Saturday, September 26, 2009

American Assessment of Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program




From the 2007 Intelligence Assessment:

F. We assess with moderate confidence that Iran probably would use covert facilities—
rather than its declared nuclear sites—for the production of highly enriched uranium for a weapon.
G. We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.
H. We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.

Comment:

F. Now we know that this is true. Ahmedinejad's photographed tour of uranium enrichment facilities were to hide the existence of a second secret facility.
G. 2015? Since Iran is working on the program since 1980, the year seems wrong. It has small centrifuges, but 35 years seem too long.
H. Nowadays everybody has that capacity, North Corea and Pakistan had it, so the assessment is meaningless.

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