Updated October 23, 2023

Iran and Nuclear Weapons Production

Background the key nuclear weapons-development activities that would
Iran’s nuclear program has generated widespread concern be necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.”
that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons. According to U.S.
The JCPOA-mandated restrictions on Iran’s nuclear
intelligence assessments, Tehran has the capacity to
produce nuclear weapons at some point, but has halted its program and Iran-specific monitoring and reporting
requirements both supplement Tehran’s obligations
nuclear weapons program and has not mastered all of the
pursuant to the government’s comprehensive IAEA
necessary technologies for building such weapons. (For
additional information, see CRS Report RL34544, Iran’s safeguards agreement. Such agreements empower the
agency to detect the diversion of nuclear material from
Nuclear Program: Status, by Paul K. Kerr.)
peaceful purposes, as well as to detect undeclared nuclear
Since the early 2000s, Tehran’s construction of gas activities and material. These agreements also require
centrifuge uranium enrichment facilities has been the main governments to declare their entire inventory of certain
source of proliferation concern. Gas centrifuges enrich nuclear materials, as well as related facilities. Safeguards
uranium by spinning uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas at include agency inspections and monitoring of declared
high speeds to increase the concentration of the uranium- nuclear facilities. (For more information, see CRS Report
235 (u-235) isotope. Such centrifuges can produce both R40094, Iran’s Nuclear Program: Tehran’s Compliance
low-enriched uranium (LEU), which can be used in nuclear with International Obligations, by Paul K. Kerr.)
power reactors, and highly enriched uranium (HEU), which
Prior and subsequent to the JCPOA’s January 2016
is one of the two types of fissile material used in nuclear
implementation, IAEA and U.S. officials expressed
weapons. Tehran asserts that its enrichment program is
confidence in the ability of both the IAEA and the U.S.
meant to produce fuel for peaceful nuclear reactors.
intelligence community to detect an Iranian breakout
The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) attempt using either Tehran’s IAEA-monitored facilities or
requires Iran to implement various restrictions on its clandestine facilities. (See CRS Report R43333.)
nuclear program, as well as to accept specific monitoring
and reporting requirements. (For additional information, see
Estimated Nuclear Weapons
CRS Report R43333, Iran Nuclear Agreement and U.S.
Development Timelines
U.S. estimates concerning Iranian nuclear weapon
Exit, by Paul K. Kerr and Kenneth Katzman.)
development account for the time necessary to produce a
Then-President Donald Trump announced in May 2018 that sufficient amount of weapons-grade HEU and also
the United States was ending U.S. participation in the complete the remaining steps necessary for an implosion-
JCPOA. Following this decision, Iran stopped style nuclear device suitable for explosive testing.
implementing much of this agreement, as well as JCPOA-
Fissile Material Production
required International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
monitoring. Beginning in July 2019, the IAEA verified that The time needed to produce enough weapons-grade HEU
for a nuclear weapon is a function of a nuclear program’s
some of Iran’s nuclear activities were exceeding JCPOA-
enrichment capacity, as well as the mass and u-235 content
mandated limits. Tehran’s subsequent expansion of the
country’s enrichment program has decreased the amount of of the UF6 stockpile fed into the enrichment process. LEU
used in nuclear power reactors typically contains less than
time needed for Iran to produce enough weapons-grade
5% u-235; research reactor fuel can be made using enriched
HEU for a nuclear weapon—an action frequently termed
uranium containing 20% u-235; HEU used in nuclear
“breakout.”
weapons typically contains about 90% u-235.
According to official U.S. assessments, Iran halted its
The JCPOA mandates restrictions on Iran’s declared
nuclear weapons program in late 2003 and has not resumed
it. This program’s goal, according to U.S. officials and the enrichment capacity and requires that Iran’s enriched
uranium stockpile must not exceed 300 kilograms of UF6
IAEA, was to develop an implosion-style nuclear weapon
containing 3.67% u-235 “or the equivalent in other
for Iran’s Shahab-3 ballistic missile. Iran has not made a
decision to develop nuclear weapons, according to February chemical forms.” This quantity of uranium hexafluoride
“corresponds to 202.8 kg of uranium,” according to the
and March public U.S. intelligence assessments.
IAEA.
The U.S. government assessed prior to the JCPOA that
Tehran had not mastered all of the necessary technologies The aforementioned JCPOA restrictions constrained Iran’s
nuclear program so that Tehran, using its declared
for building a nuclear weapon. Apparently confirming
enrichment facilities, would, for at least 10 years, have
persisting gaps in Iran’s nuclear weapons knowledge, the
2023 U.S. Intelligence Community Annual Threat needed a minimum of one year to produce enough
weapons-grade HEU for one nuclear weapon. The
Assessment observes that “Iran is not currently undertaking
agreement does not explicitly mandate such a timeline. The

