WarSclerotic

Iran temporarily halts uranium enrichment at Natanz nuclear facility – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Iran has temporarily ceased uranium production in its nuclear facility in Natanz, apparently due to a series of major technical problems.

Diplomats in Vienna said they had no specifics regarding why Iran had shut down production of thousands of centrifuges enriching uranium. But suspicions focused on the Stuxnet worm, the computer virus thought to be aimed at Iran’s nuclear program, which experts last week identified as being calibrated to destroy centrifuges by sending them spinning out of control.

	Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visiting the Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility in 2008.
	Photo by: AP

Iran says its enrichment efforts are geared only to make nuclear fuel but the program has aroused international concerns because it can be re-engineered to produce uranium for nuclear warheads.

But, there have been hints that the program is beset by technical problems. Even a brief shutdown of the thousands of enriching machines would be the strongest documentation to date that the program – Iran’s nuclear cornerstone and a source of national pride – is in trouble.

The country has continued to enrich despite increasingly strict UN sanctions imposed in reaction to its nuclear defiance and has stockpiled enough material for more than two nuclear bombs should it chose to turn it into weapons-grade uranium.

Unease has been fed by Tehran’s refusal to accept nuclear fuel from abroad, the covert origins of its enrichment activities and stonewalling of efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency to probe allegations that it tried to develop components of a nuclear weapons program.

Since being revealed eight years ago, Iran has expanded its enrichment activities to the point where it now runs about 8,500 centrifuges at Natanz in central Iran. But after initial rapid growth, Iranian enrichment capacity has stagnated in recent years. Tehran has taken hundreds of centrifuges off line over the past 18 months, prompting speculation of technical problems.

A U.N official close to the IAEA said a complete stop in Iran’s centrifuge operation would be unprecedented to his knowledge but declined to discuss specifics. He, like two like two senior diplomats from IAEA member countries who told the AP of the incident at Natanz, asked for anonymity because the information was confidential.

The three officials spoke on the eve of the planned release of a confidential IAEA update on Iran – the latest report by the Vienna-based agency to its 35-nation board on its attempts to get an overview of Tehran’s nuclear activities. The diplomats said it would again focus on Tehran’s refusal to heed UN Security Council demands to stop enrichment.

That report will come less than three weeks before planned talks between Iran and the world’s five powers – the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – designed to reduce concerns about Tehran’s nuclear agenda.

Iran’s enrichment program has come under renewed focus with the conclusion of cyber experts and analysts that the Stuxnet worm that infected Iran’s nuclear program was designed to abruptly change the rotational speeds of motors such as ones used in centrifuges. Such sudden changes can crash centrifuges and damage them beyond repair.

No one has claimed to be behind Stuxnet, but some analysts have speculated that it originated in Israel.

Iran Nuclear Enrichment Program Stopped By Technical Troubles.

VIENNA — Iran’s nuclear program has suffered a recent setback, with major technical problems forcing the temporary shutdown of thousands of centrifuges enriching uranium, diplomats told The Associated Press on Monday.

The diplomats said they had no specifics on the nature of the problem that in recent months led Iranian experts to briefly power down the machines they use for enrichment – a nuclear technology that has both civilian and military uses.

But suspicions focused on the Stuxnet worm, the computer virus thought to be aimed at Iran’s nuclear program, which experts last week identified as being calibrated to destroy centrifuges by sending them spinning out of control.

Iran says its enrichment efforts are geared only to make nuclear fuel but the program has aroused international concern because it can be re-engineered to produce uranium for nuclear warheads.

There have been hints that the program is beset by technical problems. Even a brief shutdown of the thousands of enriching machines would be the strongest documentation to date that the program – Iran’s nuclear cornerstone and a source of national pride – is in trouble.

The country has continued to enrich despite increasingly strict U.N. sanctions imposed in reaction to its nuclear defiance and has stockpiled enough material for more than two nuclear bombs should it choose to turn it into weapons-grade uranium.

Unease has been fed by Tehran’s refusal to accept nuclear fuel from abroad, the covert origins of its enrichment activities and stonewalling of efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency to probe allegations that it tried to develop components of a nuclear weapons program.

