LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Iran: Uranium
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With help from Russia, Iran is building a nuclear power plant, but U.S. officials say that Iran is more interested in developing a nuclear weapon than in producing nuclear energy. In April 2006, President Ahmadinejad announced Iran had successfully enriched uranium. Experts say Iran could have enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) to produce a bomb in three to ten years. The international community has called on Iran to stop its nuclear program.
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Iran does not currently have nuclear weapons, and would appear to be about two years away from acquiring nuclear weapons. By some time in 2006... Iran could be producting fissile material for atomic bombs using both uranium enriched at Natanz and plutonium produced at Arak. The Natanz facility might produce enough uranium for about five bombs every year, and the Arak facility might produced enough plutonium for as many as three bombs every year.
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A National Intelligence Estimate, released in December 2007 and compiled by the 16 agencies of the U.S. intelligence community, reported "with high confidence" that Iran had frozen its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The report contradicts one written in 2005 that stated Iran was determined to continue developing such weapons. The report seemed to immediately put the brakes on any plans by the Bush administration to preemptively attack Iran's weapons facilities and to impose another round of sanctions against Iran. The report suggests that Iran has bowed to international pressure to end its pursuit of an atomic bomb. "Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issues than we judged previously," it said. After the release of the intelligence report, President Bush... said Iran remains a threat and can not be trusted to pursue enriching uranium for civilian use.
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In 1995, it became evident that Iran may be pursuing nuclear weapons through another track: by procuring dual-use items from Western firms. The United States ... learned that Iran and Russia concluded a secret protocol stipulating, among other things, construction of a gas centrifuge enrichment facility. The fear was that Iran might learn how to construct a similar clandestine facility and then produce weapons-grade uranium undetected. The United States then imposed extensive sanctions on Iran and successfully pressured Russia and other potential suppliers, mostly in Europe, to halt exports of sensitive dual-use nuclear technology to Iran, such as high-voltage switches that could trigger a nuclear weapon and specialized remote manipulators designed to handle heavy volumes of radioactive material and possibly intended for a uranium or plutonium reprocessing plant.
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