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It Fits! Qom Site Layout

Reports

It Fits! Qom Site Layout

by David Albright and Frank Pabian

May 1, 2018

Overlaying a schematic from the AMAD archive on the Qom, now called the Fordow, deeply buried enrichment plant. This plant was built in secret by Iran in the mid-2000s and publicly exposed by Britain, France, and the United States in 2009.

Observations

The schematic matches the entrances and expected layout of the deeply buried Qom uranium enrichment plant.
Iran calls this site the Fordow facility, and it is constrained from operating centrifuges there by the Iran nuclear deal. However, this facility still exists, largely intact, and can be re-opened on short notice.
The schematic is an AMAD document, showing that the origin of this plant was in the Iranian nuclear weapons program, a fact we have long assessed but is now proven.
Because the Qom plant was designed in the AMAD program, it was likely intended to make highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
It is deeply buried and located at a military site; it was built under intense secrecy.
Its public revelation in 2009 by Britain, France, and the United States derailed Iran’s ability to make weapon-grade uranium at this secret site. Locating the site was not easy.
Iran was building this plant at a time when US intelligence agencies were stating that Iran’s nuclear weapons program had ended. The linkage of this facility to the AMAD program provides new evidence that in 2009 Iran was actually planning to create a facility in secret to make the raw ingredient for nuclear weapons, namely weapon-grade uranium.

Figures

Figure 1 shows the schematic as revealed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 30, 2018.

Figures 2 and 3 show the tunnel entrances at the Qom underground enrichment plant as of 2009.

Figure 4 shows the overlay of the schematic and how it matches the tunnel entrances.

Figures 5 - 7 show a 3D perspective of the mountain under which the enrichment plant is buried. The long axis of the main centrifuge hall in the schematic appears to line up in parallel with the the mountain’s ridge line.

Figure 8 shows a ground and an overhead image of the entrance to the Qom, also called Fordow, enrichment facility.