Stuxnet may be part of Iran atom woes

Ha Ha ! Iran Having some problems with their Centrifuges ?
Aww , how funny though!


(Reuters) - Iran has been experiencing years of problems with equipment used in its uranium enrichment program and the Stuxnet computer virus may be one of the factors, a former top U.N. nuclear inspections official said.

Olli Heinonen, who stepped down in August as head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog's inspections worldwide, said there may be many reasons for technical glitches that have cut the number of working centrifuges at Iran's Natanz enrichment plant.

"One of the reasons is the basic design of this centrifuge ... this is not that solid," Heinonen, a former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and now a senior fellow at Harvard University, told Reuters on Friday.

Asked about the Stuxnet virus, he said: "Sure, this could be one of the reasons ... There is no evidence that it was, but there has been quite a lot of malfunctioning centrifuges."

Security experts have said the release of Stuxnet could have been a state-backed attack on Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is designed to produce electricity but which Western leaders suspect is a disguised effort to develop nuclear bombs.