claim: “Iran has stockpiled 10 times as much enriched uranium as it had” in 2016.
evidence: By the fall of 2009, Iran had been the subject of four sets of UN sanctions aimed at compelling the country to comply with IAEA demands to disclose the full extent of its nuclear program and to stop its uranium enrichment activities. In September 2009, Iran informed the IAEA that it was constructing a second fuel enrichment plant near the city of Qom, but refused to answer all of the Agency's questions about the new plant.[3] At that time, Iran had an estimated stockpile of 1,500 kilograms of low enriched uranium (LEU), enriched to between 3.5 and 5 percent. When Iran announced that it would begin enriching uranium to 19.75 percent because it was running out of fuel for use in its Tehran Research Reactor that produces medical isotopes, the United States, France, Russia, and the IAEA (the "Vienna Group") proposed a fuel swap as a confidence-building measure pending renewed talks with Iran.[4] This proposal called for Iran to ship roughly three-quarters of its then LEU stockpile to Russia and France to be further enriched to nearly 20 percent and then returned to Iran as fuel for its Tehran Reactor.[5] Iran initially expressed interest in the proposal, but then withdrew its support,[6] continued its enrichment activities, and spurned further negotiations with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1).