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Iran's Natanz Nuclear Facility Recovered Quickly from Stuxnet Cyberattack

(Washington Post) Joby Warrick - In a six-month period between late 2009 and last spring, UN officials watched via a network of surveillance cameras as Iran dismantled more than 10% of the Natanz plant's 9,000 centrifuge machines used to enrich uranium. Then hundreds of new machines arrived to replace the ones that were lost. IAEA's files show an apparently successful effort by Iranian scientists to contain the damage and replace broken parts, even while constrained by international sanctions banning Iran from purchasing nuclear equipment. An IAEA report due for release this month is expected to show steady or even slightly elevated production rates at the Natanz enrichment plant over the past year. "While it [the Stuxnet worm] has delayed the Iranian centrifuge program at the Natanz plant in 2010 and contributed to slowing its expansion, it did not stop it or even delay the continued buildup of low-enriched uranium," the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said in a draft report.
2011-02-16 00:00:00
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