Bush Says Iran Speeds Output of A-Bomb Fuel - NY Times

Excerpts of President Bush's comments at the gathering of Pacific rim leaders in Chile.

He told reporters on Saturday that he was "concerned about reports" that said Iran appeared "willing to speed up processing of materials that could lead to a nuclear weapon." Diplomats had said the day before that Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it was racing to produce uranium hexafluoride, a gas that can be enriched into bomb fuel, before it begins to observe the temporary suspension of nuclear activity that it negotiated with the Europeans. ...

Mr. Bush's quickness to seize on the Iranian production of uranium hexafluoride was driven, administration officials said, by a sense among his national security aides that there is still time to stop Iran from actually producing a weapon. "We're past that point with North Korea," one senior adviser said recently. "With the North, it's a question of unwinding what's already happened." ...

Iran's intentions are unclear. If it is truly suspending the production of all nuclear fuel, it is unclear why it would work so quickly to finish production of the raw material that is fed into centrifuges and enriched. At low enrichment levels, the fuel could be used to produce nuclear power; at high enrichment levels, it could make the core of a bomb. more

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