Abstract
Iran has taken care to build its nuclear program around indigenous capabilities, including new universities where a new generation of science students is training.
Even as the International Atomic Energy Agency revealed that Iran had secretly developed an advanced uranium enrichment program, Iranian leaders continued to proclaim that their country had an inalienable right to nuclear technology. In a February 2003 speech before Iran's university chancellors, Mohammad Khatami, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, declared that Iran's nuclear power program made it “a glorious nation” and helped to reverse its momentum of “chronic backwardness.” He defended his country's efforts to achieve technical independence, saying, “Iran could not depend on any foreign source forever.”
In the same speech, Khatami expressed his abhorrence of nuclear weapons and said that “the Iranian nation … will never try to produce weapons of mass destruction.” Nonetheless, top Bush administration officials believe just the opposite. In February, as reported in the Washington Post, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said, “There is no doubt in our mind [sic] that Iran continues to pursue a nuclear weapons program.” And according to a news story in the Post in March 2003, Iranians across the political spectrum argue that they have a right to nuclear weapons to counter Israel's arsenal.
While recent reporting and analysis have focused almost exclusively on the procurement of hardware–centrifuges for enriching uranium, heavy water plants, and more nuclear reactors–examining Iran's “software,” or human assets, is equally important in evaluating Iran's capacity to create a self-sufficient nuclear power or weapon program.
June 16, 2003: Students at Tehran's Amir Kabir University applauding a speaker.
Political and religious rivalries, economic strife, social turmoil, the 1980s war with Iraq, and several decades of opposition from its former ally, the United States, have all slowed Iran's advances in science and technology. But, by tapping both open and clandestine means of foreign assistance, and by training legions of Iranians in nuclear technologies and related fields, Iran has made great strides toward nuclear independence.
Getting started
Iran began pursuing its nuclear program long before the revolution of 1979. Shah Reza Pahlevi took the first step in 1957, signing a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States.
From the very start, the shah wanted a self-sufficient Iranian program to encompass all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, and he gave scientists considerable autonomy–and the necessary facilities–to experiment as they wished.
But as it struggled to achieve self-sufficiency, Iran continually drew on expertise at foreign universities and nuclear training centers. From the late 1950s to 1979, many young Iranians went abroad, particularly to the United States and Europe, to earn scientific and engineering degrees and to gain work experience in nuclear technologies. U.S. analyst George Quester reported in 1975 that Iran had advisers from the United States, Britain, and India, and that it intended to send some 300 students to West Germany, the United States, France, and Britain for nuclear training the following year.
In the early to mid-1970s, Iran experienced a major inflow of trained scientists, engineers, and technicians. Iranian universities benefited from this growth, which stimulated the development of indigenous training and research facilities in various fields related to nuclear energy.
Following the revolution, Iran's nuclear program stalled. The most prominent reason may have been the opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini's government to all Western influences, including the shah's nuclear program. It may also be possible that Khomeini did not believe in the utility of nuclear power and sought to divert resources to other areas more aligned with his ideals.
In any case, the 1979 revolution led to a mass exodus of scientific talent. Although it is hard to say exactly where nuclear professionals went or how many left, there was a drastic decline in the number of employees at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). Before 1979, it had employed more than 4,500 scientists. Soon after the revolution, barely 800 remained, according to a 1988 study by Shyam Bhatia. 1
The new revolutionary government soon faced external security challenges in addition to domestic instability. The Iraqi invasion in 1980 and the loss of Iran's most powerful ally, the United States, heightened its sense of political and military vulnerability. During the Iraq-Iran war, Iran suffered from chemical attacks on its military forces, multiple bombings of the Bushehr reactor site, and missile strikes on its cities. The war demonstrated the importance of technological superiority over a military opponent.
Shah Reza Pahlevi (shown in a 1954 photo), initiated Iran's nuclear program. He was deposed by the Islamic revolution of 1979.
Slow going
By the mid-1980s, Iran awoke from its Khomeini-imposed nuclear hibernation, and the government adopted a new strategy.
After the long-term partnership with the United States ended with the taking of hostages from the American embassy by young revolutionaries, Iran needed to turn to other nuclear suppliers. It secured valuable nuclear assistance from two major partners–China and Pakistan.
Both of these countries signed agreements with Iran to train personnel and provide nuclear hardware, although for several years both denied having made such agreements. When, in October 1985, Sen. Alan Cranston accused China of helping Iran with a nuclear weapons program, China said there was “no relationship of cooperation between China and Iran.” 2
China began training 15 Iranian engineers from the AEOI in nuclear reactor design and research in 1987, and from 1988 to 1991, many more AEOI engineers traveled to China to learn about nuclear technologies, which were then applied at the Esfahan Nuclear Technology Center, according to a 1991 Nucleonics Week report.
Pakistan disavowed signing a cooperation agreement–Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Pakistan has not signed. Allegedly, a 1987 deal called for at least six Iranians to be trained in Pakistan at the Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology in Islamabad and the Nuclear Studies Institute in Nowlore. 3
Also, a number of Iranian students have trained and may have learned about uranium centrifuge technology at what was then called the Engineering Research Laboratories and is now the Khan Research Laboratories, founded by Abdul Qadeer Khan.
