Iran ? Iran claimed Sunday that it had reached its goal of running 3,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment, a much higher number than recently estimated by the United Nations’ atomic agency. If true, the accomplishment might allow Iran to produce enough nuclear material for a bomb within a year, military experts have calculated.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted by state television as saying that despite economic sanctions by the United Nations, his country had “taken another step in the nuclear progress and launched more than 3,000 centrifuge machines.”

It could not be independently verified whether Iran, which the West has often accused of exaggerating its nuclear capabilities for domestic propaganda, had reached its long-sought objective.

Centrifuges spin at high rates of speed to enrich uranium and are critical to generating electricity or building a nuclear bomb.