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Iran May Be Planning Decoy Sites to Hide Military Enrichment Efforts, Expert Says

(AP) Ali Akbar Dareini - Iran's announcement of plans to build ten more uranium enrichment facilities is largely bluster, analysts said Monday. Nonetheless, the defiance is fueling calls among Western allies for new punitive sanctions to freeze Iran's nuclear program. "They can't build those plants. There's no way," said nuclear expert David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. "They have sanctions to overcome, they have technical problems. They have to buy things overseas...and increasingly it's all illegal." Still, the announcement is of major concern because it could signal an intention to put up numerous decoy sites to deceive the outside world, while building perhaps a few secret military enrichment sites that could be put to use in weapons production, Albright said. "This Qom site was probably meant to be a clandestine facility for breakout that they wanted built for nuclear weapons," said Albright. "And now that it's been exposed they may want to replace it."
2009-12-01 08:32:55
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