In one curious moment in the testimony, General Burgess [the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency] noted that information made public by international nuclear inspectors suggested that Iran had not yet used its thousands of centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear site to make highly enriched uranium, the kind needed to produce a nuclear weapon.

But when asked whether that was also the assessment of American intelligence agencies, General Burgess hesitated, and then told the senators that “any further discussion on that” should be held in a classified session.

The generals offered a number of significant caveats about their assessment of Iran’s capabilities. When asked, for example, how long it would take Iran to convert its current supplies of low-enriched uranium into bomb-grade material, General Burgess said, “The general consensus — not knowing again the exact number of centrifuges that we actually have visibility into — is we’re talking one year.”

That answer seemed to suggest that intelligence agencies believed that other enrichment sites, like the one discovered last year outside the holy city of Qum, might also be operating.

According to the Times, consensus at the hearing was that it would still take significant effort and time to convert that bomb-ready uranium into a bomb, apparently at least a year’s worth. In his last round of testimony to the committee, Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia, said he did not expect Iran to possess a nuclear weapon this year.

Iran’s foreign minister said in remarks reported Wednesday that he opposes sending the country’s enriched uranium abroad under a tentative deal negotiated with the United States and other big powers last month. The foreign minister’s remarks cast further doubt on the deal, which the Obama administration had hoped would defuse a standoff over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, told the student news agency ISNA that Iran would consider a simultaneous swap of its nuclear fuel for other uranium. But he told ISNA, “Definitely, Iran will not send its 3.5 percent-enriched fuel out.”

Don’t know how much enthusiasm would be there would be for such a substantial renegotiation of the deal. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has ruled it out. But the Obama administration also doesn’t seem particularly enthusiastic about sanctions, as Iran has been under U.S. sanctions for 30 years and multilateral sanctions will be extremely hard to enforce.

International inspectors who gained access to Iran’s newly revealed underground nuclear enrichment plant voiced strong suspicions in a report on Monday that the country was concealing other atomic facilities. [...]

In unusually tough language, the International Atomic Energy Agency appeared highly skeptical that Iran would have built the enrichment plant without also constructing a variety of other facilities that would give it an alternative way to produce nuclear fuel if its main centers were bombed. So far, Iran has denied that it built other hidden sites in addition to the one deep underground on a military base about 12 miles north of the holy city of Qum. The inspectors were given access to the plant late last month and reported that they had found it in “an advanced state” of construction, but that no centrifuges — the fast-spinning machines needed to make nuclear fuel — had yet been installed.

American nuclear experts have long suspected additional secret facilities exist in Iran for atomic research and development, and the late-September disclosure in Qom only intensified their concerns that there are still other Qoms concealed by the regime. Iran continues to equivocate on a deal reached in Vienna to process its uranium abroad for conversion into a state suitable only for peaceful purposes.

U.N. inspectors found “nothing to be worried about” in a first look at a previously secret uranium enrichment site in Iran last month, the International Atomic Energy chief said in remarks published Thursday.

Mohamed ElBaradei also told the New York Times that he was examining possible compromises to unblock a draft nuclear cooperation deal between Iran and three major powers that has foundered over Iranian objections.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has rejected revisions to the deal, though there are those who urge her to reconsider.

Iran may agree to send only a bit of its LEU stockpile out at a time, maintaining the bulk of it on Iranian soil (where in theory it could be further enriched to weapons grade). French officials have made clear in the past few days that they will only sign on to the deal if it involves all 1200 kg LEU suggested at Geneva.

Talks may go on until Wednesday.

The analysis of Iranian negotiation strategy — which appears to represent a step back from the brink of confrontation — in the communique is predicated on the regime’s need for self-preservation. It wants a confrontation with the great powers that will provide a pretext for intensified internal repression and marginalization of domestic opponents. That may be why the leading figures of the opposition oppose a stricter regime of sanctions.

And I can’t help but think of what an Iranian dissident told me recently: “Do not believe anything our president says. Do not believe their claim for nuclear power to be peaceful. They have no credibility, you can not trust them, this election was proof of that. They stole our votes, and silenced our protest against them.”

President Obama has reaffirmed a 4-decade-old secret understanding that has allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections, three officials familiar with the understanding said.

This despite Obama’s desire to work for a world without nuclear weapons and pressure on Iran — which, incidentally, appears to be achieving something. A Senate staffer tells Eli, “it calls into question virtually every part of the president’s nonproliferation agenda.The president gave Israel an NPT [Nuclear Nonproliferation] treaty get out of jail free card.” I suppose that’s true, but Obama also hasn’t pressed nuclear India or especially nuclear Pakistan to denuclearize either.