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 Iran and Nuclear Weapons Production

timeline would begin to decrease after JCPOA restrictions path to overcome them,” the official added. Milley testified
on Iran’s enrichment capacity, as well as the mass and u- in March 2023 that Iran would need “several months to
235 content of the UF6 stockpile, begin to expire in January produce an actual nuclear weapon.” The assumptions
2026. underlying this estimate are unclear.
Iran’s number of installed centrifuges, the mass and u-235 An implosion-style nuclear explosive device, according to
concentration of Tehran’s enriched uranium stockpile, and the Office of Technology Assessment, uses “a shell of
number of enrichment locations currently exceed JCPOA- chemical high-explosive surrounding the nuclear material ...
mandated limits. Tehran is also conducting JCPOA- designed (for example, by being detonated nearly
prohibited research and development, illicit uranium metal simultaneously at multiple points) to rapidly and uniformly
production, and centrifuge manufacturing and installation. compress the nuclear material to form a supercritical mass”
necessary for a sustained nuclear chain reaction.
A September 2023 IAEA report estimates Tehran’s total
enriched uranium stockpile to be 3795.5 kilograms of IAEA reports suggest that Iran does not yet have a viable
uranium. This amount includes batches of enriched uranium nuclear weapon design or a suitable explosive detonation
containing up to 2% u-235, up to 5% u-235, up to 20% u- system. Tehran may also need additional experience in
235, and up to 60% u-235, respectively. Iran has enough producing uranium metal; weapons-grade HEU metal for
fissile material that, if further enriched, would be sufficient use in a nuclear weapon is first “cast and machined into
for several nuclear weapons, according to U.S. officials. suitable components for a nuclear core.”
According to an April 2021 State Department report, Discussion
“Iran’s expansion of uranium enrichment activities ... allow The aforementioned one-year fissile-material breakout
[sic] Iran to enrich more uranium more quickly and to estimate assumes that Iran would use its declared nuclear
higher levels.” The U.S. government estimates that Iran facilities to produce fissile material for a weapon. But the
would need as little as one week to produce enough breakout concept does not accurately measure Tehran’s
weapons-grade HEU for one nuclear weapon, according to nuclear weapons capability.
a State Department official in March 2022. During a March
The U.S. government continues to assess that Iran is more
23, 2023, House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense
hearing, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley likely to use covert, rather than declared, facilities to
produce the requisite fissile material. Neither the U.S.
testified that Iran could produce this amount of HEU “in
government nor the IAEA have publicly described any
approximately 10-15 days.”
evidence that Iran is conducting such activities. Former
If Tehran were to resume implementing its current JCPOA National Nuclear Security Administration official Corey
obligations, this fissile material production timeline would Hinderstein, who was involved in JCPOA implementation,
increase, but would be less than one year, according to State wrote in a January 2020 Defense One article that producing
Department officials. This estimate reflects Iran’s recent fissile material in such a manner would require more time
accumulation of knowledge gained by operating centrifuges than executing a breakout scenario.
that are more sophisticated. Former National Intelligence
Council official Eric Brewer noted in an October 2021 During JCPOA negotiations, the breakout timeline was an
unclassified proxy measure of Iranian nuclear weapons
Center for Strategic and International Studies publication
capabilities. A State Department official described the
that, absent this experience, Iran would probably have used
less efficient, first-generation centrifuges for a breakout breakout “concept” in a September 2021 email as “a useful
metric to help quantify” U.S. negotiating goals and as “a
attempt.
useful analytic framework to structure the negotiation of
Even with a breakout timeline of less than one year, Iran technical measures related to enrichment.” The timeline
would be “unlikely” to make such an attempt, Brewer was also “helpful in explaining the deal and selling it
wrote, arguing that the JCPOA monitoring provisions politically,” the official noted, adding that the timeline has
“would almost certainly” enable the United States to detect “become an important political yardstick” for evaluating the
such a move. agreement’s merits. In a February 2022 Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists article, Jon Wolfsthal, a National Security
Weaponization
Council official during the Obama Administration,
At the time when the JCPOA negotiations concluded, the explained that the one-year breakout goal was meant to
U.S. intelligence community assessed that Iran would have
provide enough time “to generate an international response
needed one year to complete the necessary steps for
to any Iranian move to build weapons.”
producing a nuclear weapon that do not involve fissile
material production. This estimate assumed that Iran could Former State Department official Robert Einhorn discussed
complete fissile material production and weaponization in this point in a 2021 United Nations Institute for
parallel, which meant that Iran would have needed about Disarmament Research report. The Obama Administration,
one year to produce a nuclear weapon. according to Einhorn, argued that stopping Iran from
developing nuclear weapons required preventing Tehran
The U.S. intelligence community assesses that Iran has not
“from having the fissile material production infrastructure”
resumed work on its weaponization research. A State to break out “in less time than it would take the
Department official told CRS in an April 2022 email that
international community to intervene to block it.”
Iran would need approximately one year to complete the
necessary weaponization steps. This timeline “takes into Paul K. Kerr, Specialist in Nonproliferation
consideration assessed knowledge gaps and reflects” the
intelligence community’s “view of Iran’s fastest reasonable IF12106

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 Iran and Nuclear Weapons Production

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