In February 1986, Khan may have visited Bushehr, the site of Iran's commercial nuclear reactor project and other nuclear-related facilities. 4 Revered as the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, Khan reportedly paid a return visit in January 1987.
These initial interactions between Khan and Iranian nuclear scientists may have led directly to Khan's assistance in procuring designs and equipment for Iran's uranium enrichment program. Recently, it has been revealed that Khan met with Iranian scientists in Karachi and Malaysia for just that reason. 5
It is not known whether the training Iranians received in China and Pakistan has fed into a nuclear weapons program. But the recent revelations, as reported in February in the Washington Post, that Libya had obtained a nuclear weapon design from Khan's network–a design that originated in China–have sparked concerns that Iran may have acquired bomb blueprints.
You can go home again
During the renewal of the Iranian nuclear program in the mid-1980s, Iran sent 15,000-17,000 students abroad for nuclear-related training. Also, at this time, Sharif University of Technology was established for the indigenous education of physical scientists and engineers. Much of its curriculum is applicable to nuclear power or weapons programs. 6
Still, the relatively large number of students could not rapidly make up for the massive post-revolution exodus of experienced scientists and engineers, so the Khomeini-led government sought to lure them back.
In November 1985, Iran published an advertisement in the foreign edition of the Kayhan, an Iranian newspaper, inviting expatriate nuclear scientists to participate in a March 1986 technical conference. The government offered to pay their travel expenses. In October 1988, then-President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani appealed for Iranian scientists living in exile to return home permanently.
The repatriation effort may have yielded a major windfall. In January 1987, Fereydun Fesharaki, who was suspected to have directed the shah's secret nuclear weapons program, returned to Iran after a seven-year exile. The government paid all his expenses. He, however, denied that his visit involved nuclear matters. 7
In the late 1980s, U.S. intelligence sources noted that other nuclear experts were also returning to Iran. These scientists worked on various fuel-cycle activities including uranium enrichment, but reportedly achieved little success.
Recognizing the need to improve Iran's technical infrastructure, in 1993 Rafsanjani established a special task force, the name of which might be translated as “Absorbing the Brightest.” It was put in charge of coming up with new initiatives to attract scientists back, including conferences and seminars in Europe and the United States where they could be briefed on career opportunities in Iran.
Rafsanjani and his staff worked to ease the political climate, to provide economic incentives, and to appeal to the scientists' sense of patriotism. The Iranian president's policies, in combination with Western recessions during the early 1990s, helped attract more than 100,000 expatriates. 8 In February 1992, the Washington Post reported that some scientists were being released from prison to work on the Iranian nuclear program.
As recently as last year, the government was still offering incentives to Iranians studying abroad to continue their education in Iran. The Ministry of Science, for example, will transfer students from foreign universities to domestic universities without entrance examinations, and the government will pay their tuition.
A homegrown education
Khatami's Iran has stayed the course that Rafsanjani began, developing a stronger science and technology infrastructure and expanding higher education. The number of state universities has grown from 22 in 1978 to 98 in 2000. Every province now has at least one institution of higher learning.
The Iranian population of some 68 million, according to the July 2003 CIA Factbook, is young. About 29 percent of the population is under the age of 15; the median age is 23 years. About 79 percent of the population is literate.
The Iran-Iraq war, a nearly eight-year struggle from 1980 to 1988, raised serious security concerns and may have helped convince Iran to restart its nuclear program.
Last September, at the start of the academic year, more than 1,700,000 students were attending Iranian universities. The Iranian Students' News Agency reported last year that universities had some 23,000 faculty members and 13,000 part-time instructors active in 690 fields of study. Many universities, including the Amir Kabir University of Technology, Tehran University, and Sharif Technical University, have programs that support Iran's nuclear program.
Some believe that university activities have served as covers for attempting to obtain nuclear weapons-related material and technologies from abroad. During the early 1990s, it was alleged that “agents” from Sharif University attempted to purchase uranium enrichment equipment from Germany and other countries.
The universities are closely connected to nuclear research centers. In 1959, soon after the shah launched the Iranian nuclear program, the Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC) was established as part of Tehran University. At the time, its mandate was limited to postgraduate education and research activities in basic nuclear sciences, according to Akbar Etemad, former head of the AEOI. Since then, it has expanded to include numerous technical fields, including nuclear physics, electronics, nuclear chemistry, radiobiology, and medical physics. Today, Iran's nuclear research centers study virtually all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle.
Friends from abroad
While Iran's indigenous capabilities have grown substantially since the renewal of its nuclear program in the 1980s, Iran still relies on and seeks assistance from friendly governments. Many Iranian students continue to study technical subjects abroad. Some of Iran's relationships include:
Europe provided a rich training ground for Iranian scientists and engineers before the revolution, but even after that watershed event, several European states continued to help educate Iranians. Since the 1980s, Iranians have been trained at the nuclear research center in Mol, Belgium, which from its inception has accommodated students from all parts of the world. Reza Amrollahi, past chairman of the AEOI and assistant for nuclear affairs to Rafsanjani in the 1990s, trained there after studying at the University of Texas.
