Docs indicate Iran studying key nuke part

TEHRAN, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- Iran at best is studying a key component of a nuclear bomb and at worst is working to test one, secret documents obtained by The Times of London indicate.

The information describes a multiyear plan to test a neutron initiator, which triggers the explosion of a nuclear bomb, the newspaper reported Monday. Foreign intelligence services date the documents to 2007, four years after Iran was believed to have suspended its nuclear weapons program.

The document describes the use of a neutron source that independent experts confirmed for The Times has no civilian or military purpose other than part of a nuclear weapon.

"Although Iran might claim that this work is for civil purposes, there is no civil application," said David Albright, a physicist and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, which analyzed documents related to Iran's nuclear program. "This is a very strong indicator of weapons work."

"It looks bad -- there is no doubt about it," Albright, a former inspector with the International Atomic Energy Agency, told The Washington Post. He reviewed the document and other papers for the London newspaper and said work on a neutron initiator is a "very strong indicator of nuclear work."

The CIA did not comment immediately on the report. Former U.S. intelligence officials said the papers must be evaluated and properly dated before any conclusions could be drawn.

The papers, excerpts published in the Sunday Times of London, don't definitively prove Iranian leaders decided to build a nuclear device, Albright said.

"The question is whether this is a full-blown weapons effort or just Iran getting its ... ducks in a row," he told the Post.