“good news & bad news”

Laura Rosen/ here

"The Obama administration said there was “good news and bad news” in a report on Iran’s nuclear program released by the UN Atomic Energy Agency today. Good news in that report documents significant technical problems Iran seems to be experiencing with its nuclear enrichment program. Bad news, the administration officials described, in that the report describes an increased pattern of lack of Iranian cooperation with the atomic watchdog agency.

"The increased level of non cooperation [with the IAEA] indicates to me, that the less we can mount an international pressure [effort] to stop it, this program is heading more and more in the direction of seeking a weapons capability," a senior administration official told journalists in a briefing arranged at the White House tonight. "It may take them longer to get there. But the pattern of behavior is one that is very disturbing."

Other key findings the senior administration official highlighted:

* The Iranians actually have fewer centrifuges running than in the last IAEA report issued in the fall of 2009, the official said, saying the Natanz enrichment facility is operating at less than 50% of its full capacity. “It’s hard to tell the reasons for that,” the senior administration official said. “But it’s consistent with technical problems [Iran has been experiencing] operating their centrifuges.”

* Regarding Iran’s efforts begun this month to start enriching low enriched uranium to 20% at a small separate pilot enrichment facility at Natanz, the senior administration official emphasized that Iran is operating just a single cascade there and is producing therefore extremely slowly: i.e. about 100 grams a day, equal to 3 kg a month. In terms of the amount of time it would theoretically take Iran to higher enrich uranium to have enough high enriched uranium for a single bomb, he estimated it would take “several years -- five or six years."

*He also noted that it's the IAEA has said that it is concerned that Iran may have had not just previous weaponization research, but may currently be conducting weaponization research.

*Along those lines, the administration official emphasized that the IAEA said it did not believe Iran that it had only started constructing the secret Qom enrichment facility in 2007, after Iran unilaterally declared that it was no longer obliged to notify the IAEA in advance about nuclear facility plans. The IAEA says it has compelling evidence that Iran began construction of the Qom enrichment facility in 2006, when Iran was still under its own definition still obliged to inform the IAEA of plans for such construction...."