Il Washington Post in edicola stamattina pubblica in prima pagina un articolo con interessanti informazioni sul contenuto del report, oramai prossimo alla diffusione.
Secondo il Washington Post il report dell’Agenzia per l’Energia Atomica evidenzierebbe il ruolo fondamentale svolto da alcuni esperti non iraniani, tra i quali uno scienziato nucleare russo: Vyacheslav Danilenko.
Evidenzio alcuni passaggi dell’articolo:

Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran’s government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings. Documents and other records provide new details on the role played by a former Soviet weapons scientist who allegedly tutored Iranians over several years on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction, the officials and experts said. Crucial technology linked to experts in Pakistan and North Korea also helped propel Iran to the threshold of nuclear capability, they added (…).
U.S. intelligence officials maintain that Iran’s leaders have not decided whether to build nuclear weapons but are intent on gathering all the components and skills so they can quickly assemble a bomb if they choose to (…).
The IAEA has declined to comment on the intelligence it has received from member states, including the United States, pending the release of its report. But some of the highlights were described in a presentation by Albright at a private conference of intelligence professionals last week. PowerPoint slides from the presentation were obtained by The Washington Post, and details of Albright’s summary were confirmed by two European diplomats privy to the IAEA’s internal reports. The two officials spoke on the condition of anonymity, in keeping with diplomatic protocol.
Albright said IAEA officials, based on the totality of the evidence given to them, have concluded that Iran “has sufficient information to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device” using highly enriched uranium as its fissile core. In the presentation, he described intelligence that points to a formalized and rigorous process for gaining all the necessary skills for weapons-building, using native talent as well as a generous helping of foreign expertise. The [intelligence] points to a comprehensive project structure and hierarchy with clear responsibilities, timelines and deliverables,” Albright said, according to the notes from the presentation. According to Albright, one key breakthrough that has not been publicly described was Iran’s success in obtaining design information for a device known as an R265 generator.
The device is a hemispherical aluminum shell with an intricate array of high explosives that detonate with split-second precision. These charges compress a small sphere of enriched uranium or plutonium to trigger a nuclear chain reaction. Creating such a device is a formidable technical challenge, and Iran needed outside assistance in designing the generator and testing its performance, Albright said. According to the intelligence provided to the IAEA, key assistance in both areas was provided by Vyacheslav Danilenko, a former Soviet nuclear scientist who was contracted in the mid-1990s by Iran’s Physics Research Center, a facility linked to the country’s nuclear program. Documents provided to the U.N. officials showed that Danilenko offered assistance to the Iranians over at least five years, giving lectures and sharing research papers on developing and testing an explosives package that the Iranians apparently incorporated into their warhead design, according to two officials with access to the IAEA’s confidential files. (…)

L’esperto di cui parla il Washington Post, David Albright, Presidente dell’ISIS di Washington, ha tenuto una quindicina di giorni fa un seminario presso la Georgetown University. A chi fosse interessato alla vicenda in oggetto consiglio di guardare l’intervento…

David Albright on Iran’s Nuclear Program from GW’s Elliott School on Vimeo.