But the attention deficit disorder of the media and a society inebriated on the instant-gratification of the consumer bacchanalia will watch this triumphalism fade, in days, not weeks, and the grating realities of our culture's meaningless drudgery and vacuous need to be entertained, the steadily mounting casualties, rising gas prices, the Haditha massacres... all of it, will return. When it does, the draught will be that much more bitter. The war will continue. The blood will spill. Even fewer people will retain the capacity to fall, yet again, for the old Turning-The-Corner parlor trick.

Moreover, the Pentagon and the White House will have lost the personification of evil that Zarqawi represented to justify the war. As Scott McClellan - before his ticket was punched - said hundreds of times, like one of those dolls with a string on its back, "Iraq is the front line in the global war on terror." Zarqawi was the ultimate "foreign fighter," one who willingly adopted the name "al Qaeda in Iraq," feeding the mistaken notion that there is actually an organization called al Qaeda, an official enemy that is global and eternal, and now manifest on this particular part of the oil patch.

Just this year, the Washington Post published a documents showing that the Pentagon had an active program to legendize Zarqawi.

"The Zarqawi campaign is discussed in several of the internal military documents. 'Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response,' one U.S. military briefing from 2004 stated. It listed three methods: 'Media operations,' 'Special Ops (626)' (a reference to Task Force 626, an elite U.S. military unit assigned primarily to hunt in Iraq for senior officials in Hussein's government) and 'PSYOP,' the U.S. military term for propaganda work..." (Washington Post, 10 April 2006)

Leverage xenophobia response.

The Pentagon public relations staff, with the active assistance of an obsequious US press, successfully portrayed Zarqawi as a one-man dynamo, an evil genius who was single-handedly running most of the "insurgency" in Iraq, a take-off on the earlier theme of foreign fighters being the majority of the resistance. This, and we should remember when the British SAS was caught in the act of planting bombs last year that would have been attributed, undoubtedly, to Zarqawi.

"They won't have Ahmad Fadhil Nazzal al-Khalayleh to kick around any more," to coin a phrase. No they won't; and it will be their loss. Zarqawi will be sorely missed in Washington.

The rabbits in the Turn-The-Corner hat get smaller with each passing day.

The General had arrived in Baghdad just hours before to take charge of the newly occupied nation. The message from Rumsfeld was not a heartwarming welcome. Rummy told Garner, Don't unpack, Jack -- you're fired.

What had Garner done? The many-starred general had been sent by the President himself to take charge of a deeply dangerous mission. Iraq was tense but relatively peaceful. Garner's job was to keep the peace and bring democracy.

Unfortunately for the general, he took the President at his word. But the general was wrong. "Peace" and "Democracy" were the slogans.

"My preference," Garner told me in his understated manner, "was to put the Iraqis in charge as soon as we can and do it in some form of elections."

But elections were not in The Plan.

The Plan was a 101-page document to guide the long-term future of the land we'd just conquered. There was nothing in it about democracy or elections or safety. There was, rather, a detailed schedule for selling off "all [Iraq's] state assets" -- and Iraq, that's just about everything -- "especially," said The Plan, "the oil and supporting industries." Especially the oil.

There was more than oil to sell off. The Plan included the sale of Iraq's banks, and weirdly, changing it's copyright laws and other odd items that made the plan look less like a program for Iraq to get on its feet than a program for corporate looting of the nation's assets. (And indeed, we discovered at BBC, behind many of the odder elements -- copyright and tax code changes -- was the hand of lobbyist Jack Abramoff's associate Grover Norquist.)

But Garner didn't think much of The Plan, he told me when we met a year later in Washington. He had other things on his mind. "You prevent epidemics, you start the food distribution program to prevent famine."

Seizing title and ownership of Iraq's oil fields was not on Garner's must-do list. He let that be known to Washington. "I don't think [Iraqis] need to go by the U.S. plan, I think that what we need to do is set an Iraqi government that represents the freely elected will of the people." He added, "It's their country ... their oil."

