Iran said trying to fit missiles for nukes - Powell

Iran said trying to fit missiles for nukes

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - The United States has
intelligence indicating Iran is trying to fit missiles to carry nuclear
weapons, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said.

Powell says there is no evidence to suggest Iran has developed technology to make a nuclear weapon.

By Ricardo Mazalan/AP

Powell partially confirmed claims by an Iranian
opposition group that Tehran is deceiving the United Nations and is
attempting to secretly continue activities meant to give it atomic arms
by next year.

"I have seen intelligence which would corroborate
what this dissident group is saying," Powell told reporters Wednesday
as he traveled to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in
Santiago. "And it should be of concern to all parties."

Pressed by reporters on the intelligence reports,
Powell said the intelligence indicates that Iran "had been actively
working on delivery systems" capable of carrying a nuclear weapon.

Powell said there is no evidence to suggest that
Iran has developed the technology to make a nuclear weapon, but
suggested that the regime is working to adapt missiles for nuclear
warheads.

"I'm talking about information that says that they
not only had these missiles, but I'm aware of information that suggests
they were working hard as to how to put the two together," Powell said.

A senior official for the National Council for
Resistance in Iran said Tuesday that a bomb diagram - along with an
unspecified amount of weapons-grade uranium - was provided to Iran by
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced former head of Pakistani's nuclear
development which was tied to both Iran and Libya.

He said the designs were handed to the Iranians
between 1994 and 1996, while Khan delivered HEU - highly enriched
uranium - in 2001.

Banned in the United States as a terrorist
organization, the group was instrumental in 2002 in revealing Iran's
enrichment program in the central city of Natanz, based on what it said
was information provided by sources in Iran.

The opposition group says a facility at Lavizan-Shian northeast of Tehran was part of a secret nuclear weapons program.

Powell declined comment on Khan, but said "for 20
years the Iranians have been trying to hide things from the
international community."

Iran says its sole interest is to generate nuclear
fuel through low-level uranium enrichment, but the United States
suspects Iran wants to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium.

Enrichment does not violate the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty but the International Atomic Energy Agency and
most of its members want Iran to scrap enrichment plans as a confidence
building measure.

Iran announced suspension of enrichment last week,
and the agency said it would police that commitment starting next week,
in advance of a Nov. 25 IAEA board meeting.

The pledge reduced Washington's hopes of having the
board refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for alleged violations of
the Nonproliferation Treaty.

Tehran has not dropped plans to run 50,000
centrifuges to enrich uranium for what it says will be the fuel
requirements of a nuclear reactor to be finished next year. 

It currently possesses less than 1,000 centrifuges.
But if it added 500 centrifuges, experts say Iran would be able to make
enough weapons-grade uranium to make a bomb annually.