Since being revealed eight years ago, Iran has expanded its enrichment activities to the point where it now runs about 8,500 centrifuges at Natanz, in central Iran. But after initial rapid growth, Iranian enrichment capacity has stagnated in recent years. Tehran has taken hundreds of centrifuges off line over the past 18 months, prompting speculation of technical problems.

A U.N official close to the IAEA said a complete stop in Iran’s centrifuge operation would be unprecedented to his knowledge but declined to discuss specifics. He, like two senior diplomats from IAEA member countries who told the AP of the incident at Natanz, asked for anonymity because the information was confidential.

The three officials spoke on the eve of the planned release of a confidential IAEA update on Iran – the latest report by the Vienna-based agency to its 35-nation board on its attempts to get an overview of Tehran’s nuclear activities. The diplomats said it would again focus on Tehran’s refusal to heed U.N. Security Council demands to stop enrichment.

That report will come less than three weeks before planned talks between Iran and the world’s five powers – the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – designed to reduce concerns about Tehran’s nuclear agenda.

Iran’s enrichment program has come under renewed focus with the conclusion of cyber experts and analysts that the Stuxnet worm that infected Iran’s nuclear program was designed to abruptly change the rotational speeds of motors such as ones used in centrifuges. Such sudden changes can crash centrifuges and damage them beyond repair.

No one has claimed to be behind Stuxnet, but some analysts have speculated that it originated in Israel.

The worm “specifically controls frequency converter drives” that normally run between 807 Herz and 1210 Herz, researcher Eric Chien of the computer security company Symantec, said in an e-mail to the AP. “These are subsequently changed to run at 1410Hz, then 2Hz, and then 1064Hz.”

Iran nuclear expert David Albright said it was impossible to say what would cause a disruption strong enough to idle the centrifuges but “Stuxnet would do just that.

“It would send (centrifuge) speeds up and then suddenly drop them,” said Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, which has tracked Iran for signs of covert proliferation.

Albright and a colleague, Andrea Stricker, last week released a study applying Chien’s finding to centrifuges. He said the worm appeared capable of pushing centrifuge speeds above their normal speeds, up to 1,410 Herz, or cycles per second, and then suddenly dropping speeds to 2 cycles per second, disrupting their operations and destroying some in the process.

Separately, another official from an IAEA member country suggested the worm could cause further damage to Iran’s nuclear program.

The official also asked for anonymity because his information was privileged. He cited a Western intelligence report suggesting that Stuxnet had infected the control system of Iran’s Bushehr reactor and would be activated once the Russian-built reactor goes on line in a few months.

Stuxnet would interfere with control of “basic parameters” such as temperature and pressure control and neutron flow, that could result in the meltdown of the reactor, raising the specter of a possible explosion, he said.

There was no independent confirmation. But nuclear experts have suggested that the worm’s pervasive invasion of Iran’s nuclear program could result in a series of problems.

Commenting on Stuxnet Monday, Olli Heinonen, the IAEA’s former point man on Iran, told a Washington audience that the virus could have infected control systems at Bushehr “or elsewhere.”

“It may cause a lot of havoc,” he said.

Iran Admits: Air Defense Drill Just ‘Psychological’ Op | Danger Room | Wired.com.

Fireworks! Magic missiles! Revolutionary technological advances! Iran’s recent “Defenders of the Sky” air defense exercise has ended and what have we learned? Well, it’s probably a bad idea to make ludicrous weapons claims if you’re trying to deter your enemies.

Iran concluded its “biggest” air defense exercise aimed at protecting the country’s nuclear sites by claiming it had also conducted “psychological operations” during the drill. Their “main priority,” in the words of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni, was to “to confront [the enemy’s] soft warfare which is aimed at creating doubt, discord and pessimism among the masses of the people.” In other words, we’re puffing out our chests in order to counter threats against us, real and perceived, from the United States and Israel.

The key to effective saber-rattling, however, is to rattle an actual saber — not some rusty knock off you just hammered out in your basement. But that’s exactly what Iran’s been up to during “Defenders of the Sky.”