Apparently, the Secretary of Defense disagreed. So did lobbyist Norquist. And Garner incurred their fury by getting carried away with the "democracy" idea: he called for quick elections -- within 90 days of the taking of Baghdad.

But Garner's 90-days-to-elections commitment ran straight into the oil sell-off program. Annex D of the plan indicated that would take at least 270 days -- at least 9 months.

Worse, Garner was brokering a truce between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. They were about to begin what Garner called a "Big Tent" meeting to hammer out the details and set the election date. He figured he had 90 days to get it done before the factions started slitting each other's throats.

But a quick election would mean the end of the state-asset sell-off plan: An Iraqi-controlled government would never go along with what would certainly amount to foreign corporations swallowing their entire economy. Especially the oil. Garner had spent years in Iraq, in charge of the Northern Kurdish zone and knew Iraqis well. He was certain that an asset-and-oil grab, "privatizations," would cause a sensitive population to take up the gun. "That's just one fight you don't want to take on right now."

But that's just the fight the neo-cons at Defense wanted. And in Rumsfeld's replacement for Garner, they had a man itching for the fight. Paul Bremer III had no experience on the ground in Iraq, but he had one unbeatable credential that Garner lacked: Bremer had served as Managing Director of Kissinger and Associates.

In April 2003, Bremer instituted democracy Bush style: he canceled elections and appointed the entire government himself. Two months later, Bremer ordered a halt to all municipal elections including the crucial vote to Shia seeking to select a mayor in the city of Najaf. The front-runner, moderate Shia Asad Sultan Abu Gilal warned, "If they don't give us freedom, what will we do? We have patience, but not for long." Local Shias formed the "Mahdi Army," and within a year, provoked by Bremer's shutting their paper, attacked and killed 21 U.S. soldiers.

The insurgency had begun. But Bremer's job was hardly over. There were Sunnis to go after. He issued "Order Number One: De-Ba'athification." In effect, this became "De-Sunni-fication."

Saddam's generals, mostly Sunnis, who had, we learned, secretly collaborated with the US invasion and now expected their reward found themselves hunted and arrested. Falah Aljibury, an Iraqi-born US resident who helped with the pre-invasion brokering, told me, "U.S. forces imprisoned all those we named as political leaders," who stopped Iraq's army from firing on U.S. troops.

Aljibury's main concern was that busting Iraqi collaborators and Ba'athist big shots was a gift "to the Wahabis," by which he meant the foreign insurgents, who now gained experienced military commanders, Sunnis, who now had no choice but to fight the US-installed regime or face arrest, ruin or death. They would soon link up with the Sunni-defending Wahabi, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was committed to destroying "Shia snakes."

And the oil fields? It was, Aljibury noted, when word got out about the plans to sell off the oil fields (thanks to loose lips of the US-appointed oil minister) that pipelines began to blow. Although he had been at the center of planning for invasion, Aljibury now saw the greed-crazed grab for the oil fields as the fuel for a civil war that would rip his country to pieces:

"Insurgents," he said, "and those who wanted to destabilize a new Iraq have used this as means of saying, 'Look, you're losing your country. You're losing your leadership. You're losing all of your resources to a bunch of wealthy people. A bunch of billionaires in the world want to take you over and make your life miserable.' And we saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities, pipelines, of course, built on -- built on the premise that privatization [of oil] is coming."

General Garner, watching the insurgency unfold from the occupation authority's provocations, told me, in his understated manner, "I'm a believer that you don't want to end the day with more enemies than you started with."

But you can't have a war president without a war. And you can't have a war without enemies. "Bring 'em on," our Commander-in-Chief said. And Zarqawi answered the call.

The name change of the Zarqawi gang from its cumbersome original - "The Monotheism and Holy War Group" - to the more media-sexy "Qaeda" brand was thus a PR godsend for the Bush Administration, which was then able to associate the widespread native uprising against the Coalition occupation with the cave-dwelling dastards of the bin Laden organization. This proved an invaluable tool for the Pentagon's massive "psy-op" campaign against the American people, which was successful in sufficiently obscuring reality and defusing rising public concerns about what many experts have termed "the full-blown FUBAR" in Iraq until after the 2004 elections.

