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Iran's Nuclear Goals

Aired February 19, 2004 - 11:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Iran claims its nuclear weapons -- or nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but administration officials say inspectors have found sophisticated equipment that seems to suggest Iran may be working on a nuclear bomb.
National security correspondent David Ensor has been working this story all morning out of Washington.

David -- share what you've learned with us.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, senior administration officials are saying that they understand that the international inspectors, who are in Iran looking at things that Iran has revealed and talked about, have discovered some sophisticated uranium enrichment centrifuge equipment that is of a type that Iran had not admitted to having.

These are P2 centrifuges. They use rotors that are made out of miraging steel instead of aluminum, the P1 type of centrifuge that Iran has so far admitted to having. And these P2 uranium enrichment centrifuges are similar to those that were found recently in Libya, leading some officials to suspect that they might have come from the Pakistani nuclear black market efforts of that institute in Pakistan run by Mr. A.Q. Khan.

At the same time, other officials are warning not to draw quick conclusions about where this material came from.

But in any case, it suggests to administration officials that Iran has not revealed all that it knows, all that it has, in its nuclear weapons development program, and is not coming clean with the IAEA -- the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Now, IAEA officials in Vienna are declining to comment on this, and we understand that the Iranian Foreign Ministry has put out a statement denying that there are any P-2 uranium enrichment facilities in Iran. Still, we have multiple officials in the administration today saying that they understand that is exactly what the IAEA has found in Iran.

Now, this is all in the build-up to a March 8 meeting of the Board of Governors at the IAEA, where the board will have to decide whether or not to refer the matter of Iran's alleged nuclear transgressions to the U.N. Security Council. U.S. officials saying they haven't decided whether to urge that or not at the meeting -- Carol.

LIN: David, is there any consideration from your sources that the United States take any sort of unilateral action against Iran?

ENSOR: Nobody is suggesting anything like that at this point, no. It's simply that they want to -- they believe that the inspections effort, officials I've spoken to, is working, is revealing things. They want it to continue, but they do insist that they believe that Iran has not fully come clean with the international inspectors and has more it needs to tell. And this is evidence of that -- Carol.

LIN: All right, thank you very much, David Ensor live at the State Department.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.






Aired February 19, 2004 - 11:32   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Iran claims its nuclear weapons -- or nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but administration officials say inspectors have found sophisticated equipment that seems to suggest Iran may be working on a nuclear bomb.
National security correspondent David Ensor has been working this story all morning out of Washington.

David -- share what you've learned with us.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, senior administration officials are saying that they understand that the international inspectors, who are in Iran looking at things that Iran has revealed and talked about, have discovered some sophisticated uranium enrichment centrifuge equipment that is of a type that Iran had not admitted to having.

These are P2 centrifuges. They use rotors that are made out of miraging steel instead of aluminum, the P1 type of centrifuge that Iran has so far admitted to having. And these P2 uranium enrichment centrifuges are similar to those that were found recently in Libya, leading some officials to suspect that they might have come from the Pakistani nuclear black market efforts of that institute in Pakistan run by Mr. A.Q. Khan.

At the same time, other officials are warning not to draw quick conclusions about where this material came from.

But in any case, it suggests to administration officials that Iran has not revealed all that it knows, all that it has, in its nuclear weapons development program, and is not coming clean with the IAEA -- the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Now, IAEA officials in Vienna are declining to comment on this, and we understand that the Iranian Foreign Ministry has put out a statement denying that there are any P-2 uranium enrichment facilities in Iran. Still, we have multiple officials in the administration today saying that they understand that is exactly what the IAEA has found in Iran.

Now, this is all in the build-up to a March 8 meeting of the Board of Governors at the IAEA, where the board will have to decide whether or not to refer the matter of Iran's alleged nuclear transgressions to the U.N. Security Council. U.S. officials saying they haven't decided whether to urge that or not at the meeting -- Carol.

LIN: David, is there any consideration from your sources that the United States take any sort of unilateral action against Iran?

ENSOR: Nobody is suggesting anything like that at this point, no. It's simply that they want to -- they believe that the inspections effort, officials I've spoken to, is working, is revealing things. They want it to continue, but they do insist that they believe that Iran has not fully come clean with the international inspectors and has more it needs to tell. And this is evidence of that -- Carol.

LIN: All right, thank you very much, David Ensor live at the State Department.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.