On Saturday, Iran said it successfully test-fired what it claims is an upgraded S-200 surface-to-air missile. The S-200, developed by the Soviet Union during the Kennedy administration and designed to hit big, fat slow-moving bombers, had been magically souped-up, according to the Iranians, to be just as powerful as the 20 years more advanced S-300 missile system. Oh, and they managed to accomplish this all in a matter of just a few months. Right.

It’s all part of a pattern of conventional capabilities-inflation from Iran that can often be pretty embarrassing, from photoshopping missiles to its oversold ”Ambassador of Death” drone. The weapons bravado, far from serving as the psychological deterrent Iran may think it is, actually makes the country look aggressive, foolish and weak — not exactly the message you want to send to potential attackers.

It’s all the more bizarre because Iran actually does have a number of credible unconventional options at its disposal that should make anyone think twice about attacking its nuclear facilities. It’s right next door to America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and could create a lot of headaches for the United States in the event of an attack. Its could trigger Hamas and Hezbollah to launch rockets at and cause problems for Israel. And its asymmetric naval capabilities in the Persian Gulf could be a genuine threat to U.S. warships and global energy supplies.

But proxies and swarm boats moving through Tehran on parade floats must not feel quite as good for Iran’s leaders as oil drums welded in the shape of S-300s. And so the bluster continues.

Russia ‘gives Iran top new radar’ – UPI.com.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 22 (UPI) — Iran recently boasted it was greatly extending its radar capabilities, a vital component in its drive to use its own resources to strengthen its air defenses against U.S. or Israeli attack.

But a report by the U.S. global security consultancy Stratfor claimed Saturday that Tehran recently apparently got a big and very discreet helping hand from Russia. No time frame for the assist was given.

Yet, last June Moscow refused to deliver five batteries of powerful S-300-PMU strategic air-defense missiles Iran had bought for $800 million in December 2007, citing U.N. sanctions against Iran over its contentious nuclear program.

If Russia has provided Tehran with a new radar system, which Stratfor says reportedly went through third-party intermediaries Venezuela and Belarus, it is likely to have been one that would enhance Iran’s air-defense network rather than merely add to it.

Stratfor didn’t identify the Russian system that its sources said Belarus, a former Soviet republic, sold to a Venezuelan firm, “which then transferred it to Iran in a recent transaction in Abu Dhabi,” capital of the United Arab Emirates.

“Radars can apply toward a variety of military applications and it remains unknown whether this rises to the significance of a land-based anti-aircraft radar system or something more commonplace,” Stratfor reported.

“Still, the geopolitical circumstances surrounding the alleged sale and the involvement of Venezuelan and Belarusian intermediaries warrant a closer look.”

Russia is striving to boost its arms exports, a key foreign currency earner. To mask sales it doesn’t want exposed to international scrutiny it has frequently used Belarus, which has its own arms industry dating to the Soviet era, as a front.

Moscow used Belarus, and sometimes Ukraine and Bulgaria, to disguise arms sales to the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein throughout the 1990s when Iraq was under tight economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

In recent years, Tehran has cultivated a close relationship with Venezuela under its leftist President Hugo Chavez, another opponent of the United States.

Moscow’s refusal to supply Iran with the S-300s, needed to protect the Islamic Republic’s key nuclear facilities, was widely seen as part of a Russian rapprochement with the United States.

Tehran was incensed by its failure to secure the S-300s and relations with Moscow appeared to nosedive.

But, Stratfor suggests: “Moscow had no intention of sacrificing its Iran lever completely. The report on this latest military transaction has raised the possibility that Russia sees little utility in exercising that lever once again.”

U.S.-Russian ties have become strained once more over the nuclear arms reduction treaty and the U.S. drive for a Ballistic Missile Defense treaty, plus, Stratfor says, “hints that the United States may be resuming military support for Georgia via third parties in what would appear to be another provocation of Russia.”

On Thursday, after months of angry exchanges over the S-300s, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met Russian President Dmitri Medvedev at Caspian regional summit in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan. They were believed to have discussed military-technical cooperation.

Iran’s military chiefs have claimed in recent weeks the Islamic Republic has been able to significantly upgrade its air-defense network, which has long been one of its weakest military components.

