Bloomberg: A U.S. arms-control official said today there is “strong evidence” Iran sought to develop the means to put a nuclear weapon on a missile prior to 2003 and perhaps afterward. By Janine Zacharia
Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — A U.S. arms-control official said today there is “strong evidence” Iran sought to develop the means to put a nuclear weapon on a missile prior to 2003 and perhaps afterward.
Robert Einhorn, the State Department’s special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, said the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna will report on the issue next week.
The IAEA will “address Iran’s continuing failure to cooperate with the IAEA’s investigation of the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program, including strong evidence that it has done work on a missile warhead for delivering nuclear weapons,” Einhorn said.
Einhorn spoke to a conference hosted by the Middle East Institute in Washington as the U.S. awaits a response from Tehran to a deal on enriched uranium.
Einhorn said he was referring to warhead work done prior to 2003, the year Iran halted its nuclear weapons program, according to a U.S. intelligence estimate made in 2007.
“That’s not to say categorically that there’s no such activities taking place since then,” Einhorn added, leaving open the possibility that warhead design has continued.
Einhorn said “a number of governments,” including the U.S., have provided the IAEA with “substantial information, some of it acquired on a laptop computer, regarding work done in the past on the design for what all experts seem to agree is a nuclear warhead.”
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. The U.S. and European allies as well as Russia and China have been pushing Iran to prove that it is not seeking nuclear weapons.
