Facility Hidin' Mullahs

Tell us something we don't know.

NATANZ, Iran — An Iranian official confirmed Monday a uranium enrichment plant in central Iran is underground as a protection against airstrikes, but insisted that is not a sign the program aims to produce nuclear weapons.

U.S. officials have said building nuclear facilities underground is inconsistent with Iran's contention its atomic program is intended only for the generation of electricity. The Iranians deny Washington's accusation that they are trying to build nuclear weapons.

Ali Akbar Salehi, a nuclear affairs adviser to the foreign minister, said U.S. and Israeli threats forced Iran to take precautions to protect its technology, including the string of centrifuges used to enrich uranium — a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors that generate electricity but also make material suitable for atomic warheads.

"To protect the safety of equipment against possible danger of aerial attack, a major part of the plant has been constructed underground, especially where thousands of centrifuges need to be located," Salehi told The Associated Press.

Translation from Persian propaganda to English: "We're doing something that's completely illegal, we're aiming at striking the dirty Jews with whatever we can come up with, so you're damned right we buried it so that the infidel Americans and the aforementioned dirty Jews couldn't hit it."