On Nov. 14, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Miqani, a senior air force officer, said Iran’s defense industry was developing a new radar system that would extend its ability to detect hostile aircraft and missiles from around 250 miles to more than 1,850 miles.

That’s a stunning technological feat if it’s true. But the implication of the Stratfor report, which remains unverified, is that Iran is actually talking about a Russian system it has surreptitiously acquired.

Iran’s defense minister, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, said, “Today, we own sea-based and land-based radars as well as radars that are capable of identifying multiple air targets in various frequencies and different altitudes.”

In June, The Wall Street Journal reported that in mid-2009 Iran gave Syria, its key Arab ally, an unidentified advanced radar that could threaten Israel’s ability to launch a pre-emptive attack against Iran’s nuclear sites.

It’s not at all clear whether that system is related to the one Iran now boasts it has deployed. Last week Iranians held large-scale exercises to test their air defenses, which presumably included any new radars they have.

Iran’s nuclear program reportedly struggling.

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 22, 2010; 8:44 PM

Iran’s nuclear program has experienced serious problems, including unexplained fluctuations in the performance of the thousands of centrifuges enriching uranium, leading to a rare but temporary shutdown, international inspectors are expected to reveal Tuesday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. unit that monitors nuclear programs, will provide no explanation of the problems. But speculation immediately centered on the Stuxnet worm, a computer virus that some researchers say appears to have been designed specifically to target Iran’s centrifuge machines so that they spin out of control.

Iran denies the worm caused any problems.

No country has claimed responsibility for developing the virus, although suspicion has focused primarily on Israel and the United States. James L. Jones, who until recently was President Obama’s national security adviser, declined to comment on the worm when asked about it Monday at the Aspen Institute.

The Associated Press first reported on the centrifuge shutdown, which was confirmed by a person familiar with the report. The official said the shutdown is mentioned in a much-anticipated IAEA report expected to be released Tuesday.

U.S. officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Even before the Stuxnet attack, the Natanz facility that houses the centrifuges had not been operating at full capacity, according to experts and U.S. officials.

Olli Heinonen, a former top IAEA official, said Monday at a meeting sponsored by the Arms Control Association that 3,772 centrifuges at the facility were being fed uranium gas and 5,084 machines were idle. “This indicates that there is a problem,” he said.

Heinonen also said that Iran appears to have suffered a setback in its efforts to develop a second-generation centrifuge capable of enriching uranium more quickly. Iran’s centrifuges are based on a Pakistani copy of a decades-old Dutch design, and Heinonen said Iran may have trouble obtaining the raw materials – such as high-strength carbon – for an upgrade because of international sanctions.

 

Troubles stop Iran nuke enrichment; Stuxnet worm suspected

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VIENNA — Iran’s nuclear program has suffered a recent setback, with major technical problems forcing the temporary shutdown of thousands of centrifuges enriching uranium, diplomats told The Associated Press on Monday.

The diplomats said they had no specifics on the nature of the problem that in recent months led Iranian experts to briefly power down the machines they use for enrichment — a nuclear technology that has both civilian and military uses.

But suspicions focused on the Stuxnet worm, the computer virus thought to be aimed at Iran’s nuclear program, which experts last week identified as being calibrated to destroy centrifuges by sending them spinning out of control.

Iran says its enrichment efforts are geared only to make nuclear fuel but the program has aroused international concern because it can be re-engineered to produce uranium for nuclear warheads.

There have been hints that the program is beset by technical problems. Even a brief shutdown of the thousands of enriching machines would be the strongest documentation to date that the program — Iran’s nuclear cornerstone and a source of national pride — is in trouble.

Iran’s enrichment program has come under renewed focus with the conclusion of cyber experts and analysts that the Stuxnet worm that infected Iran’s nuclear program was designed to abruptly change the rotational speeds of motors such as ones used in centrifuges. Such sudden changes can crash centrifuges and damage them beyond repair.

No one has claimed to be behind Stuxnet, but some analysts have speculated that it originated in Israel.

Iran nuclear expert David Albright said it was impossible to say what would cause a disruption strong enough to idle the centrifuges but “Stuxnet would do just that.