Iran nuclear face-off nears

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Friday that Iran has continued to defy a Security Council call for a freeze on its efforts to enrich uranium, setting up a showdown between the international community and the Islamic republic.

The Security Council will meet Wednesday to begin consideration of a resolution requiring Iran to halt enrichment activities that also could be used to make bomb-grade uranium, and to address long-unanswered questions about possible military applications of its nuclear program. The measure would be the next step in a diplomatic path leading to possible sanctions.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a rally in northwest Iran on Friday that the country had the right to pursue nuclear technology and that he did "not give a damn" about future Security Council resolutions restricting its nuclear activities.

"Enemies think that by ... threatening us, launching psychological warfare or ... imposing embargoes, they can dissuade our nation from obtaining nuclear technology," Ahmadinejad told cheering supporters in a speech shown on Iranian television. "The Iranian nation insists on its right to peaceful nuclear technology. We will not back down one iota."

Ahmadinejad's statements are the latest in a series of challenges from the Islamic republic, which ended a moratorium on processing nuclear materials in August, leading to the collapse of talks with Britain, France and Germany.

Iran is sticking to its stance that it has the legal right to develop nuclear know-how under the Non-proliferation Treaty. Iran's intransigence has made other countries, especially the United States, suspicious that its history of covert nuclear development and refusal to cooperate with the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency mean it is pursuing nuclear weapons.

The IAEA's report Friday did not suggest that Iran was trying to develop nuclear weapons, but said its lack of cooperation made it increasingly difficult for inspectors to assess whether it had a covert military program.

The report said that in a 30-day grace period after the Security Council asked it to suspend enrichment, Iran forged ahead with plans to build a 164-centrifuge cascade and successfully enriched uranium to 3.6 percent, the level needed for nuclear-power plants but far lower than the 80 to 90 percent necessary for bomb-grade fuel.

The IAEA confirmed Iran's claims that it is in the process of building two more cascades of 164 centrifuges, which would expand its enrichment capability and demonstrate that it is on its way to mastering a key component of the enrichment process. However, experts say Iran is still years away from producing enough highly enriched uranium for use in a weapon.

The eight-page report also said Iran failed to address questions about the history and scope of its centrifuge program, or to clarify claims by Ahmadinejad last week that Iran was conducting research on P-2 centrifuges, a type that enriches uranium four times faster than the P-1 version it is now using.

Iran also refused to provide documents from a nuclear black-market network headed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan about centrifuges and how to build a nuclear-weapon core.

The report concluded that because of such gaps, "including the role of the military in Iran's nuclear program, the agency is unable to make progress in its efforts to provide assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran."

The United States is leading a push in the Security Council to pass a resolution legally obliging Iran to halt all nuclear research and development, a move that Russia and China have been resisting.

Those two permanent members of the Security Council may ultimately allow the resolution to pass if they are convinced it won't by itself open the door to sanctions or military action.

President Bush said the world is ready to ratchet up pressure on Iran.

"It's very important for the Iranians to understand there is a common desire by a lot of nations in this world to convince them, peacefully convince them, that they ought to give up their weapons ambitions," Bush said.