The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) last week published a satellite photo of a suspect building at the Parchin military base south of Tehran that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said it wants to inspect. The photo, taken April 9, shows what appears to be stream of water coming from the building and coursing over the ground to a nearby highway. (See last week’s Iran Times, page six.)
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast ridiculed the photo and the ISIS. “This institute is a bit inexperienced,” he said. “If it had more experience, it would have known that nuclear activities such as they claim cannot be cleaned away. They are joking with our nation.”
ISIS responded: “This is not true.” ISIS is headed by David Albright, who is a former UN nuclear inspector. ISIS said a cleansing process “could involve grinding down the surfaces inside the building, collecting the dust and then washing the area thoroughly. This could be followed with new building materials and paint. It could also involve removing any dirt around the building thought to contain contaminants.”
Meanwhile, the Associated Press released a drawing it said was believed to be the explosive containment vessel inside the building at Parchin that is suspected of being washed.
It said the computer-generated drawing was based on the observations of a person who was not identified by name or nationality but who claimed to have been inside the building.
The person who provided the information for the drawing said the chamber was built in the early 2000s by Azar AB Industries in Arak and was 4.6 meters in diameter (15.1 feet). The person said the chamber was used for detonation experiments in 2003, 2005 and 2006.
Western intelligence has long thought Iran conducted experiments in the chamber with conventional explosives that are used to trigger a nuclear device. The chamber would contain the explosion and prevent anything from going into the open air.