Natanz, Iran
Iran is rapidly building a plant to produce enriched uranium that could be used in nuclear weapons, U.N. atomic energy inspectors said this week. Iran strongly denied that the program was intended to build nuclear bombs. Yet the country’s hard-line mullahs and pro-reform democrats alike also asserted Iran’s right to acquire such weapons. “I hope we get our atomic weapons,” Shirzad Bozorgnehr, editor of a pro-reform newspaper, told The Washington Post. “If Israel has [the bomb], we should have it. If India and Pakistan do, we should too.” Past concern over Iran’s possible nuclear-weapons program was limited to a power plant being built in Bushehr with Russian help.
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