U.N. official doubts Iran nuclear claims

WASHINGTON — Iran has doubled its capacity to enrich uranium in the past two months but remains far from the industrial-scale capabilities that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently claimed, according to an official letter written by a senior U.N. nuclear inspector Wednesday.

The letter to Iranian officials from Olli Heinonen, a deputy director at the International Atomic Energy Agency, confirmed that in a visit earlier this week, inspectors had seen eight centrifuge cascades operating at a nuclear enrichment facility in the town of Natanz.

In a February report, inspectors wrote that they had seen four such cascades operating at the same site but none was enriching uranium. At the time, Iranian officials said they'd hoped by May to be operating 18 cascades, each one of which could enrich uranium to low levels suitable for a nuclear energy program.

Ahmadinejad and his aides said two weeks ago that Iran was now operating 3,000 centrifuges, a number that would signal significant progress in the country's effort to enrich large quantities of uranium. But on Sunday and Monday, inspectors saw a total of 1,312 centrifuges. It remains unclear how effectively they are running since Iran has encountered considerable technological problems in the past two years.

U.S. intelligence officials have estimated that Iran is five to 10 years from being able to manufacture enough uranium for a single weapon and the means to deliver it.