IAEA visits Iran's Nuclear Sites

On the radar: Iran opens nuclear sites to IAEA; Inhofe’s inflated Iran threat; a CTR 2.0 for Libya; testing in talks with Mr. Kim; BMD boats in the Black Sea; PONI heads west; and anxieties downrange of a hypersonic cruise missile.

August 24, 2011 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Rizwan Ladha

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Iran gives IAEA tour of nuclear sites - Sites included a facility for developing centrifuges, a heavy water plant, the Natanz plant, and others. “The two sides agreed during the visit on how U.N. inspectors would monitor activities at an underground bunker near the holy city of Qom, a facility to which Iran is preparing to shift its higher-grade uranium enrichment,” Fredrik Dahl reports in Reuters. http://ow.ly/6bsZm

-- The IAEA’s visit coincided with a Russian push to break the diplomatic deadlock on Iran’s nuclear program in part by easing sanctions in exchange for Iran’s cooperation in resolving IAEA questions of past weaponization work. How to resolve those questions was reportedly discussed during the IAEA’s visit.

Sen. Inhofe needs to get his facts straight - Earlier this week, Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) misled an audience in his home state, declaring “Iran will have the capability of delivering a weapon of mass destruction to western Europe and the eastern United States by 2015.”

This conflicts with a report from DoD to Congress which states, “With sufficient foreign assistance, Iran could probably develop and test [emphasis added] an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the United States by 2015.”

-- As Ali Gharib reports in ThinkProgress, developing and testing a missile is not the same as successfully operationalizing it. Moreover, there is a separate issue of creating a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop the missile -- and that will take Iran much longer to accomplish. http://ow.ly/1w9zcS

Securing WMD Expertise - With lessons from Iraq and potential for Libya, two experts layout how the U.S. can better protect its security by adapting a Cooperative Threat Reduction 2.0. In-depth analysis in Arms Control Today. http://ow.ly/6bwWw

Early positions in North Korea nuclear talks - “Without preconditions, in the course of [revived 6-party] negotiations, the North Koreans will be ready to solve the issue of introducing a moratorium on testing and spent nuclear fuel processing,” said a Kremlin spokesperson following a meeting between Kim Jong-il and Dmitry Medvedev. http://ow.ly/6bxkX

Russia’s missile defense anxieties - When the missile defense interceptor-equipped USS Monterey visited the Black Sea, it got a frosty reception from Russia - which views U.S. missile defense plans as a potential threat to strategic stability.

-- “For those who wish to see a follow-on agreement to [New START], further enhancing stability at lower levels of spending, it would be wise to weigh more carefully the net impact of U.S. missile defense activities on our indispensable negotiating partner,” writes analyst Greg Thielmann. http://ow.ly/6busv

PONI 2011 Fall Conference - The annual Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) Fall Conference, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is being held September 8-9 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Register to attend (deadline is Friday August 26). http://ow.ly/1w9Ai5

Early Quote - “It ditched, but where?”

-- Kwajalein Senator Dony deBrum, voicing concern that a botched test of the U.S. hypersonic glider vehicle could have endangered residents of the Marshall Islands. From Global Security Newswire. http://ow.ly/6bwky