We built this nuclear fear

Have I mention seeing patterns?

U.S. built major Iranian nuclear facility

By Sam Roe
Tribune staff reporter
August 23, 2006, 9:56 PM EDT

In the heart of Tehran sits one of Iran's most important nuclear
facilities, a dome-shaped building where scientists have conducted secret
experiments that could help the country build atomic bombs. It was
provided to the Iranians by the United States.

That's worth a repeat:::

It was provided to the Iranians by the United States.

The Tehran Research Reactor represents a little-known aspect of the
international uproar over the country's alleged weapons program. Not only
did the U.S. provide the reactor in the 1960s as part of a Cold War
strategy, America also supplied the weapons-grade uranium needed to power
the facility--fuel that remains in Iran and could be used to help make
nuclear arms.

As the U.S. and other countries wrestle with Iran's refusal this week
to curb its nuclear capabilities, an examination of the Tehran facility
sheds light on the degree to which the United States has been complicit
in Iran developing those capabilities.

Though the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations'
nuclear watchdog, has found no proof Iran is building a bomb, the agency
says the country has repeatedly concealed its nuclear activities from
inspectors. And some of these activities have taken place in the
U.S.-supplied reactor, IAEA records show, including experiments with uranium, a
key material in the production of nuclear weapons.
U.S. officials point to these activities as evidence Iran is trying to
construct nuclear arms, but they do not publicly mention that the work
has taken place in a U.S.-supplied facility.

The U.S. provided the reactor when America was eager to prop up the
shah, who also was aligned against the Soviet Union at the time. After the
Islamic revolution toppled the shah in 1979, the reactor became a
reminder that in geopolitics, today's ally can become tomorrow's threat.

Also missing from the current debate over Iran's nuclear intentions is
emerging evidence that its research program may be more troubled than
previously known.

The Bush administration has portrayed the program as a sophisticated
operation that has skillfully hid its true mission of making the bomb.
But in the case of the Tehran Research Reactor, a study by a top Iranian
scientist suggests otherwise.

After a serious accident in 2001 at the U.S.-supplied reactor, the
scientist concluded that poor quality control at the facility was a
"chronic disease." Problems included carelessness, sloppy bookkeeping and a
staff so poorly trained that workers had a weak understanding of "the
most basic and simple principles of physics and mathematics," according to
the study, presented at an international nuclear conference in 2004 in
France.

The Iranian scientist, Morteza Gharib, told the Tribune that management
of the facility had improved in the past three years. When asked
whether sloppiness at the reactor might have contributed to some of Iran's
troubles with the IAEA, Gharib wrote in an email: "It is always possible,
for any system, to commit infractions inadvertently due to lack of
proper bookkeeping."

Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert at Harvard University, said
bungling might be to blame for some infractions, but the Iranians clearly
concealed major nuclear activities, such as building a facility to enrich
uranium. "This was not an oversight," he said.

Another overlooked concern about the Tehran reactor is the
weapons-grade fuel the U.S. provided Iran in the 1960s--about 10 pounds of highly
enriched uranium, the most valuable material to bomb makers. It is still
at the reactor and susceptible to theft, U.S. scientists familiar with
the situation said.

This uranium has already been burned in the reactor, but the "spent
fuel" is still highly enriched and could be used in a bomb. Normally,
spent fuel is so radioactive that terrorists cannot handle it without
causing themselves great harm. But the spent fuel in Iran has sat in storage
for so long that it is probably no longer highly radioactive and could
be handled easily, the U.S. scientists say.

The fuel is about one-fifth the amount needed to make a nuclear weapon,
but experts said it could be combined with other material to construct
a bomb.

In an interview, Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security
Administration, an arm of the U.S. Energy Department, said the U.S.
would like to retrieve the U.S.-supplied fuel, but the top priority has
been to get Iran to suspend its enrichment efforts.

Under the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the
right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. But the UN Security
Council, saying Iran has failed to prove it is not building weapons, has
demanded Iran stop enrichment by Aug. 31 or face economic sanctions. This
week, Iran offered "serious talks" on its nuclear activities but did
not promise to stop enriching uranium.

While Brooks downplayed the proliferation risk of the Tehran Research
Reactor, some experts believe the facility is so important to Iran's
nuclear program that it would be targeted in a U.S. military strike on
Iran.

