U.S. Boosts Monitoring of Iran Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011

The United States has regularly used an advanced radar-evading unmanned aircraft as part of a program of increased monitoring of Iranian nuclear facilities, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Flights of high-flying drones from Afghanistan are one example of a much broader program to gather data on Iran's atomic activities, which Washington and partner nations believe is aimed at giving the Middle Eastern state a nuclear-weapon capability. Tehran says its atomic ambitions do not include military efforts.

The drone program came to light this week with the crash of a RQ-170 Sentinel deep within Iranian territory. Iran has claimed it intentionally brought down the aircraft, an assertion rejected in Washington, which has blamed the crash on an equipment glitch.

The drone was being used in the hunt for subterranean passageways, installations or other locations that might house secret uranium enrichment operations or production of centrifuge components, the newspaper reported. Uranium enriched to high levels can be used to fuel nuclear weapons.

The United States, France and the United Kingdom in 2009 announced the existence of a secret Iranian enrichment plant at Qum. That find, though, seemed to be largely the result of efforts by Israel.

"We've got nothing of that scale yet," said one high-level U.S. official, but "we are looking every day." More