Uranium Enrichment and Refinement

Diplomats Say Iran Has Begun Assembling Machines At Underground Uranium Enrichment Plant
2 February 2007

ASSOCIATED PRESS (VIENNA)---Hundreds of workers in Iran have set up piping, control panels and electric cables at the Natanz underground uranium enrichment plant in Iran, diplomats said today, February 2. This is the final step before installing equipment that the international community fears could be used to make nuclear arms. The diplomats accredited with the International Atomic Energy Agency emphasized that the work at the plant was preliminary. But one diplomat said that centrifuges were already being lowered by freight elevator into the facility, along with other equipment needed to assemble "cascades''. Cascades are centrifuges in a series that spin and re-spin uranium gas to the required level of enrichment. These diplomats said that to their knowledge, no centrifuges had yet been set up. Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/world/4520623.html

Source Reliability: 8

Analysis: Due to evidence that Iranian workers have been working at this underground facility for at least the past three weeks including, laying down piping, control panels and electrical cables, and other evidence that suggests that centrifuges have begun to be lowerd down into the facility, it is likely that the Iranian government will begin to install 3000 gaseous centrifuges at the Natanz facility by next week. A diplomat, associated with the International Atomic Energy agency also stated, today, that all the preliminary work for installation on the centrifuges has been completed at the Natanz facility and that all that is left is the actual installation of the 3000 centrifuges.

Analytic Confidence: 7

--Nate