On Ritter And Iran

A reader writes:

Scott Ritter reminds me of the Bush administration--he has a tendency to omit inconvenient facts when making his arguments. The Guardian op-ed that you cite in your recent post contains two glaring flaws: First: Ritter claims that Iran was not bound by Code 3.1 of the "additional protocols" (requiring it to inform the IAEA of the construction of new nuclear facilities), because Code 3.1 had not been ratified by the Iranian Parliament. However, Ritter fails to mention that the Iranian government never even bothered to submit Code 3.1 to the parliament for ratification.

That's not surprising, since Code 3.1 (which is part of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty's "Subsidiary Arrangements") does not require ratification by national parliaments. Iran did, however, send a letter to the IAEA in 200, promising to adhere to the code (which is considered the proper legal protocol). As such, when Iran declared in 2007 that it would no longer be bound to Code 3.1 (due to lack of parliamentary ratification), the IAEA emphatically (and correctly) rejected the decision. 

Ironically, it was Iran's 2007 announcement that alerted intelligence agencies that something was amiss. By this time, arms control experts were in agreement that Iran could not divert sufficient amounts of enriched uranium for weapons production from its Isfahan facility without being caught by the IAEA--hence, the real possibility that Iran intended to build another, clandestine facility that would not be monitored by the IAEA.

Which brings me to Ritter's second glaring misstatement: "The size of the Qom facility, alleged to be capable of housing 3,000 centrifuges, is not ideal for large-scale enrichment activity..." That would be true if Iran was using its older centrifuge design, the P-1. However, at the same time Iran withdrew from its agreement with the IAEA, it resumed work on perfecting the IR-2 enrichment centrifuges--a variation on the P-2 centrifuges used by Pakistan. The IR-2 design is smaller, more energy efficient--only 1,200 such centrifuges would be required to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb in just one year.

I certainly agree that we should proceed cautiously based on the latest revelations. But to suggest, as Scott Ritter does, that Iran's actions demonstrate that the country has been acting in good faith is a bit of a stretch.