However, in the last year, even the reputed presence of a big stonking al Qaeda beheader guy roaming at will across the land has not prevented a catastrophic drop in support for President Bush in general and the war in Iraq in particular. Polls show that substantial majorities - even those still psy-oped into believing the conquest has something to do with fighting terrorism - are now saying that the war "is not worth it" and call for American forces to begin withdrawing.

With the Zarqawi theme thus producing diminishing returns, the Administration has had another stroke of unexpected luck with his reputed sudden demise. Moreover, the fact that Zarqawi was killed in a military action means that Mr. Bush will not have to cough up the $25 million reward placed on the head of the terrorist chieftain. That money will now be given to Mr. Bush's favorite charity, Upper-Class Twits Against the Inheritance Tax, an Administration spokesman said.

Despite its fortuitousness, the reputed death of the multi-legged brigand came as no real surprise. After all, approximately 376 of his "top lieutenants" had been killed or captured by Coalition forces in the past three years, according to press reports, and some 5,997 lower-ranking "al Qaeda terrorists" have been killed in innumerable operations during that same period, according to Pentagon press releases. With the widespread, on-going, much-publicized decimation of his group, Zarqawi had obviously been rendered isolated and ineffective - except of course for the relentless series of high-profile terrorist spectaculars he kept carrying out, according to other Pentagon press releases.

News of the reputed rub-out brought bipartisan praise. "This enormous victory in the War on Terror is due entirely to the courage and wisdom of the president," squealed Senate Majority Leader Lick Spittle of Tennessee. "He has seen us through when so many of the flag-burning destroyers of marriage wanted to cut and run. I think this president is the best president the world has ever seen, and if I am ever fortunate enough to be chosen as president by the American people - minus the three million or so whose votes will be discarded, lost, inadvertently mangled or just ignored, of course - I promise I'll be a president just like him!"

"We must give credit where credit is due," said Democratic Sen. Joe Biden, in a rare television appearance. "I have my differences with the way the Administration is conducting this war, but the elimination of Zarqawi is, I believe, a turning point, comparable to the capture of Saddam Hussein, the first Iraqi elections, the second Iraqi elections, the formation of the first Iraqi government and the formation of the second Iraqi government. This is not the end, or even the beginning of the end, but it is, I believe, the end of the beginning. And no, I didn't plagiarize that. I made it up my own self."

The reputed end of Zarqawi's reign of terror comes a mere four years after U.S. forces had pinpointed his hideout and were prepared to destroy his entire operation, only to be forestalled by the White House. Before the war, Zarqawi and his band of non-Iraqi Islamic extremists had a camp in northern Iraq, in territory controlled by American-backed Kurdish forces, who had wrested it from the hands of Saddam Hussein. U.S. Special Forces, CIA agents and other American personnel had a free hand to operate there; indeed, anti-Saddam Iraqi exiles held open meetings in the territory, safe from the reach of the dictator.

In June 2002, American forces had locked in on Zarqawi's location. They prepared a detailed attack plan that would have destroyed the terrorist band. But their request to strike was turned down not once, but twice by the White House. Administration officials feared that such a strike would have muddied the waters in their public relations effort to foment war fever against Saddam's regime.

At every turn, the Bush team had painted a picture of Saddam Hussein as a powerful dictator able to threaten the entire world. They had implied, insinuated and sometimes openly declared that he was in league with al Qaeda. But this wildly successful psy-ops campaign would have been undermined by a raid on Zarqawi, which would have exposed the truth: that Saddam was a crippled, toothless despot who had lost control of much of his own land and couldn't even threaten vast enemy armies within his own borders - much less his neighbors or the rest of the world. It would have also exposed the fact that the only Islamic terrorists operating on Iraqi soil were in areas controlled by America and its allies - which, now that Mr. Bush's invasion has opened the whole country to extremist terror, is still the case.

