran completely cleared the site.
According to information provided by Member States, by the late 1990s or early 2000s, the PHRC activities were consolidated under the “AMAD Plan”. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh (Mahabadi) was the Executive Officer of the AMAD Plan, the executive affairs of which were performed by the “Orchid Office”. Most of the activities carried out under the AMAD Plan appear to have been conducted during 2002 and 2003.
The majority of the details of the work said to have been conducted under the AMAD Plan come from the alleged studies documentation which, as indicated in paragraph 6 above, refer to studies conducted in three technical areas: the green salt project; high explosives (including the development of exploding bridgewire detonators); and re-engineering of the payload chamber of the Shahab 3 missile re-entry vehicle.
According to the Agency’s assessment of the information contained in that documentation, the green salt project (identified as Project 5.13) was part of a larger project (identified as Project 5) to provide a source of uranium suitable for use in an undisclosed enrichment program. The product of this program would be converted into metal for use in the new warhead which was the subject of the missile re-entry vehicle studies (identified as Project 111). As of May 2008, the Agency was not in a position to demonstrate to Iran the connection between Project 5 and Project 111. However, subsequently, the Agency was shown documents which established a connection between Project 5 and Project 111, and hence a link between nuclear material and a new payload development program.
Information the Agency has received from Member States indicates that, owing to growing concerns about the international security situation in Iraq and neighboring countries at that time, work on the AMAD Plan was stopped rather abruptly pursuant to a “halt order” instruction issued in late 2003 by senior Iranian officials. According to that information, however, staff remained in place to record and document the achievements of their respective projects. Subsequently, equipment and work places were either cleaned or disposed of so that there would be little to identify the sensitive nature of the work which had been undertaken.
Procurement of Nuclear Materials
Under the AMAD Plan, Iran’s efforts to procure goods and services allegedly involved a number of ostensibly private companies which were able to provide cover for the real purpose of the procurements. The Agency has been informed by several Member States that, for instance, Kimia Maadan was a cover company for chemical engineering operations under the AMAD Plan while also being used to help with procurement for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).
In addition, throughout the entire timeline, instances of procurement and attempted procurement by individuals associated with the AMAD Plan of equipment, materials and services which, although having other civilian applications, would be useful in the development of a nuclear explosive device, have either been uncovered by the Agency itself or been made known to it.
Among such equipment, materials and services are: high speed electronic switches and spark gaps (useful for triggering and firing detonators); high speed cameras (useful in experimental diagnostics); neutron sources (useful for calibrating neutron measuring equipment); radiation detection and measuring equipment (useful in a nuclear material production environment); and training courses on topics relevant to nuclear explosives development (such as neutron cross section calculations and shock wave interactions/hydrodynamics).
Nuclear Material Acquisition
In 2008, the Director General informed the Board that: it had no information at that time — apart from the uranium metal document — on the actual design or manufacture by Iran of nuclear material components of a nuclear weapon or of certain other key components, such as initiators, or on related nuclear physics studies, and that it had not detected the actual use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies.
However, …information contained in the alleged studies documentation suggests that Iran was working on a project to secure a source of uranium suitable for use in an undisclosed enrichment program, the product of which would be converted into metal for use in the new warhead which was the subject of the missile re-entry vehicle studies.
…Information made available to the Agency by a Member State, which the Agency has been able to examine directly, indicates that Iran made progress with experimentation aimed at the recovery of uranium from fluoride compounds (using lead oxide as a surrogate material to avoid the possibility of uncontrolled contamination occurring in the workplace).
In addition, although now declared and currently under safeguards, a number of facilities dedicated to uranium enrichment (the Fuel Enrichment Plant and Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz and the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant near Qom) were covertly built by Iran and only declared once the Agency was made aware of their existence by sources other than Iran.
This, taken together with the past efforts by Iran to conceal activities involving nuclear material, create more concern about the possible existence of undeclared nuclear facilities and material in Iran.
Nuclear Components for an Explosive Device
For use in a nuclear device, HEU retrieved from the enrichment process is first converted to metal. The metal is then cast and machined into suitable components for a nuclear core…. Iran has acknowledged that, along with the handwritten one page document offering assistance with the development of uranium centrifuge enrichment technology, in which reference is also made to a reconversion unit with casting equipment.
Iran also received the uranium metal document which describes, inter alia, processes for the conversion of uranium compounds into uranium metal and the production of hemispherical enriched uranium metallic components.
The uranium metal document is known to have been available to the clandestine nuclear supply network that provided Iran with assistance in developing its centrifuge enrichment capability, and is also known to be part of a larger package of information which includes elements of a nuclear explosive design.
A similar package of information, which surfaced in 2003, was provided by the same network to Libya. The information in the Libyan package, which was first reviewed by Agency experts in January 2004, included details on the design and construction of, and the manufacture of components for, a nuclear explosive device.
In addition, a Member State provided the Agency experts with access to a collection of electronic files from seized computers belonging to key members of the network at different locations. That collection included documents seen in Libya, along with more recent versions of those documents, including an up-dated electronic version of the uranium metal document.