First, Iran must demonstrate its commitment to transparency. Earlier this month, we presented clear evidence that Iran has been building a covert nuclear facility in Qom.  Since Iran has now agreed to cooperate fully and immediately with the International Atomic Energy Agency, it must grant unfettered access to IAEA inspectors within two weeks.  I’ve been in close touch with the head of the IAEA, Mohammed ElBaradei, who will be traveling to Tehran in the days ahead.  He has my full support, and the Iranian government must grant the IAEA full access to the site in Qom.

Second, Iran must take concrete steps to build confidence that its nuclear program will serve peaceful purposes — steps that meet Iran’s obligations under multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.  The IAEA proposal that was agreed to in principle today with regard to the Tehran research reactor is a confidence-building step that is consistent with that objective -– provided that it transfers Iran’s low enriched uranium to a third country for fuel fabrication.  As I’ve said before, we support Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear power.  Taking the step of transferring its low enriched uranium to a third country would be a step towards building confidence that Iran’s program is in fact peaceful.

Going forward, we expect to see swift action.  We’re committed to serious and meaningful engagement.  But we’re not interested in talking for the sake of talking.  If Iran does not take steps in the near future to live up to its obligations, then the United States will not continue to negotiate indefinitely, and we are prepared to move towards increased pressure.  If Iran takes concrete steps and lives up to its obligations, there is a path towards a better relationship with the United States, increased integration with the international community, and a better future for all Iranians.

So let me reiterate:  This is a constructive beginning, but hard work lies ahead.  We’ve entered a phase of intensive international negotiations.  And talk is no substitute for action.  Pledges of cooperation must be fulfilled.  We have made it clear that we will do our part to engage the Iranian government on the basis of mutual interests and mutual respect, but our patience is not unlimited.

What effect will this have on the myriad sanctions bills members of Congress are talking about introducing?

The New York Times:

Officials and experts said, Iran is likely to turn up with a narrow agenda on its nuclear program, but a host of other issues, including overhauling the United Nations; giving greater voice to non-Western countries; and universal nuclear disarmament. It laid these out in a five-page proposal last month, which was met with derision by Obama administration officials.

Iran is also likely to argue that it was not legally obliged to disclose its second enrichment plant, the one whose existence was made public last week. That contention will hinge on its “safeguards agreement” with the atomic agency, which originally said Iran was not required to disclose the plant until 180 days before it put fuel into it.

The agreement was later modified to require Iran’s disclosure as soon as it decided to build the complex. Iranian officials contend that its Parliament never ratified the modification — an argument that the atomic energy agency’s director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, has rejected.

“They have been on the wrong side of the law,” said Dr. ElBaradei, who is normally circumspect and has said that fears over Iran’s nuclear program are exaggerated.

The paper might have added that ElBaradei in 2003 was a major thorn in the Bush administration’s paw for accurately stating there was no evidence to support Bush’s claims that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapons program. I initially messed up the obligations-violation question myself, so I’m not going to harp on the subject, but still.

Ivanka Barzashka of the Federation of American Scientists emailed me to say that we can’t verify that statement independently yet.

Until Iran submits design information to the IAEA, the Administration’s statement cannot be verified. The good news here is that Iran has announced the facility (although it is unclear if it decided to do so because the cat was already out of the bag) and has said that it would comply fully with the IAEA. Unfortunately, as cool as ISIS’ satellite photos are, they only show tunnel entrances in a mountain (there are many of those around that area, if you play around on Google Earth). Moreover, the locations are just guesses based on information that has been disseminated by the media. We cannot tell much about the number and type of centrifuges that will be installed at Qom from the ISIS satellite imagery.

What might we look for to draw the 3,000-centrifuge inference? Barzashka:

How could the administration know that Iran is installing 3,000 machines? One way would be to compare the area of the Qom facility to that of the enrichment plant at Natanz. Centrifuges do not take up a lot of space and if you knew the average area per cascade, you could approximate how many machines can fit in a given space. You can come up with an estimate for the size of the facility based on the amount of rock that the Iranians are throwing out (if they are digging a hole in a mountain, they have to dispose of the material somewhere). You can tell something about the size also if you knew how much explosive they used to blast the hole. There is no way to know that a particular tunnel will be used to house centrifuges until you have more information provided by other sources. You can also consider the power lines that are going inside the facility. Still, the conclusion is that we cannot independently verify this information.

That’s a task for Thursday’s P5+1 meeting in Geneva, when the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Russia and China will demand full IAEA access to the facility under threat of sanctions. Ivanka has a great, informative blog post going through more of the ambiguities surrounding Qom.