Uranium enrichment facilities can be used to make fuel for nuclear bombs as well as power reactors.
Iran insists that its nuclear work is peaceful, while the West fears it has built enrichment factories and is enriching uranium to make fuel for atomic bombs.
And, as the country has developed all these fuel capabilities, the question for the outside world remains: Why, if not to make fuel for a bomb?
It is not an imminent threat, he added, because the further technical work to make fuel for a bomb would tip off inspectors, the United States and other powers about "where they're going".
The authors compare Dr. Khan to "a used-car dealer" happy to sell his complex machinery to suckers who had no idea how hard it was to make fuel for a bomb.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 24 - Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, confirmed Tuesday for the first time that a Pakistani nuclear scientist had provided North Korea with centrifuge machines that could be used to make fuel for an atomic bomb, a Japanese news agency reported.
If ever completed, a plant that size would let Tehran make fuel for about 30 atom bombs each year.
Critics say the plan threatens to buy Iran more time to master that technology, which can make fuel for reactors or atomic bombs.
Enrichment plants can make fuel for reactors or, with a little more effort, atom bombs.
Even more ambitious, Mr. Obama wants a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, which would bar all nations that sign it from making fuel for their atom bombs.
