White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, in the midst of a perfectly acceptable statement of Administration policy, cast doubt on Iran’s ability to enrich uranium:
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, I think Iran has made a series of statements that are far more political than they are — they’re based on politics, not on physics. Okay? The Iranian nuclear program has undertaken — has undergone a series of problems throughout the year. Quite frankly, what Ahmadinejad says — he says many things and many of them turn out to be untrue. We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching. [Emphasis mine.]
Although I think most of this is true, Gibbs is going to want that last sentence back.
As should be clear from the IAEA document (GOV/INF/2010/2) I posted a few days ago, Iran seems quite deliberately moving to re-feed some of its current stock of LEU into a single cascade configured to produce 19.75 percent enriched uranium.