Countries of Proliferation Concern - Iran

A threat to the United States since the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, Iran is believed to have developed an active WMD program to counter the Israeli threat, as well as to discourage opponents and establish regional dominance in the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea. Iran agreed to the NPT in 1970, but concerns remain that Iran is covertly developing a nuclear weapons capability under the guise of building and running nuclear power plants to generate electricity. The NTI reported that in late 2002 American intelligence established via satellite photographs that Iran was secretly building and operating two nuclear facilities—a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy water production plant near Arak. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which conducts inspections under the NPT, admitted that Iran had delayed IAEA inspections of those two plants. In February 2003 an IAEA delegation visited the plant at Natanz and IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei confirmed that the Natanz facility was enriching uranium, a key component in nuclear weapons development.

In the summer of 2004 concern about Iran's nuclear intentions renewed when it was learned that the country had resumed building centrifuges and restarted equipment used to make uranium hexaflouride gas, both of which are necessary to build nuclear weapons. Iran had promised Britain, France, and Germany to suspend building centrifuges to demonstrate its intent to cooperate with the IAEA. In April 2004 Iran resolved to cooperate fully with the IAEA, claiming that it had suspended enrichment programs and agreeing to an IAEA inspection. A June 2004 IAEA resolution rebuked Iran for failing to be forthcoming about its nuclear program. The United States had been pushing the IAEA to bring its concerns before the UN Security Council. A war of words ensued, with Israeli officials threatening a preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear sites, and Iran announcing that any preemptive strike would be met with an attack on Israeli nuclear plants. Figure 4.2 shows where Iran's nuclear facilities are located.

In August 2004, amid escalating tension over its nuclear program, Iran announced that it had carried out a field test of its new Shahab-3 missile, with an estimated range of eight hundred miles. The missile is capable of hitting targets in Israel and U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf region. With North Korea's aid, Iran has been developing missiles for many years. Based on old Russian designs, and updated by both North Korea and Iran, the missiles already developed and stockpiled are capable of reaching at least five hundred kilometers (311 miles), with the potential to go up to four thousand kilometers (2,485 miles). (See Figure 4.3.)

Iran is one of the few countries that has had chemical weapons used against it (by Iraq, in the 1980–88 war). The United States claims that Iran has been working on developing a chemical weapons program since the war with Iraq. According to the NTI, Iran's chemical weapon arsenal may include sarin, mustard, phosgene, and hydrocyanic acid. According to U.S. government estimates, Iran has the capacity to produce 1,000 metric tons of chemical agents per year and may have a stockpile of at least several thousand metric tons of weaponized and bulk chemical agents. Iran ratified the CWC in 1997 and strongly denies the existence of a chemical weapons program. In 2003 the CIA reported (Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, 1 January through 30 June 2003, Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, November, 2003) that Iran was actively pursuing contacts with Chinese companies to acquire the technology and expertise to produce its own nerve agents. Iran also ratified the BTWC (in 1973) but is believed to retain the resources and expertise to conduct an offensive biological weapons program. The United States asserts that Iran may have produced small quantities of biological weapons including mycotoxins, ricin, and the smallpox virus.