Iran's Nuclear Policy and the IAEA - An Evaluation of Program 93+2 (Paperback)

The global arms control community was severely shaken in the early 1990s by the belated discovery that two signatories to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear WeaponsIraq and North Koreapossessed advanced clandestine nuclear weapons programs. In response to these challenges and to enhance its inspections capability, the International Atomic Energy Agency adopted a strengthened safeguards regime known as Program 93+2. Currently, the Islamic Republic of Iran provides a good test case for evaluating the implementation of this new verification system. Although Western intelligence agencies maintain that Iran does, in fact, possess a nuclear weapons program, verification measures open to the IAEA have traditionally remained limited. This detailed record of Irans relations with the IAEA explores the possibility that Program 93+2 may not allow detection of Iranian nuclear weapons development, provoking a larger issue for U.S. policy, namely, whether the international community has developed a system adequate to detect rogue nuclear weapons programs built through deception and denial.