President Ahmadinejad: We've added 6,000 centrifuges to nuke program

       Iran has begun installing 6,000 new centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, state television quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying Tuesday. Iran already has about 3,000 centrifuges operating in Natanz, and the new announcement is seen as a show of defiance of international demands to halt a nuclear program the U.S. and its allies say is aimed at building nuclear weapons. It also brings Iran one step closer to developing a critical mass of uranium needed to build an atomic bomb. The president announced the start of the phase of installing 6,000 new centrifuges in Natanz, the television reported. Ahmadinejad made Tuesday's announcement as he toured the Natanz facility in central Iran. The television also quoted Ahmadinejad as saying that other activities have been carried out in Natanz that he would announce later Tuesday. The president's trip was scheduled to coincide with Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology, marking the second anniversary of when Iran first enriched uranium on April 8, 2006.  Iran insists its nuclear program is solely focused on the peaceful production of energy. Ahmadinejad is widely expected to confirm for the first time that Iran has installed hundreds of more sophisticated centrifuges that can enrich uranium faster. The workhorse of Iran's enrichment program is the P-1 centrifuge, which is run in cascades of 164 machines. But Iranian officials confirmed in February that they had started using the IR-2 centrifuge that can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate. Iranian state television didn't say if the installation of the 6,000 new centrifuges included the older P-1 or the advanced IR-2 centrifuges. Diplomats in Vienna told The Associated Press on Thursday that Iran has assembled hundreds of advanced centrifuges at Natanz. One diplomat said more than 300 of the centrifuges have been linked up in two separate units in Iran's underground enrichment plant and a third was being assembled. He said the machines apparently are more advanced than the thousands already running underground, suggesting they could be the sophisticated IR-2 centrifuge. (22,17)