Under Obama Iran's Enrichment Capacity has Flourished

Before he paused to allow reporters to ask questions about the nuclear deal with Iran that he had just announced in Geneva, Secretary of State John Kerry seemed to anticipate one line of criticism about the accord -- that it effectively cedes to the Islamic regime the right to enrich uranium, despite half a dozen U.N. Security Council resolutions declaring the activity illegal. And he moved, preemptively, to address it. 

"In 2003, when the Iranians made an offer to the former administration with respect to their nuclear program, there were 164 centrifuges," Kerry said in a news conference held in the early hours of Nov. 24. "That offer was not taken. Subsequently, sanctions came in, and today there are 19,000 centrifuges and growing." 

In essence, the secretary of State was suggesting the staggering number of centrifuges that Iran now has effectively forced the hand of the P5+1 negotiators at the talks, making the placement of restrictions on Iran's nuclear program the only realistic prospect the negotiators could pursue. Kerry also suggested that had only President George W. Bush done the right thing a decade ago, the United States and its allies in the P5+1 -- Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia -- wouldn't have found themselves in such a precarious negotiating posture. 

Yet a Fox News review of reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and analyses prepared by leading research institutions -- including the Arms Control Association, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Federation of American Scientists -- shows that the vast majority of Iran's enrichment capability came online during the Obama administration. 

It is known that by late 2007, Iran possessed about 3,000 centrifuges. Over the course of Bush's final 12 to 15 months in the White House, it can be assumed safely that Iran added to, but probably did not fully double, the number of centrifuges it had installed. A fair estimate would accordingly place the number of the spinning machines that Iran had on hand at the beginning of 2009 at 5,000. 

This would mean that roughly 25 percent of the regime's current total of centrifuges had been installed when the Bush-Cheney era ended. Put another way: Roughly 74 percent of the centrifuges Iran now has on hand were installed since the Obama-Biden team assumed office. Analysts say 10,000 of the total are actively enriching uranium to low levels, inconsistent with nuclear weapons production but well suited to the task should a decision be made to pursue that goal.

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