IAEA unveils allegations of Iranian arms work

By Mark Heinrich and Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. investigators want Iran to explain an organizational chart linking projects to process uranium, test explosives and modify a missile cone for a nuclear payload, diplomats briefed on the matter say.

They said a top U.N. nuclear watchdog official last week gave a detailed presentation of intelligence alleging illicit atomic "weaponization studies" by Iran and naming the man who ran them for the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.

In a written summary given to Reuters of the presentation, they said Iran had refused to let inspectors interview Mohsen Fakrizadeh or visit sites where the experiments took place.

The summary also confirmed leaks that the briefing for the first time indicated Iran continued the three projects into 2004, calling into question a U.S. intelligence estimate in December that said Iran shelved weaponization research in 2003.

"This presentation was a graphic demonstration that ... amplifies the concerns we've had for a number for years. And we are waiting for answers," Simon Smith, British ambassador to the IAEA, told reporters after the February 25 briefing.

The disclosures came as the United States and key European allies were piling pressure on four developing nations on the U.N. Security Council to vote for sanctions against Iran on Monday for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment program.

Iran says its nuclear ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity and has dismissed the intelligence, key bits from a laptop smuggled out of the Islamic Republic and passed to Washington, as baseless, forged or irrelevant.

But Iran's enrichment could be turned to fuelling atom bombs as well as power plants and it hid the program from the U.N. non-proliferation watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, until 2003 after exposure by exiled Iranian dissidents.

The Vienna-based IAEA says it remains to be seen whether the new intelligence details are correct, but is demanding a full response from Iran, not just denials lacking evidence.

Fakrizadeh, a military officer, earlier headed a military-affiliated physics research centre that was razed in 2004 after the IAEA asked to inspect it for signs of undeclared nuclear research.

LINKED PROJECTS IN CODE

In the power-point presentation, IAEA safeguards chief Olli Heinonen displayed an organizational diagram linking the three projects with numbered code names -- "5" for processing nuclear fuel, "110" for purported tests of an atomic device and "111" for a longer-range, Shahab-3 missile adapted to carry it.

Project 111 was also known as the "Orchid Office".

One of dozens of slides screened by Heinonen cited a progress report on the related projects for the period July 9, 2003-January 14, 2004. Other files showed the warhead design project began in July 2002.

U.S. spy services estimated Iran halted outright "weaponization" work in 2003 but also said it continued efforts to master technology applicable to yielding nuclear explosives.