The IAEA reported in 2023:

---- 34. During the monthly interim verification (IIV) on 22 January 2023, the Agency took environmental samples from the product sampling point at FFEP, the analytical results of which showed the presence of high enriched uranium (HEU) particles containing up to 83.7% U-235. The Agency informed Iran that these findings were inconsistent with the level of enrichment of the UF6 produced at FFEP, as declared by Iran, and requested Iran to clarify the origin of these HEU particles.

35. In a letter dated 20 February 2023, Iran informed the Agency that “unintended fluctuations in enrichment levels may have occurred during transition period at the time of commissioning the process of [60%] product (November 2022) or while replacing the feed cylinder”. Discussions between the Agency and Iran to clarify the matter are ongoing.

36. On 26 February 2023, the Agency took destructive analysis samples from the cylinder containing the HEU product at FFEP, the results of which showed that the enrichment level of UF6 produced at FFEP remained up to 60% U-235. This cylinder has been collecting the HEU product since the start of production of UF6 enriched up to 60% at FFEP in November 2022. ----

If Iran "hasn't been working on" a weapons program since 2003, did the uranium just jumped from 5% (required for the claimed purposes) to nearly 83% (not consistent with any purpose besides nuclear weapons as far as I understand)?

Sounds like a strange claim, I wonder if that was really the consensus in the US intelligence community, or an opinion of Gabbard.

[1] https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/documents/gov2023-8...

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dmbche 6 months ago | parent [-]

Is the IAEA working for the DNI?

I think it's not an american org, and you've just shown that an international org talked about iranian uranium - which is a non sequitur.

I do think that you can look at what the DNI has been saying since 2003 on Iran nuclear program and notice they never raised the alarm about Iran making bombs - which would have been a real threat and merited some notice.

As an aside, your personal conclusions on what Iran says it has been doing and what the IAEA says are not very productive unless you have some experience handling uranium production/stockpiling. Is that something you're knowlegdeable on? If not, could you possibly be wrong? Could it be that they are producing uranium normally?

Has the IAEA raised alarms in 2022 when they got that 60% sample?

Could it be that you don't know enough about this?

Edit0: also your 87% is from an environnemental sample - no one saw a uranium product at that concentration anywhere. You just assume that Iran is lying from the get go. What if this was actually byproduct of moving to 60% as they said?

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luckylion 6 months ago | parent [-]

I'm not sure what you think the IAEA is, but it's not just some blog of some guy on the interwebs that speculated about things.

> 87% is from an environnemental sample

and we all know, highly enriched uranium occurs naturally and can be found anywhere! Getting almost-weapons-grade uranium is actually a random byproduct when you try to enrich it from 1% to 3%, because that's how math works: you purify something and it suddenly catapults to 30x the purity that would've otherwise taken you months to years to achieve.

	▲	dmbche 6 months ago \| parent [-]
		Where is the 1-3% coming from? Again, is the IAEA a US gov. org responding to DNI? Or is ot an international org unrelated to US nat defense? So why are we talking about them? Do you think DNI is an organ of IAEA? And if you want to talk about them, can you see what they thought of Iran producing 60% enriched voluntarily (and disclosed to the IAEA)? Your second paragraph seems to misunderatand both the situation, the process behind uranium enrichement and the IAEA report. Actually - you seem to cherry pick bits of the report to support your dubious claims - don't you think they would have raised a flag if rhey yought Iran was making nukes, instead of the bits you fished out? Edit0: this whole thing is you arguing that the US has been "aware that iran was making nukes" before the bombings but you fail to show any evidence of that. You show the IAEA report on Iranian urianium production, which DOES NOT talk about nukes, especially not in the extracts you've put here. What are we doin' here? Edit1: it just dawned on me - I don't think you know what en env. sample is. It's not some soil or "environnement" that they analysed - they swabbed surfaces around the plants (probably close to the centrifuges) and on one swab yhey detected up to 87%. Env. samples are more likely to be contaminated than product (obviously) and the small amounts are prone to error compared to sampling product. It is more likely to get a false positive on an env. sample. Edit2: Man I loooove reading IAEA's statement on the situation - they unequivocally say that nuclear sites should NEVER be attacked. Isn't that neat?