Iran plans bold nuclear plant expansion

TEHRAN -- Two days after the world's atomic energy watchdog rebuked Iran over its nuclear program, the Islamic Republic's Cabinet on Sunday ordered a dramatic expansion of the nuclear program that would include an additional 10 nuclear plants.

If completed, the plan would provide Iran with enough enriched uranium to produce 20,000 megawatts of electricity within six years, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, according to the semiofficial Mehr news agency.

But Iran's stated plans often don't square with its capabilities. The oil-and-gas rich Middle East nation of 70 million would need to overcome economic and technical hurdles to mount so ambitious a nuclear expansion. Iran has installed about 8,000 centrifuges, of which only about half are producing reactor-grade uranium.

Experts predicted Iran would have a tough time following through with the plan.

"If they actually mean it, given the pace of their production and installation of working centrifuges, we are looking at an extremely costly 20- or 30-year program, at best," said Gary Sick, a professor of the Middle East at Columbia University who served on the National Security Council during Iran's 1979 revolution. "Words are easy. Implementation is hard."

The plan calls for 10 plants on the scale of a current, industrial-sized facility in Natanz that holds 50,000 centrifuges.

Ahmad Shirzad, a Tehran nuclear scientist and frequent critic of the government, said Iran had neither the industrial ability to create 500,000 centrifuges nor the basic ingredients to operate them. He characterized the announcement as a "political decision to make an impression" on the international community.

"Viewing the industrial development in Iran for the time being, it is not feasible," he said. "Apart from that, we need lots of lots of raw materials, including uranium, many kinds of alloys and so on to be imported from abroad."

Such items could be difficult for Iran to come by, given the sanctions already in place to prevent it from obtaining so-called dual-use materials, which could be used for peaceful purposes or to build weapons.

Ahmadinejad said the new facilities would incorporate more efficient centrifuges that Iran has yet to employ.

"New high-capacity centrifuges have been designed by the Islamic Republic of Iran that can carry out the task in fewer numbers," he said. "We will use these new centrifuges as soon as they become operational."

The U.S. and its allies criticized Iran's move. "If true, this would be yet another serious violation of Iran's clear obligations under multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions and another example of Iran choosing to isolate itself," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes; the U.S. and its allies fear that Iran is intent on building atomic weapons.

Said British Foreign Secretary David Miliband: "Instead of engaging with us, Iran chooses to provoke and dissemble."

On Friday, the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency voted 25-3 with seven abstentions to condemn Iran's nuclear program. The resolution by the agency, which reports to the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council, called on Iran to halt enrichment, resolve lingering questions about its past nuclear activities, open its facilities to further inspection and provide assurances it is not operating secret nuclear research and development sites.

Iran's Parliament issued a statement Sunday asking the government to reduce its cooperation with the IAEA following the vote. But Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said the country would not pull out of its treaty obligations, which bar it from pursuing nuclear weapons.

"We pursue our rights and international obligations in equal measures," he said on the sidelines of the Cabinet meeting, according to Mehr.

Iran's claim that the censure was politically motivated was bolstered by Egypt, which called the resolution "unbalanced" because it did not address Israel's undeclared nuclear weapons program.

"The resolution did not take into consideration the regional dimension in dealing with the Iranian nuclear dossier, as the resolution should (have) included a clear remark on the importance of dealing with the Israeli nuclear abilities and freeing the Middle East from nuclear weapons," said a statement from Egypt's foreign ministry.

Egypt abstained from Friday's vote.