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1 1 (April 14, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/govelhm0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Service Informing I e flave debate sine 1914 Iran and Nuclear Weapons Production Background Iran's nuclear program has generated widespread concern that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons. According to U.S. intelligence assessments, Tehran has the capacity to produce nuclear weapons at some point, but has halted its nuclear weapons program and has not mastered all of the necessary technologies for building such weapons. (For additional information, see CRS Report RL34544, Iran's Nuclear Program: Status, by Paul K. Kerr.) Since the early 2000s, Tehran's construction of gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facilities has been the main source of proliferation concern. Gas centrifuges enrich uranium by spinning uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas at high speeds to increase the concentration of the uranium- 235 (u-235) isotope. Such centrifuges can produce both low-enriched uranium (LEU), which can be used in nuclear power reactors, and highly enriched uranium (HEU), which is one of the two types of fissile material used in nuclear weapons. Tehran asserts that its enrichment program is meant to produce fuel for peaceful nuclear reactors. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) requires Iran to implement various restrictions on its nuclear program, as well as to accept specific monitoring and reporting requirements. (For additional information, see CRS Report R43333, Iran Nuclear Agreement and U.S. Exit, by Paul K. Kerr and Kenneth Katzman.) Then-President Donald Trump announced in May 2018 that the United States was ending U.S. participation in the JCPOA. Following this decision, Iran stopped implementing much of this agreement, as well as JCPOA- required International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring. Beginning in July 2019, the IAEA verified that some of Iran's nuclear activities were exceeding JCPOA- mandated limits. Tehran's subsequent expansion of the country's enrichment program has decreased the amount of time needed for Iran to produce enough weapons-grade HEU for a nuclear weapon-an action frequently termed breakout. According to official U.S. assessments, Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in late 2003 and has not resumed it. This program's goal, according to U.S. officials, was to develop an implosion-style nuclear weapon for Iran's Shahab-3 ballistic missile. Iran has not made a decision to develop nuclear weapons, according to February and March public U.S. intelligence assessments. The U.S. government assessed prior to the JCPOA that Tehran had not mastered all of the necessary technologies for building a nuclear weapon. Apparently confirming persisting gaps in Iran's nuclear weapons knowledge, the 2023 U.S. Intelligence Community Annual Threat Assessment observes that Iran is not currently undertaking Updated April 14, 2023 the key nuclear weapons-development activities that would be necessary to produce a testable nuclear device. The JCPOA-mandated restrictions on Iran's nuclear program and Iran-specific monitoring and reporting requirements both supplement Tehran's obligations pursuant to the government's comprehensive IAEA safeguards agreement. Such agreements empower the agency to detect the diversion of nuclear material from peaceful purposes, as well as to detect undeclared nuclear activities and material. These agreements also require governments to declare their entire inventory of certain nuclear materials, as well as related facilities. Safeguards include agency inspections and monitoring of declared nuclear facilities. (For more information, see CRS Report R40094, Iran 's Nuclear Program: Tehran 's Compliance with International Obligations, by Paul K. Kerr.) Prior and subsequent to the JCPOA's January 2016 implementation, IAEA and U.S. officials expressed confidence in the ability of both the IAEA and the U.S. intelligence community to detect an Iranian breakout attempt using either Tehran's IAEA-monitored facilities or clandestine facilities. (See CRS Report R43333.) U.S. estimates concerning Iranian nuclear weapon development account for the time necessary to produce a sufficient amount of weapons-grade HEU and also complete the remaining steps necessary for an implosion- style nuclear device suitable for explosive testing. Fisse Materal Production The time needed to produce enough weapons-grade HEU for a nuclear weapon is a function of a nuclear program's enrichment capacity, as well as the mass and u-235 content of the UF6 stockpile fed into the enrichment process. LEU used in nuclear power reactors typically contains less than 5% u-235; research reactor fuel can be made using enriched uranium containing 20% u-235; HEU used in nuclear weapons typically contains about 90% u-235. The JCPOA mandates restrictions on Iran's declared enrichment capacity and requires that Iran's enriched uranium stockpile must not exceed 300 kilograms of UF6 containing 3.67% u-235 or the equivalent in other chemical forms. This quantity of uranium hexafluoride corresponds to 202.8 kg of uranium, according to the IAEA. The aforementioned JCPOA restrictions constrained Iran's nuclear program so that Tehran, using its declared enrichment facilities, would, for at least 10 years, have needed a minimum of one year to produce enough weapons-grade HEU for one nuclear weapon. The JCPOA does not explicitly mandate such a timeline.

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