Iran defies U.S., vows to switch on new nuclear facility

The new Iranian nuclear enrichment facility that Tehran revealed last week will soon start work, an Iranian official said Saturday.

“This new plant, God willing, will soon become operational,” said Mohammad Mohammadi-Golpayegani, who heads the office of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.

Iran acknowledged the existence of the facility, which is buried in a mountain near the city of Qom, for the first time last Monday, in a letter to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (iaea). The facility, which could be used to produce material for a nuclear weapon, is still under construction according to some reports. U.S. intelligence estimated in the summer that it would become operational in 2010. It is believed to contain 3,000 centrifuges.

“The revelations of this second nuclear enrichment site in Iran prove beyond any doubt that this country wants to equip itself with nuclear weapons,” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.

On Friday, President Barack Obama made his own announcement, saying that Iran was constructing a “covert uranium enrichment facility” that Western intelligence has been covertly monitoring. “Friday’s announcement capped a week of behind-the-scenes action in which Iran and the United States each maneuvered to reveal the information on its own terms,” reports the Washington Post.

The U.S.’s apparent failure to make known the nuclear site until its hand was forced by Tehran exposes America’s willingness to appease and negotiate with the Iranians at seemingly any price.

On the other hand, Tehran’s admittance that the site exists is just more evidence of its duplicity. As Stratfor points out, “The Iranians are masters of denial and deception, which only exacerbates the intelligence challenge faced by Israel and the United States in drawing up military contingencies against Iran” (September 25). Stratfor continues:

[I]t should surprise no one that Tehran has played a shell game in concealing the critical nodes of its nuclear program. If French and U.S. intelligence knew about this facility only for “several months” as claimed, it represents a massive intelligence failure (these facilities cannot be quickly built). This has always been the crux of the challenge in any military plans drawn up against Iran. Massive air campaigns can be waged, but the effectiveness of those air campaigns is contingent on two things: the intelligence on the targets (in this case, the nuclear facilities) and the ability of the air force to strike at those targets (particularly the ability to destroy hardened and deeply buried facilities). …Iran knew exactly what it was doing in sending this letter to the iaea ahead of the P-5+1 talks on October 1. In revealing the extent of its nuclear denial and deception campaign, Iran is only adding to the uncertainty surrounding Western and Israeli intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that there was “no choice but to draw a line in the sand.” While the rhetoric may become more forceful, don’t expect an effective response.