With Zarqawi's Bush-granted liberty reputedly at an end, the Pentagon moved quickly to confirm the identity of the man killed in Hibhib today. At a joint press conference with Prime Minister Maliki, U.S. Gen. George Casey said Zarqawi's body had been identified by "fingerprints, facial recognition and known scars" after a painstaking forensic examination by Lt. Col. Gil Grissom and Major Catherine Willows.

In yet another amazing coincidence, the announcement of the death of Zarqawi or somebody just like him came just as Prime Minister Maliki was finally submitting his candidates for the long-disputed posts of defense and interior ministers, which then sailed through parliament after months of deadlock. The fortuitous death also came after perhaps the worst week of bad PR the Bush Administration has endured during the entire war, with an outpouring of stories alleging a number of horrific atrocities committed by U.S. troops in recent months.

Oddly enough, Zarqawi first vaulted into the American consciousness just after the public exposure of earlier U.S. atrocities: the tortures at Abu Ghraib prison in the spring of 2004. With story after story of horrible abuse battering the Administration during an election year, Zarqawi, or someone just like him, suddenly appeared with a Grand Guignol production: the beheading of American civilian Nick Berg. This atrocity was instantly seized upon by supporters of the war to justify the "intensive interrogation" of "terrorists" - even though the Red Cross had determined that 70 to 90 percent of American captives at that time had committed no crime whatsoever, much less been involved in terrorism, as the notorious anti-war Wall Street Journal reported. Abu Ghraib largely faded from the public eye - indeed, it was not mentioned by a single speaker at the Democratic National Convention a few weeks later or raised as an issue during the presidential campaign that year.

Today's news has likewise knocked the new atrocity allegations off the front pages, to be replaced with heartening stories of how, as the New York Times reports, Zarqawi's death "appears to mark a major watershed in the war." Thus in his reputed end as in his reputed beginning, the Scarlet Pimpernel of Iraq has, by remarkable coincidence, done yeoman service for the immediate publicity needs of his deadly enemy, the Bush Administration.

It is not yet known who will now take Zarqawi's place as the new all-purpose, all-powerful bogeyman solely responsible for every bad thing in Iraq. There were recent indications that Maliki himself was being measured for the post, after he publicly denounced American atrocities and the occupiers' propensity for hair-trigger killing of civilians, but he seems to be back with the program now. Administration insiders are reportedly divided over shifting the horns to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's already much-demonized head, or planting them on extremist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, or elevating some hitherto unknown local talent - or maybe just blaming the whole shebang on Fidel Castro, for old times' sake.

The announcement of the new bogeyman is expected sometime in the coming weeks.

***

UPDATE: It looks like the Twits might not get that reward money after all. Prime Minister Maliki said that those who helped locate Zarqawi, or someone just like him, in Hibhib, would get their reward later: "We believe in honoring our commitments." However, the (London) Times' man in Iraq, Ned Parker, tells us that Zazqawi might have been shopped to the Americans by Iraqi insurgents:

One of the most interesting things about the news of his death is the timing. There have been talks going on since the election last December by US and Iraqi officials to try to bring the homegrown insurgency back into the political process. Certainly there was tension between the homegrown Iraqi insurgency and Zarqawi's foreign fighters. So it's possible a deal was finally cut by some branch of the Iraqi insurgency to eliminate al-Zarqawi and rid themselves of his heavy-handed influence.

So if Bush does decide to pay off the informants -- and it's his money, after all, not Maliki's; in fact, in today's Iraq, any money that Maliki's government might still have left after three years of occupation rapine is Bush's money too -- but if Zarqawi's rumblers are paid off, then it's likely that Bush will be forking over $25 million to Iraq's Sunni insurgents. That will certainly keep them flush with IEDs for a long time to come. It's FUBAR every which way you turn in Bush's Babylon.

