Finding himself caught in a sudden media storm while in New York last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tried to defend his government's construction of a second centrifuge facility, buried inside a mountain near the city of Qom.
Unfortunately, the Qom facility might not be the end of the story. A centrifuge plant needs feedstock, uranium hexafluoride -- a material derived from refined uranium ore and produced at a conversion plant. Iran would probably not risk trying to divert feedstock from its declared conversion plant at Esfahan, which is under the watchful eye of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Iran could therefore have also set up a clandestine conversion facility, or have succeeded in procuring the material illicitly.
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