Signs Suggest Iran Is Speeding Up Work on Nuclear Program
New York Times / DAVID E. SANGER
24-Aug-2012

 International nuclear inspectors will soon report that Iran has installed hundreds of new centrifuges in recent months and may also be speeding up production of nuclear fuel while negotiations with the United States and its allies have ground to a near halt, according to diplomats and experts briefed on the findings.

Almost all of the new equipment is being installed in a deep underground site on a military base near Qum that is considered virtually invulnerable to military attack. It would suggest that a boast by senior Iranian leaders late last month — that the country had added upward of 1,000 new machines to its installation despite Western sabotage — may be true.

 “This will stir more discussion of how much time is left for diplomacy,” Olli Heinonen, the former chief inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency, and now a fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, said Thursday. “Even if the new centrifuges are not operating yet, a thousand new ones would represent a 20 percent increase — and an increased production level will be a red line for many people.”

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