Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, dismissed work ISIS did showing inefficiencies in Iran’s nuclear program by labeling the work “fictitious calculations.” ISIS has now replied: “Iran’s efforts to complain about this ISIS analysis showing the poor performance of the Fuel Enrichment Plant [at Natanz] would be better spent re-examining the wisdom of a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment program, which nearly 10 years after construction started at this facility and likely over $100 million of investment, will apparently never be capable of supporting a nuclear power program. Iran’s civil enrichment program may manage only to fuel a research reactor in Tehran. By doing so, it may well achieve a world record of sorts—namely, producing the most expensive research reactor fuel ever.”
