IAEA: Iran is ‘increasing danger’ in the world due to lack of transparency on its atomic program

Tehran has already enriched enough uranium to make six nuclear bombs.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned Tuesday that Iran is “increasing dangers” in the world due to its lack of transparency regarding its atomic program.

Speaking at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, Rafael Mariano Grossi said that Tehran is “presenting a face which is not entirely transparent when it comes to its nuclear activities. Of course, this increases danger. There’s loose talk about nuclear weapons more and more, including in Iran recently. A very high official said, in fact, ‘We have everything, it’s disassembled.’ Well, please let me know what you have.”

Ali Akbar Salehi, who headed his country’s civilian Atomic Energy Organization under former president Hassan Rouhani, said on Iranian television Sunday that “We have all the (pieces) of nuclear science and technology. Let me give an example. What does a car need? It needs a chassis, it needs an engine, it needs a steering wheel, it needs a gearbox. Have you made a gearbox? I say yes. An engine? But each one is for its own purpose.”

Grossi’s comment regarding his organization’s ignorance of the status of Iran’s nuclear program comes on the heels of his condemnation of Iran last month, when he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that the Islamic Republic was “restricting cooperation in a very unprecedented way.”

Iran’s nuclear program is “galloping ahead,” he noted, adding that it was “unacceptable” for the IAEA to be held “hostage” to Iran’s “political disputes with others.”

This was a seeming reference to the growing tensions in the region over the Hamas-Israel war.  Throughout this war, Tehran is pulling the strings of its terror proxies to attack Israel directly, such as Hizbollah is doing from Lebanon, or indirectly, such as the Houthis in Yemen launching missiles at international shipping, especially cargo ships linked to the U.S. and Israel.

Last week, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) published a report saying that Tehran could “break out and produce enough weapon-grade enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in a week, using only a fraction of its 60% enriched uranium,” and could produce up to six bombs within a month.

According to the IAEA, Iran already has over 125 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, which experts say has no credible peaceful purpose. While that level alone is enough to produce a “dirty” bomb, it is only a very small step to enrich uranium from 60% to the 90% necessary for a standard nuclear weapon, and already last February agency inspectors had detected uranium enriched to 84% in the country.

“The volatile situation in the region is providing Iran with a unique opportunity and increased internal justification for building nuclear weapons while the United States and Israel’s resources to detect and deter Iran from succeeding are stretched thin,” the ISIS report stated. “Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities are more dangerous than they have ever been, while its relations with the West are at a low point.”

IAEAiran nuclear programIran nuclear threatRafael Grossi