"George Bush is the one that invaded this country, George Bush is the one that destabilized it so that Zarqawi could get in, so that Zarqawi had a need to get in, to defend his region of the country from American invaders."

Berg said Bush was to blame for the torture of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

"Yeah, like George Bush didn't OK the torture and death and rape of people in the Abu Ghraib prison for which my son was killed in retaliation?" he told his Fox interviewers.



In a telephone interview with Reuters from his home in Wilmington, Delaware, the father said: "I have no sense of relief, just sadness that another human being had to die."

Berg, who is running as a Green Party candidate, has repeatedly blamed Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his 26-year-old son's death.

Nick Berg's videotaped beheading by hooded captors was posted on the Internet, and the father said he could understand what Zarqawi's family was going through.

"I have learned to forgive a long time ago, and I regret mostly that that will bring about another wave of revenge from his cohorts from al Qaeda," he told Fox.

Zarqawi's organization took responsibility for the execution of Nick Berg in May 2004. The video was published with a caption saying: "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi slaughtering an American."

When an Islamist Web site showed the video of a man severing Berg's head, the CIA said Zarqawi was probably the one wielding the knife. The father said he was not convinced.

"I have been lied to by my own government," he told Reuters on Thursday.

Vehicles will be banned from the streets of Baghdad and nearby Baquba, close to where Zarqawi was killed, from 11:00 am (0700 GMT) until 5:00 pm (1300 GMT), coinciding with Friday prayers.

Zarqawi was killed Wednesday in a joint US-Iraqi raid.

US F-16 war planes dropped two 500-pound bombs on him and some associates as they were huddled in a meeting at a safe house.

Imposition of curfews in Baghdad and Baquba addresses the main question in the wake of Zarqawi's killing, namely the extent to which his death will affect the wave of violence claiming dozens of lives across the country each day.

In marked contrast to the aggressive and victorious rhetoric characteristic of the weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, or even Saddam's capture that December, US officials have been remarkably cautious.

US President George W. Bush described the event as a "victory" in the war on terror and a chance to "turn the tide."

But he warned that terrorists and insurgents behind violence that has claimed the lives of nearly 2,500 US troops and left many more wounded will "carry on without him (Zarqawi).

"We have tough days ahead of us in Iraq that will require the continued patience of the American people," he said.

US forces spokesman Major General William Caldwell said: "We must be careful not to be overly optimistic, as one man's life does not signal an end to an insurgency."

Websites devoted to Al-Qaeda and other jihadist causes have been flooded with messages of support for the organization and pledges to continue the fight.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one of the architects of the war in Iraq, described Zarqawi's death, at the very least, as a major setback for the organization.

"To replace that is not impossible but it takes time, it takes effort, it takes building up relationships and it is unquestionably a stunning shock to the Al-Qaeda system," he said.

Iraq watchers, however, have said the bulk of the Iraqis opposing US troops are nationalists and Saddam loyalists, with foreign Islamic fighters representing only five to seven percent of the anti-US forces.

"The past tendency to demonize both Zarqawi and Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia has been dangerously misleading," said Anthony Cordesman of Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

"The insurgency is far more complex and robust."

The US military, however, has always described Al-Qaeda as a key segment of the insurgency since it carries out a disproportionate number of suicide attacks and focuses its efforts on killing civilians and inciting sectarian civil war.

The February 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, attributed to Al-Qaeda, unleashed a wave of sectarian killing throughout the country that has claimed the lives of thousands and continues in place like Baghdad and Baquba.

In his announcement of Zarqawi's death, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was blunt about any supporters hoping to continue the Jordanian born militant's work.

"Anyone who looks to emulate Zarqawi, we will find him and kill, this is an open war between unified Iraqi people and sectarianism," he said.

Nearly lost amid all the attention surrounding Zarqawi's death, was a significant event for Maliki's fledgling government as he managed to finally get his choices for security ministries approved.

