Russian scientist may have aided Iranian nuclear program

New York Times, Paris Oct 10, 2008(excerpts)- International nuclear inspectors are investigating whether a Russian scientist helped Iran conduct complex experiments on how to detonate a nuclear weapon, according to European and American officials.
As part of the investigation, inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency are seeking information from the scientist, whom they believe acted on his own as an adviser on experiments described in a lengthy document obtained by the agency, the officials said. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the investigation is underway, said that the document appeared authentic, without explaining why, but made clear that they did not think the scientist was working on behalf of the Russian government.
Still, it is the first time that the nuclear agency has suggested that Iran might have received help from a foreign weapons scientist in developing nuclear arms.
The American and European officials said the new document, written in Farsi, is part of an accumulation of evidence that Iran has worked toward developing a nuclear weapon, despite Tehran’s claims that its atomic work over the last two decades is aimed solely at producing electrical power.
Last February, in a closed-door briefing in the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, the agency’s chief nuclear inspector presented diplomats from dozens of countries with a trove of newly declassified evidence – documents, sketches and even a video – that he said raised questions about whether Iran has tried to design a weapon.
Among the data presented by Olli Heinonen, the chief inspector, were indications that the Iranians had worked on exploding detonators that are critical for the firing of most nuclear weapons.
When the Iranian envoy at the briefing called the charges “groundless” and protested that the tests were for conventional arms, Mr. Heinonen replied that the experiments were “not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon.” He called the shape and timing involved in the firing systems and detonators “key components of nuclear weapons.”
The new document currently under investigation offers further evidence of such experiments, Western officials said.
The Western officials said that the conditions under which the inspectors obtained the document prohibited them from revealing it in full to the Iranians, out of fear that it could expose the source of the document.
According to experts, the two most difficult challenges in developing nuclear weapons is creating the bomb fuel and figuring out how to compress and detonate it.
An agency report last month revealed that Iran may have received “foreign expertise” in its detonator experiments.