Tehran Has Enough Fuel for Nuclear Bomb

Iran has more uranium than thought, says UN agency
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 19, 2009 9:50 PM CST
Tehran Has Enough Fuel for Nuclear Bomb
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks in Kermanshah, Iran, Wednesday Jan, 28, 2009.   (AP Photo/ISNA, Saman Aqvami)

Here's news that won't cheer Washington as it figures out how to deal with Iran: A UN agency says the nation now has enough uranium to build a nuclear bomb. In order to do so, Tehran would have to refine it further and kick out inspectors. But it reached this threshold of low-enriched uranium about a year earlier than expected, the Financial Times reports.

One nuclear expert in Washington told the Los Angeles Times that he was "blindsided" by the report. "We are surprised," he said. "We did not expect this." But he noted that it represents only the "capability" of moving ahead with a bomb, not a decision to do so. Tehran would have to violate international treaties to take the next step, and so far it has shown no signs of doing so.
(More Iran stories.)

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