Short update on GC activities

The IAEA General Conference has now been running for two days, and it is picking up speed. The VERTIC delegation, headed by our new executive director, Angela Woodward, and supplemented by my diligent intern, Charlotte Spencer-Smith has been disbanded after two intensive days of work. Well, kind of. I remain in Vienna until Friday and will now devote my time to the General Conference. On Monday, Angela and I spent most of our day catching up on work and, certainly, meeting old friends at the IAEA and the CTBTO. Yesterday, I chaired an event in the old Imperial Hofburg Palace, attended by more than 100 delegates to the CTBT article XIV conference. This conference, for those who aren't aware, looks at ways to bring the suffering Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty into force. Speakers included Mr Daryl Kimball, Ambassador Jaap Ramaker, and an extremely inspiring professor David Hafemeister. I always loved Hafemeister's chapter on CTBT verification in the Verification Yearbook, and was impressed by his wit, extreme intelligence and forceful delivery. Both Daryl Kimball and Jaap Ramaker were great, but I would have expected nothing less.

Monday night, we organized a dinner for speakers and funders (and the CTBTO) at the Grand Hotel, who used to be the old headquarters of the IAEA. Meanwhile, ironically, the IAEA was celebrating its anniversary at the Opera House, listening to a Mozart concert (of course). In the old headquarters, meanwhile, Ambassador Ramaker was great at the dinner, recounting gems from the negotiation of the CTBT that all in attendance listened to in complete fascination. Daryl Kimball added detail and flair, making it a very enjoyable and educational experience.

After a long day, I ended up at Ambassador Mouin Hamyo's reception, talking to a fellow lawyer about the fact that VERTIC had been invited to the UNSCR 1540 committee's meeting in Amman, Jordan. In a most heart-warming surprise, he said that he felt that that invitation was nothing but expected, since VERTIC was an "extremely objective" organization, doing valued work. We then ended up discussing Romania during the 1980s, the book “Red Horizon”, and the first special inspection ever carried out by the IAEA. I learned a lot during that conversation. For instance that Romania elected to build natural-uranium fuelled reactors to make sure that they had an uninterrupted supply of domestically fabricated fuel. Any enriched fuel, he said, would have needed to be imported, which the Romanian government did not approve of at that time. Intriguing. It explains why Romania has an almost closed fuel cycle (everything but enrichment and, critically, reprocessing),

ElBaradei meets the press

On 12 September 2007, the IAEA Director-General briefed the press on the status of verification in Iran. His tone was relatively upbeat, despite having been severely criticized by several member states earlier in the week for agreeing to the so-called modalities plan with Iran. Reportedly, Mr ElBaradei was very upset over European refusal to support the plan. So upset, indeed, that he stormed out of the boardroom.

Mr ElBaradei's briefing was short, and he was accompanied to the press room by his deputy-director general for safeguards, Mr Olli Heinonen. To make a short story even shorter: he stresses that this is the first time that Iran has offered to explain all outstanding questions. He thinks that this is relevant, since these questions were what triggered the action in the Board of Governors and the Security Council in the first place. And he also believes that it will be possible to ascertain, in three months time, whether Iran is implementing the plan in good faith. So far so good.

Mr ElBaradei also pushed his "time-out" plan again. He said that Iran should take a "time-out" (suspend) uranium enrichment as "a show of good will", and that the Security Council should suspend action in response. This is of course just a nice way of saying that he thinks that Iran should come into full compliance with the three UN Security Council resolutions adopted against it. He said that he was encouraged to see so many states come into support of his idea (which is not very surprising since ElBaradei is just saying the obvious - albeit more tactfully than, say, the United States).

Anyway, watch the full press conference here.

The tale of the 3k centrifuges (third installment)

On 3 September 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, never a stranger to controversy, reportedly remarked that his country now operates more than 3,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz plant. According to an article by Mark Heinrich, Agency inspectors visited the Natanz facility on 3 September 2007 and found two more modules "being hooked up", which would bring the total number of centrifuges operating with hexafluoride gas, under vacuum, or being in various stages of construction to 2,952.

Consequently, the President's announcement, while not technically untrue, could be likened to that of a construction manager announcing that a multi-storey building is finished although his crew forgot to install elevators, heating, running water or electricity. Then again, Mr. Ahmadinejad is an elected official, and as such a natural salesman: one cannot blame him for pulling a "mission completed" publicity stunt. After all, British readers may remember the BBC documentary where journalist Rageh Omaar suddenly finds himself invited to pray with the Iranian president at the opening of the Resalat Expressway.

In regards to the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP), the magic number is 2,952 rather than 3,000. According to an ISIS paper, the Iranians divides up the floor space in the underground hall into cascades (164 machines) which are grouped together into modules (18 cascades: 2,952 machines). This becomes apparent when studying satellite imagery of the Natanz facility. One will find each of the two underground halls divided into nine perfect squares. One module fits into one of these squares. Consequently, the facility is scheduled to receive 53,136 machines in total. At present, most of the vast underground halls echo emptily, with one ninth of one hall slowly filling up with centrifuges. I strongly suspect that the vast halls will remain mostly empty for years to come, unless the Iranians pick up their pace of construction three- or fourfold.

On 19 April this year, I wrote that the Iranians would have installed one full module of machines by early September 2007. It would seem that I was largely correct. However, there may have been a slowing down in the pace of construction during the summer, which would indicate that progress have been uneven. Why is that? I will not pretend to be able to give any answers, but one possible reason is that the Iranians work on an install-test-install schedule, where scheduled installation periods are followed by a time of testing, learning, and planning ahead.

So was the president misleading everyone when he said that more than 3,000 centrifuges were operational? Well, only the staff of the Natanz facility and IAEA inspectors would know that for sure. The reporting from Vienna is very unreliable, especially in cases when journalists source their story on diplomatic sources rather than technical. Everyone wants to spin the story in their advantage. So I am not going to reflect further on the truthfulness of a leader of a sovereign country. However, one should also not forget that several hundred centrifuges are operating above ground, in the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP), possibly bringing the total figure of operational centrifuges above 3,000.

Finally, check out Paul Kerr's thoughts on the IAEA-Iran action plan. It would appear that the Agency has no intention of closing the respective "file" once one round of questions have been posed and answered. That's good news, but not really what the agreement itself says. Poorly drafted, I guess.

Old presentations…

I have been doing some work on the VERTIC website today, cleaning up some sections. I also uploaded an old presentation on Iran that I delivered almost a year ago, and that for some reason wasn't put on the site.

Also don't miss the Centre's upcoming events. Next week, we are going to be in York together with Tom Shea and Frank von Hippel. The week thereafter, we are going to hold our traditional seminar at the CTBT Article XIV Conference. This time around, we'll be joined by Daryl Kimball and the Arms Control Association.

I will stay in Vienna during the entire IAEA General Conference, and hope to share with you what's going on there. Last year was an exciting affair which got much less attention than it deserves. Let's see if that can be changed.