Is Iran concealing other secret nuclear sites?

The amount of uranium needed at Qum, some 7 to 16 percent of Isfahan's stockpile, would be too great a diversion to go unnoticed, says Andreas Persbo, an arms-control analyst at VERTIC, a Ploughshares Fund grantee. Indeed, the New York Times recently reported that classified portions of the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate listed some dozen additional suspected nuclear sites in Iran. The existence of Qum's secret enrichment facility implies a corresponding conversion plant, as well as mines to extract uranium ore, labs to turn the enriched fuel into a metal, and workshops to produce firing circuits and high-explosive ­lenses. If Iran had another secret site, Qum’s parallel fuel cycle could churn out enough highly enriched uranium for a single bomb within a year.