Why US doesn't trust Iran on nukes

This exposure forced Iran to declare the facilities to the IAEA, as Tehran is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It was not just the secrecy that set off alarms in the US, but the nature of the newly revealed sites - and Natanz, in particular.

The 100,000-square-meter Natanz facility is the location of a pilot uranium centrifuge enrichment plant, as well as a future commercial-size centrifuge plant. If Iran masters enrichment technology, it will be able to make its own fissile material, including possible bomb material - and it will have jumped the most difficult hurdle on the path to becoming an atomic power.

On Jan. 10, Iran removed IAEA seals placed at Natanz and other facilities to verify a suspension of work. Centrifuges, which enrich a gas form of uranium by spinning at incredibly high speeds, are difficult to run, and Iran may have trouble restarting its pilot centrifuge plant.

"They're not quite junk, but it's going to take a lot of effort to get them up and running again," says Charles Ferguson, a nuclear science and technology expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

But once the centrifuges are running, the clock will be ticking on Western estimates of when Iran might have enough fissile material for a nuclear device. Israeli intelligence argues that Iran is only two years away from a bomb, but others think it will take more time.

On Saturday, Israel repeated that it would not accept a nuclear Iran under any circumstances. Iran said Sunday that Israel would be making a "fatal mistake" if it takes military action against Tehran's nuclear program and dismissed threats from the Jewish state as a "childish game."

The ISIS - which last week released the satellite photo of Natanz - says Iran could have its first nuclear weapon by 2009.

But why won't Iran just use the centrifuges to produce low-enriched uranium for power reactors? That's what Tehran says it wants to do.

US intelligence rejoins that Iran hid the plants from the IAEA - a suspicious act. Nor has Tehran told the full story of where its centrifuge technology came from, although most experts think it is Pakistan.

Furthermore, Iran's investment in the nuclear-fuel cycle makes no sense from a civilian viewpoint, the US says. Iran lacks adequate deposits of natural uranium to ever be self-sufficient in civil nuclear power, according to a Department of Energy analysis in 2005. The DOE says that Iran's nuclear infrastructure is about the right size for weapons capability, as seen when it is compared with the program of another nation, presumably Pakistan.

"It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons," says the DOE intelligence analysis.

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