Finding an interior minister that all the Shiite parties could agree on proved particularly difficult, but parliament gave overwhelming approval to Jawad Polani, an independent Shiite politician with a military background.

Together with the new defense minister, Sunni and former general Abdel Qader al-Obeidi, Polani will have to bring the country's security services under control and implement a new Baghdad security plan to calm the restive capital.

Baghdad, home to a quarter of the country's population, is second only to the Sunni-dominated western province of Al-Anbar as the focus of much of the violence in the country.

The president praised US forces who, acting on intelligence tips from Iraqis, "delivered justice" to Zarqawi in the most dramatic US operation since Saddam Hussein's capture in December 2003.

But he warned that terrorists and insurgents behind violence that has claimed the lives of nearly 2,500 US troops and left many more wounded will "carry on without him" and as sectarian violence continues.

"We have tough days ahead of us in Iraq that will require the continued patience of the American people," he said.

Bush said he congratulated Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on finally completing his government by naming interior, security and defense ministers, and promised "full support" from the United States.

Bush gave no explicit sign of what this might mean for the fate of 130,000 US troops in the country but said he would meet with his top security aides Monday at Camp David to discuss "the way forward."

Bush said he would consult with top US diplomats and military commanders and hold a teleconference discussion on Tuesday bringing in Maliki and members of Iraq's first permanent cabinet since Saddam's ouster three years ago.

"Together, we will discuss how to best deploy America's resources in Iraq and achieve our shared goal of an Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself and sustain itself," said the US leader.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said there would be no "snap change" in troop levels, saying: "The death of Zarqawi does not change overnight the situation."

"The ultimate objective is for the Iraqis to take full responsibility and for the Americans to come home, but there is certainly no timetable and that's not going to be part of the discussion," he said.

Bush on Thursday also discussed the killing of Zarqawi by telephone with Jordan's King Abdullah II and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said.

Bush and Abdullah "discussed the removal of al-Zarqawi and noted the significance of it," while Olmert "congratulated the president ... noting that he understands such achievements are ...difficult and complex," Jones said.

Bush has seen his standing in public opinion polls plummet to the lowest level for a US president in a generation, with three in five Americans believing the March 2003 invasion to topple Saddam was a mistake amid mounting calls for a quick US withdrawal.

With the war set to shape key congressional elections in November, the White House has sought to emphasize good news out of Iraq and complain that the US media has improperly focused on the insurgents' spectacular acts of violence.

If recent history is an indication, any bump Bush gets in the polls from Zarqawi's demise might be temporary.

His popularity rose, but only marginally, in the days after Saddam's capture on December 13, 2003.

But his ratings tumbled below 50 percent barely two months later, after confirmation that the weapons of mass destruction at the core of his public case for war had not been found.

Bush first learned around 4:35 p.m. on Wednesday (2035 GMT) that Zarqawi might have been killed, telling aides "that would be a good thing" but not the end of fighting in Iraq, according to White House spokesman Tony Snow.

"This certainly has to be dispiriting to members of the opposition in Iraq. They now know that the most protected man, at least in terms of terror networks, was not safe," said Snow.

General Peter Pace, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, later told Bush national security adviser
Stephen Hadley at 9:10 pm Wednesday (0110 Thursday) that Zarqawi's body had been identified, said the spokesman.

DNA identification will probably not be available for another 24 hours, said Snow.

"General Pace called Hadley at 9:10 and informed him that the fingerprints and other body markings, and it may have been tattoos, I know that scars were also part of it, confirmed it was Zarqawi," said Snow.

Bush got confirmation from Hadley at 9:20 p.m. (0120 GMT Thursday).

On that Tuesday, it said, Iran started feeding the raw material of uranium hexafluoride gas, or UF6, into a connected series of 164 centrifuges -- known as a cascade -- to produce enriched uranium.

Iran is also building new production lines of the centrifuges that carry out the sensitive nuclear work, the
International Atomic Energy Agency said in a confidential report to be discussed by the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors next week in Vienna.

