Anyone who's been keeping up with Bill Gertz on the Russia-Iran affair knows the Russians have been giving Iran whatever is lying about.
While Strobe Talbott was counseling patience with Russia, Russia was illegally doling out missile technology to the radical Muslim regime in Iran. Betrayal, p. 171.
There follows a chapter detailing Clinton's derelection of duty in allowing Russia to provide Iran with technology to build nuclear-capable missiles threatening Israel and U.S. forces on the peninsula.
A report March 4 indicates Iran well on way to enrichment:
Iran Uranium Facility Seen Onstream in Few Weeks
By REUTERS
March 4, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-nuclear.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran expects to bring onstream in the next few weeks a uranium processing plant which Washington fears could be part of a secret program to develop nuclear weapons, newspapers reported on Tuesday.
``Iran will start operating its nuclear facility in Isfahan early next (Iranian) year,'' Hassan Rohani, secretary-general of the National Supreme Security Council, was quoted as saying in several papers.
The Iranian calendar year starts on March 21.
The Isfahan plant in central Iran would process uranium from nearby mines. The resulting gas would then be enriched at another facility in the town of Natanz, Rohani said.
Iran has firmly denied the U.S. charges about its atomic energy program, arguing its nuclear program will be used only for peaceful purposes.
The Islamic Republic has said it wants to generate 6,000 MW of electricity from atomic power plants by 2022 to meet the growing energy demand of its 65 million population.
However U.S. officials say Iran's extensive oil and gas deposits make an expensive nuclear power program unnecessary.
Iran, which Washington has branded an ``axis of evil'' member along with Iraq and North Korea, last month unveiled details of an ambitious nuclear energy program, from mining uranium ore to managing the spent fuel from atomic reactors.
``Having access to the technology is not translated into having access to an atomic bomb. It is scientific technology used for peaceful purposes,'' Rohani said.
The head of U.N. nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei has said Iran could only dispel doubts about its nuclear ambitions by signing up to the International Atomic Energy Agency's ``Additional Protocol'' which would allow inspectors freer access to nuclear sites with little prior warning.
Last month ElBaradei visited the gas centrifuge enrichment plant at Natanz, about 320 km (200 miles) south of Tehran, and reported seeing a sophisticated facility with a pilot project and a larger unit still under construction. Part of the facility was being built underground.
Uranium must be enriched before it can be used in nuclear reactors to generate electricity. But highly enriched uranium is also a key ingredient for nuclear weapons.
Independent experts say Iran is at least two years away from producing enriched uranium.
Construction of the Natanz plant and a heavy water plant in the nearby town of Arak was first publicly disclosed by an Iranian opposition group. That led ElBaradei to push Iranian officials for an assurance they would in future inform the IAEA of any new nuclear facilities as soon as the decision to build them has been taken.
Rohani said investment in nuclear technology ``will help boost our national prowess.''
``Nuclear technology is such a complicated technology on which Iran has capitalized in the last two years. We have managed to reach out for the technology to produce enriched uranium,'' he was quoted as saying.
Iran's first nuclear reactor, the 1000 MW Bushehr plant being built with Russian help in southern Iran, is due to become operational by early 2004.