Iran tested advanced nuclear warhead design
Published 6 November 2009 The “two-point implosion” is one of the most guarded secrets in nuclear weapons states; yet Iranian engineers, in what Western nuclear experts describe as a breakthrough, has tested such a design, which much be described as a giant leap in acquiring nuclear weapons
Evidence that Iran has accelerated its march toward the bomb emerged as the UN’s nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian has learned. The very existence of the technology, known as a “two-point implosion” device, is officially secret in both the United States and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was described by nuclear experts as “breathtaking” and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.
The
Guardian’s Julian Borger
writes that the sophisticated technology, once mastered, allows for the production of smaller and simpler warheads than older models. It reduces the diameter of a warhead and makes it easier to put a nuclear warhead on a missile.
Documentation referring to experiments testing a two-point detonation design are part of the evidence of nuclear weaponization gathered by the IAEA and presented to Iran for its response. The dossier, titled “Possible Military Dimensions of Iran’s Nuclear Program,” is drawn in part from reports submitted to it by Western intelligence agencies.
The agency has in the past treated such reports with skepticism, particularly after the Iraq war. Still, its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, has said the evidence of Iranian weaponization “appears to have been derived from multiple sources over different periods of time, appears to be generally consistent, and is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed that it needs to be addressed by Iran”
Extracts from the dossier have been published previously, but it was not previously known that it included documentation on such an advanced warhead. “It is breathtaking that Iran could be working on this sort of material,” said a European government adviser on nuclear issues.
James Acton, a British nuclear weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: “It’s remarkable that, before perfecting step one, they are going straight to step four or five … To start with more sophisticated designs speaks of level of technical ambition that is surprising.”
Another Western specialist with extensive knowledge of the Iranian program said: “It raises the question of who supplied
