U.N. evidence points to Iran nuke program

New evidence released Tuesday shows Iran tried to develop a nuclear bomb, and may still be trying to do so, U.N. weapons inspectors said. The U.N. report is the toughest issued by the nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in decades of trying to gather evidence on Iran's nuclear program, The New York Times reported. Yukiya Amano, a former Japanese diplomat who has run the IAEA for nearly two years, told the agency's board it has compiled more than a thousand pages of documents showing "research, development and testing activities" that could only be useful in designing a nuclear weapon. The Times said the documents apparently were leaked in Iran. The agency also said it had also received intelligence information from "more than 10" other unnamed countries, some of which demonstrated Iranian "manufacturing techniques for certain high-explosive components." The agency said it also had interviewed "a number of individuals" involved in Iran's activities. The report did not say how long it would take for Iran to produce a nuclear weapon, but said the country, in 2008 and 2009, had created computer models of nuclear explosions and conducted trials on nuclear triggers. The Times said Iran, starting in 2000, built a facility to conduct those tests. The facility was not shown to U.N. inspectors who visited the site five years later, the report said. The report said the tests were "strong indicators of possible weapon development," the newspaper reported. Reaction in Washington to the long-awaited report was low-key, in line with the Obama administration's strategy to have the agency report be the main factor in building international opposition and pressure on Iran, the Times said. Iranian officials contended the evidence was faked even before the report was released, and some Iranian officials warn any attempt to stop the program could evoke retaliation. On Tuesday before the report was released, Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said Iran has "the power to counter any threat," The Tehran Times reported. "The recent threats issued against Iran are mostly propaganda, and, in my view, have their roots in the West's weakness before Iran," he said. IRNA, Iran's official news agency, said no new evidence was in the report, and what was there was "related to the same so-called laptop issue which was allegedly stolen from an Iranian official in 2004. Therefore, it is clear that ... Amano had no new information to support his claim and was using the same old data. This indicates that all his claims about continuation of Iran's nuclear activities after 2004 was a mere lie."