"Its purpose is mainly advanced training and producing a cadre of
nuclear engineers," said Paul Rogers, an arms control expert at the
University of Bradford in England. "So it's one of the facilities that is
really quite significant."

Exactly how significant is unclear. The Tehran reactor provided the
foundation for Iran's nuclear program, but that program now consists of
numerous other facilities as well. And over the years, Iran has obtained
nuclear aid from various sources, including Russia and the black market
network of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan. China also has supplied
research reactors.

Most of the world's nuclear research reactors, which train students or
produce radioisotopes for medicine, fall under IAEA restrictions.
Agency inspectors have visited the Tehran facility several times in recent
years. Iran says its nuclear program, including the U.S.-supplied
reactor, is solely for peaceful purposes.

When arguing for tough penalties on Iran, U.S. officials have pointed
to activities in the U.S.-supplied reactor.

In 2004, John Bolton, the State Department's senior arms control
official at the time, told a congressional panel that Iran's covert nuclear
weapons program was marked by a "two-decades-long record of obfuscation
and deceit." He cited experiments in the reactor as part of the
evidence.

Several months later, Bolton told another congressional panel that Iran
had received technological assistance from companies in Russia, China
and North Korea in an attempt to develop missiles capable of delivering
nuclear weapons.

Countries that provide Iran such weapons-of-mass-destruction technology
"ought to know better," said Bolton, now the American ambassador to the
United Nations. If foreign companies aid Iran, the U.S. "will impose
economic burdens and brand them as proliferators."

What Bolton didn't note: America's role in Iran's nuclear program.

That role has complicated U.S. efforts to gain support for greater
restrictions on Iran. For instance, the U.S. wants Russia to take a firmer
stance on Iran's nuclear program and has been critical of Russian
efforts to help Iran build a nuclear power plant.

But Russia has noted the U.S. had no problem providing Iran a research
reactor and highly enriched uranium when it was politically expedient.

Those who defend the U.S. say it should not be faulted for aiding Iran
in the past. "It's not the international community's fault for helping
Iran exercise its rights in the past" to develop nuclear energy for
peaceful uses, said Lewis, the Harvard expert. "It's Iran's fault for not
living up to its safeguards obligation."

Iran's nuclear program can be traced to the Cold War era, when the U.S.
provided nuclear technology to its allies, including Iran. In 1953, the
CIA secretly helped overthrow Iran's democratically elected prime
minister and restore the shah of Iran to power.

In the 1960s, the U.S. provided Iran its first nuclear research
reactor. Despite Iran's enormous oil reserves, the shah wanted to build
numerous nuclear power reactors, which American and other Western companies
planned to supply.

Yet today, the U.S. argues that Iran does not need to develop nuclear
power because of those same petroleum resources.

In 1979, when the shah was overthrown and U.S. hostages taken, America
and Iran became enemies; Iran's nuclear power program stalled.

The U.S. refused to give Iran any more highly enriched uranium for its
reactor, and Iran eventually obtained new fuel from Argentina. This
fuel is too low in enrichment to be used in weapons but powerful enough to
run the facility. To this day, the reactor runs on this kind of fuel
from Argentina.

In papers filed with the IAEA, Iran states that before the 1979
revolution it gave the U.S. $2 million for additional highly enriched uranium
fuel for its American-supplied reactor but the U.S. neither provided
the fuel nor returned the $2 million.

In 2003, shortly after IAEA officials inspected the U.S.-supplied
reactor, Iran acknowledged it had conducted experiments on uranium in the
reactor between 1988 and 1992--activities that had not been previously
reported to the agency.

The IAEA rebuked Iran for failing to report these experiments and
expressed concern about other activities in the reactor. These included
tests involving the production of polonium-210, a radioisotope useful in
nuclear batteries but also in nuclear weapons.

Inspectors also were curious why some uranium was missing from two
small cylinders. Iran said the uranium probably leaked when the cylinders
were stored under the roof of the research reactor, where heat in the
summer reached 131 degrees Fahrenheit.

When inspectors took samples from under the roof, they indeed found
uranium particles. But inspectors did not think Iran's explanation about
leaking cylinders was plausible.

Eventually, Iran acknowledged the missing uranium had been used in key
enrichment tests in another facility.