The damaging report appears to dash hopes Iran is preparing an immediate pause in its nuclear fuel activities in order to start talks with six major powers on guaranteeing its program is peaceful.

"This just shows that there's a long way to go before there's a deal," nuclear analyst David Albright told AFP from his ISIS think tank in Washington.

The report also said IAEA inspectors had found new traces of highly enriched uranium on equipment on Iran.

But it was unclear whether the enriched uranium traces were contaminants from equipment Tehran had purchased abroad or from enrichment that had been carried out by Iran.

A European diplomat in Vienna described the report as negative on all accounts for Iran.

But the diplomat said this was not "crucial" since what mattered was getting Iran and the US-led "Iran six" of world powers to find a way of getting down to talks.

Tehran says it is seeking solely to develop a civilian nuclear power program but Washington and the European Union fear this is a cover for building nuclear weapons.

"Iran is continuing its installation work on other 164-machine cascades," said the report from the IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei.

Iran built the cascade as a pilot plant for what it hopes will eventually be an industrial plant of more than 50,000 centrifuges, used to refine out the uranium 235 isotope.

At no time had Iran actually halted feeding uranium gas into centrifuges since making a first batch on April 11, a UN official said.

During a pause in feeding the 164-centrifuge cascade, but leaving it running empty for technical reasons, it had fed the gas into two single centrifuge machines.

London-based analyst Mark Fitzpatrick said: "This will strengthen Washington's resolve that full and complete suspension of Iran's nuclear fuel program has to be a condition for negotiations to begin, including no centrifuges spinning at all."

A UN official said the Iranians had fed "10s of kilos (pounds) into the system so far" and have produced only small amounts, "grams and hundreds of grams," of enriched uranium.

Iran also has produced 118 tonnes of uranium hexafluoride gas at its Isfahan plant since August. The "new conversion campaign" that began June 6 involved more than 30 tonnes of uranium ore to be converted into uranium gas, a senior UN official said.

These quantities would yield enough material for over 20 nuclear bombs, experts say.

According to the report Iran had also:

-- Failed to clear up IAEA questions over high-tech centrifuges it may have acquired.

-- Left unanswered questions over secret military projects that could be related to making nuclear weapons.

-- Failed to comply with a request to halt work on a heavy-water reactor that would make plutonium, another potential atomic weapons material.

Iran has consistently refused to halt its uranium enrichment program and said Thursday that while it was open to talks with the West, nuclear technology was not up for discussion.

The last IAEA report on April 28 had also said Iran was not heeding an IAEA call to suspend uranium enrichment.

Iran started last August to make feedstock uranium hexafluoride gas, which it then fed into centrifuges in February this year, producing enriched uranium from April.

The quality of enriched uranium being produced in April was appropriate for nuclear reactor fuel and was not the highly-enriched variety needed to make weapons.

"Iran is also pursuing a plan to have a 3,000-centrifuge cascade by the end of the current year (March 2007)," he noted, adding that all the material used in uranium enrichment facilities has been produced domestically.

A report from the International Atomic Energy Agency obtained by AFP on Thursday said that Iran had accelerated uranium enrichment on June 6, the same day world powers asked it to halt the work and open talks to guarantee it will not make nuclear weapons.

On that Tuesday, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana visited Tehran to present a package of benefits aimed at enticing Iran to suspend uranium enrichment.

Enriched uranium makes nuclear reactor fuel, and in a highly refined form can produce atom bomb material.

"Iran is continuing its installation work on other 164-machine cascades," said the report from the IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei.

Iran built the cascade as a pilot plant for what it hopes will eventually be an industrial plant of more than 50,000 centrifuges, used to refine the uranium 235 isotope.

Iran started last August to make feedstock uranium hexafluoride gas, which it then fed into centrifuges in February this year. It produced enriched uranium beginning in April.

The quality of enriched uranium being produced in April was appropriate for nuclear reactor fuel and was not the highly-enriched variety needed to make weapons.