Ahmadinejad Says Iran Is Now a 'Nuclear State'

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TEHRAN, Iran — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed Thursday that Iran has produced its first batch of uranium enriched to a higher level, saying his country will not be bullied by the West into curtailing its nuclear program a day after the U.S. imposed new sanctions.

Ahmadinejad reiterated to hundreds of thousands of cheering Iranians on the anniversary of the 1979 foundation of the Islamic republic that the country was now a "nuclear state," an announcement he's made before. He insisted that Iran had no intention of building nuclear weapons.

It was not clear how much enriched material had actually been produced just two days after the process was announced to have started.

The United States and some of its allies accuse Tehran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to build nuclear weapons but Tehran denies the charge, saying the program is just geared toward generating electricity.

"I want to announce with a loud voice here that the first package of 20 percent fuel was produced and provided to the scientists," he said.

Enriching uranium produces fuel for a nuclear power plants but can also be used to create material for atomic weapons if enriched further to 90 percent or more.

"We have the capability to enrich uranium more than 20 percent or 80 percent but we don't enrich (to this level) because we don't need it," he said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

Iran announced Tuesday it was beginning the process of enriching its uranium stockpile to a higher level. The international community reacted by starting the process to impose new sanctions on Iran.

The U.S. Treasury Department went ahead on Wednesday and froze the assets in U.S. jurisdictions of a Revolutionary Guard general and four subsidiaries of a construction firm he runs for their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction.

Tehran has said it wants to further enrich the uranium — which is still substantially below the 90 percent plus level used in the fissile core of nuclear warheads — as a part of a plan to fuel its research reactor that provides medical isotopes to hundreds of thousands of Iranians undergoing cancer treatment.
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But the West says Tehran is not capable of turning the material into the fuel rods needed by the reactor. Instead it fears that Iran wants to enrich the uranium to make nuclear weapons.

Ahmadinejad reiterated Iran's position that it was not seeking to build nuclear weapons.

"When we say we do not manufacture the bomb, we mean it, and we do not believe in manufacturing a bomb," he told the crowd. "If we wanted to manufacture a bomb, we would announce it."

"We told them the Iranian nation will never give in to bullying and illogical remarks," he said.

Western powers blame Iran for rejecting an internationally endorsed plan to export its low enriched uranium to have it further enriched abroad and returned to the country in the form of fuel rods for the Tehran reactor.

Iran, in turn, asserts it had no choice but to start enriching to higher levels because its suggested changes to the international plan were rejected.

The president said Iran will triple the production of its low-enriched uranium in the future but didn't elaborate.

"God willing, daily production (of low enriched uranium) will be tripled," he said.

A confidential document from the U.N. nuclear agency shared Wednesday with The Associated Press said Iran's initial effort at higher enrichment is modest, using only a small amount of feedstock and a fraction of its capacities.

The document, relying on onsite reports from International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, also cited Iranian experts at the country's enrichment plant at Natanz as saying that only about 10 kilograms — 22 pounds — of low enriched uranium had been fed into the cascade for further enrichment.

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Told You So? History Shows Series of Warnings Over Iran Nuke Program by 2010

A list of intelligence reports and statements compiled by FoxNews.com shows a decades-long concern about Iran's nuclear capability -- with some predicting the Islamic Republic would become a nuclear state by this year.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, was quick to dismiss Iran's claim Thursday that it has produced higher-enriched uranium, calling it nothing more than "speechifying." But the record shows a series of intelligence reports spanning almost 20 years that have warned of a nuclear Iran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Thursday that Iran has produced its first batch of enriched uranium -- at a 20 percent purity level -- sparking grave concerns from the U.S. and its allies that the Islamic Republic can easily make the leap to weapons-grade enrichment.

President Obama slapped new sanctions on the country, saying the move shows "a course that would lead to weaponization," while the IAEA called the higher enrichment level "minuscule."

"We would look at those comments with a great deal of skepticism," an official with the agency told Fox News.

But a list of intelligence reports and statements compiled by FoxNews.com show a decades-long fear over Iran's nuclear capability -- with some predicting the Islamic Republic was to become a nuclear state even earlier than 2010.

March 2009: U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and Army Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, say Iran could develop nuclear arms by 2010. Blair and Maples testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iran "does not have the highly enriched uranium," but is capable of producing it sometime between 2010 and 2015.

September 2008: Former CIA director Michael Hayden says Iran has the scientific and industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons "eventually." "The question is not of capability, but intent," Hayden says.

December 2007: The National Intelligence Estimate, a U.S. intelligence estimate produced by the CIA and other agencies, finds that Iran halted its covert nuclear weapons program in 2003 but still has the ability to produce a nuclear bomb between 2010 and 2015.

April 2005: Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iran will be capable of producing nuclear weapons in 2010, citing newly released intelligence estimates.

February 2002: U.S. officials tell Congress that Iran will be able to produce a nuclear weapon by the end of the decade.

January 2000: Senior Clinton administration officials tell the New York Times that the CIA believes Iran may now be capable of creating a nuclear weapon.

September 1999: The CIA says Iran may be capable in the next few years of testing a ballistic missile with a nuclear-weapon-sized payload capable of hitting the U.S., The Washington Post reports.

September 1994: Former CIA director R. James Woolsey tells a Washington think tank that Iran will be able to build its own nuclear weapons in eight to 10 years. "We believe that Iran is eight to 10 years away from building such weapons," Woolsey said.

November 1992: A draft CIA report says Iran's nuclear arms program is progressing and the country could develop a nuclear weapon by the year 2000, The New York Times reports.

Speaking about Iran's threat that its will shouldn't be tested, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that if Tehran had been serious about the peaceful use of its nuclear material, then it should have taken more seriously the offer to exchange low-grade and high-grade uranium for use in its research reactor.

"Not taking the IAEA up and its partners up on a very common-sense offer leads, quite frankly, the world to believe that Iran has other ideas," Gibbs said. "That's why -- and I would say this: The reactions -- the actions of Iran have led the world to be more unified than at virtually any other point in the past many years."

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