Bush Suspicious Of Iran Nuke Labs

President Bush said Tuesday that he's deeply suspicious about Iran's nuclear ambitions, but that the country's new leader has indicated a willingness to negotiate.

Mr. Bush said he got word Tuesday that the newly elected president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said he is willing to negotiate with other nations amid concerns that his country is developing nuclear weapons.

"Just as I was walking here, I received word that the new president said he was willing to get back to the table," Mr. Bush told reporters at a brief question-and-answer session at his Texas ranch.

Mr. Bush said that if Iran does not cooperate, United Nations sanctions are "a potential consequence."

"We'll work with our friends on steps forward, on ways to deal with the Iranians if they so choose to ignore the demands of the world," he said.

President Bush's comments came a day after Tehran restarted some uranium conversion activities at its nuclear plant at the central Iranian city of Isfahan.

Britain, France and Germany have been trying to persuade Iran to drop its uranium enrichment program and related activities in return for incentives. Tehran rejected their latest offer last weekend.

"We're very deeply suspicious of their desires and call upon our friends in Europe ... to lead the diplomatic effort to convince the Iranians to give up their nuclear ambitions," Mr. Bush said after a meeting with his economic advisers at his Texas ranch.

And as the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency held an emergency meeting Tuesday to assess Iran's resumption of uranium conversion, an Iranian dissident said Tehran has manufactured about 4,000 centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to weapons grade.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, who helped uncover nearly two decades of covert nuclear activity in 2002, told The Associated Press the centrifuges — which he said are unknown to the IAEA — are ready to be installed at Iran's nuclear facility in Natanz.

The meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors came a day after Iran restarted some activities at its nuclear plant at the central Iranian city of Isfahan.

Meanwhile, diplomats in Vienna said the IAEA's board of governors was likely to issue a resolution by Thursday urging Tehran to again suspend its nuclear activities.

"Iran must not be allowed to violate its international commitments and must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons," said Gregory Schulte, U.S. envoy to the IAEA.

But there was no talk of reporting Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose economic or political sanctions on the regime, according to a Western diplomat. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the debate within the closed-door meeting, which was adjourned until Wednesday afternoon.

"Delay can be a good negotiating method," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk. "When the objective is to keep Iran on board with the Non- Proliferation Treaty but to stop any resumption of uranium enrichment for weapons development."

Jafarzadeh, who runs Strategic Policy Consulting, a Washington-based think tank focusing on Iran and Iraq, said the information — which he described as "very recent" — came from sources within the Tehran regime who have proven accurate in the past.

His claims could not be independently verified. The IAEA was taking the allegation "seriously" and will investigate "should we find anything credible contained within it," spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.

In Tehran, Ali Hafezi, spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, told AP Tuesday that the IAEA had been given a full disclosure of Tehran's nuclear program, including the number of centrifuges. He would not say how many centrifuges Iran has.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said he was hopeful the standoff could be resolved.

"The board will request Iran to reconsider its decision to unravel a part of the suspension," ElBaradei told reporters. "The important thing for me at the end of the day is to go back to the negotiating process and avoid any escalation of the situation."

Tehran, which had agreed to suspend nuclear activities in November, insists its nuclear program is peaceful, but Washington accuses it of covertly trying to build a weapon.

Under the agreement, Iran had pledged to stop building centrifuges, which can be used to enrich uranium to levels high enough to fuel a nuclear weapon. Centrifuges also can be used for the peaceful generation of nuclear energy; uranium enriched to lower levels is used to produce electricity.

Iran resumed work at Isfahan after IAEA inspectors installed cameras and other surveillance equipment intended to ensure no nuclear material is diverted. But ElBaradei said the surveillance equipment had not yet been tested.

The agency previously had said it was aware of the existence of 164 centrifuges at Natanz, 300 miles south of Tehran.

"These 4,000 centrifuge machines have not been declared to the IAEA, and the regime has kept the production of these machines hidden from the inspectors while the negotiations with the European Union have been going on over the past 21 months," Jafarzadeh said Tuesday in a telephone interview from Washington.

Officials in Washington would not directly answer questions about whether the United States intends to push for sanctions now. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli did say that Iran was "thumbing its nose at a productive approach."

"Washington would like to see a U.N. Security Council resolution with a trigger mechanism that would impose sanctions if Iran does not stick to its agreements," CBS analyst Falk said. "But both the EU-3 and the U.S. want to make an agreement that would keep Russia and China on board."

Iran has insisted it has the right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to carry out the entire fuel cycle — from raw uranium to fuel for a reactor. Europe fears that if Iran can develop fuel on its own, it will secretly produce material for a bomb.