In an interview in 2007 with a member of the clandestine nuclear supply network, the Agency was told that Iran had been provided with nuclear explosive design information. From information provided to the Agency during that interview, the Agency is concerned that Iran may have obtained more advanced design information than the information identified in 2004 as having been provided to Libya by the nuclear supply network.
Additionally, a Member State provided information indicating that, during the AMAD Plan, preparatory work, not involving nuclear material, for the fabrication of natural and high enriched uranium metal components for a nuclear explosive device was carried out. As the conversion of HEU compounds into metal and the fabrication of HEU metal components suitable in size and quality are steps in the development of an HEU nuclear explosive device, clarification by Iran is needed in connection with the above.
Detonator Development
The development of safe, fast-acting detonators, and equipment suitable for firing the detonators, is an integral part of a program to develop an implosion type nuclear device. Included among the alleged studies documentation are a number of documents relating to the development by Iran, during the period 2002–2003, of fast functioning detonators, known as “exploding bridgewire detonators” or “EBWs” as safe alternatives to the type of detonator described for use in the nuclear device design referred to in paragraph 33 above.
In 2008, Iran told the Agency that it had developed EBWs for civil and conventional military applications and had achieved a simultaneity of about one microsecond when firing two to three detonators together, and provided the Agency with a copy of a paper relating to EBW development work presented by two Iranian researchers at a conference held in Iran in 2005.
A similar paper was published by the two researchers at an international conference later in 2005. Both papers indicate that suitable high voltage firing equipment had been acquired or developed by Iran. Also in 2008, Iran told the Agency that, before the period 2002–2004, it had already achieved EBW technology.
Iran also provided the Agency with a short undated document in Farsi, understood to be the specifications for a detonator development program, and a document from a foreign source showing an example of a civilian application in which detonators are fired simultaneously. However, Iran has not explained to the Agency its own need or application for such detonators.
The Agency recognizes that there exist non-nuclear applications, albeit few, for detonators like EBWs, and of equipment suitable for firing multiple detonators with a high level of simultaneity.
Notwithstanding, given their possible application in a nuclear explosive device, and the fact that there are limited civilian and conventional military applications for such technology, Iran’s development of such detonators and equipment is a matter of concern, particularly in connection with the possible use of the multipoint initiation system referred to below.
Initiation of High Explosives and Associated Experiments
Detonators provide point source initiation of explosives, generating a naturally diverging detonation wave. In an implosion type nuclear explosive device, an additional component, known as a multipoint initiation system, can be used to reshape the detonation wave into a converging smooth implosion to ensure uniform compression of the core fissile material to supercritical density.
The Agency has shared with Iran information provided by a Member State which indicates that Iran has had access to information on the design concept of a multipoint initiation system that can be used to initiate effectively and simultaneously a high explosive charge over its surface. The Agency has been able to confirm independently that such a design concept exists and the country of origin of that design concept. Furthermore, the Agency has been informed by nuclear-weapon States that the specific multipoint initiation concept is used in some known nuclear explosive devices. In its 117 page submission to the Agency in May 2008, Iran stated that the subject was not understandable to Iran and that Iran had not conducted any activities of the type referred to in the document.
Information provided to the Agency by the same Member State referred to in the previous paragraph describes the multipoint initiation concept referred to above as being used by Iran in at least one large scale experiment in 2003 to initiate a high explosive charge in the form of a hemispherical shell.
According to that information, during that experiment, the internal hemispherical curved surface of the high explosive charge was monitored using a large number of optical fiber cables, and the light output of the explosive upon detonation was recorded with a high speed streak camera. It should be noted that the dimensions of the initiation system and the explosives used with it were consistent with the dimensions for the new payload which, according to the alleged studies documentation, were given to the engineers who were studying how to integrate the new payload into the chamber of the Shahab 3 missile re-entry vehicle (Project 111) (see Section C.11 below). Further information provided to the Agency by the same Member State indicates that the large scale high explosive experiments were conducted by Iran in the region of Marivan.
The Agency has strong indications that the development by Iran of the high explosives initiation system, and its development of the high speed diagnostic configuration used to monitor related experiments, were assisted by the work of a foreign expert who was not only knowledgeable in these technologies, but who, a Member State has informed the Agency, worked for much of his career with this technology in the nuclear weapon program of the country of his origin. The Agency has reviewed publications by this foreign expert and has met with him. The Agency has been able to verify through three separate routes, including the expert himself, that this person was in Iran from about 1996 to about 2002, ostensibly to assist Iran in the development of a facility and techniques for making ultra-dispersed diamonds (“UDDs” or “nanodiamonds”), where he also lectured on explosion physics and its applications.
Furthermore, the Agency has received information from two Member States that, after 2003, Iran engaged in experimental research involving a scaled down version of the hemispherical initiation system and high explosive charge referred to in paragraph 43 above, albeit in connection with non-nuclear applications. This work, together with other studies made known to the Agency in which the same initiation system is used in cylindrical geometry, could also be relevant to improving and optimizing the multipoint initiation design concept relevant to nuclear applications.
The Agency’s concern about the activities described in this Section derives from the fact that a multipoint initiation system, such as that described above, can be used in a nuclear explosive device. However, Iran has not been willing to engage in discussion of this topic with the Agency.
Continued......