In 1991, Iran rescued the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, from financial ruin, bailing the center out with a $3 million loan. Around that time, Iran had 77 scientists studying there. Between 1970 and 2000, a total of 1,148 Iranian scientists worked at the center on projects covering all aspects of high energy and theoretical physics.
As recently as January, Germany and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding promoting bilateral cooperation in the energy sector. If Iran were to satisfactorily disclose its past activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency, this agreement could lead to more cooperation in the nuclear sector–something other countries in the European Union are interested in as well.
Other setbacks involved a reduction in planned educational programs. In 1997, the Scientific Research and Design Institute of Power Technology cut back extensive plans for training Iranian students in nuclear power plant operations, but conducted a seminar in Tehran called “The Future of Nuclear Power Engineering and Technology.”
More recently, technical training opportunities have broadened for Iranian students in Russia. Moscow State University and Bauman Moscow State Technical University have begun educating Iranian students. In June 2003, 200 Iranians completed a two-year training program at the Obninsk Institute of Nuclear Power Engineering, and more Iranian students are currently at Obninsk. Officially, these students are being trained to operate the Bushehr I reactor.
News reports during the 1990s routinely noted that several hundred Iranian technicians were slated to receive nuclear engineering and perhaps other types of nuclear training at Russian institutes. The U.S. government would react by charging that the training could serve as a conduit for passing nuclear weapons-related knowledge to Iran.
Many U.S. government officials believe that the training at Obninsk could be applied to nuclear weapon designs and technologies. Iranian scientists are undergoing training at other state-sponsored institutes, including the Russian University of Chemical Technology.
Russians and Iranians have a continuous working relationship. Iranians regularly consult with their Russian colleagues on a number of technical issues. The staff of Iran's nuclear and missile programs have contacts within Russian scientific institutes, research centers, and universities, including the State University of Moscow and the Institute of Nuclear Research at Dubna.
In addition to sending students to Russia, Iran has had recruitment programs in Russia. In October 1992, the Washington Post reported that Iran was attempting to recruit unemployed Russian nuclear scientists. From 1991 to 1992, 14 Russian scientists went to work in Iran. Six ended up at the Karaj nuclear site, and others are engaged in research at the Gorgan nuclear facility. When the news media reported that Iran had offered up to $20,000 per month for former Soviet scientists to work on its nuclear program, Iran's foreign minister dismissed the claim as baseless.
The Iranians also attempted to recruit scientists in other parts of the former Soviet Union. In 1993, Rafsanjani visited Kazakhstan and asked for the assistance of nuclear scientists there, according to an October 1993 article in U.S. News & World Report. U.S. intelligence reports at the time warned that former Soviet scientists had gone to Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Then-Undersecretary of State Lynn Davis said it was uncertain how many scientists were involved or what type of work they were doing.
Foreign nuclear scientists and engineers have undoubtedly helped Iran over the years. While Iran is still strongly interested in their assistance, it has built up an impressive indigenous program.
The Iranian nuclear program appears to be transforming from a small, research-based system to one that includes a completely indigenous nuclear fuel cycle. Iran is nearing this level despite the opposition of the United States, Israel, and other nations.
Last October, President Khatami commented that “Iran has made major breakthroughs in the area of industrial and scientific development at a time when Iran was in a most challenging historical juncture and highly critical international conditions.” These breakthroughs came about not only because Iran has acquired help from abroad, but because it has devoted considerable resources to nurturing its own technical talent.
Footnotes
1.
Shyam Bhatia, Nuclear Rivals in the Middle East (London & New York: Routledge, 1988), p. 83.
2.
Robert Thomson, “China Denies Nuclear Weapons Allegations,” Financial Times, Oct. 25, 1985, p. 4.
3.
Al-Watan (Kuwait), June 13, 1988, p. 1; see also Mark Gorwitz, “Foreign Assistance to Iran's Nuclear and Missile Programs: Emphasis on Russian Assistance; Analysis and Assessment,” Center for Nonproliferation Studies, unpublished report, October 1998.
4.
Kenneth R. Timmerman, “Weapons of Mass Destruction, The Cases of Iran, Syria, and Libya,” a Simon Wiesenthal Center Special Report, August 1992, pp. 41-42.
5.
David Rohde and David E. Sanger, “Key Pakistani is Said to Admit Atom Transfers,” New York Times, Feb. 2, 2004, p. A1.
6.
Timmerman, “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”
7.
David Segal, “Atomic Ayatollahs: Just What the Mideast Needs–An Iranian Bomb,” Washington Post, April 12, 1987, p. D1.
8.
Elaine Sciolino, “CIA says Iran Makes Progress on Atom Arms,” New York Times Nov. 30, 1992, p. A1.