U.S. persuades Israel Iran nuclear threat is at least a year away

into a long-delayed National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program.

Israel appears to accept two points in the U.S. argument:

  • Since Iran claims its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, it would be forced to build nuclear bombs from a limited supply of nuclear material, currently enough for two weapons
  • A decision to move from peaceful to nuclear weapons-related enrichment would require kicking out international weapons inspectors, thus eliminating any ambiguity about Iran’s nuclear plans

Israel, though, is worried that Iran has a secret enrichment site yet to be discovered, and such a stealth nuclear weapons program exists, than Iran’s breakout would escape notice.

U.S. officials also say that the mounting pressure of the sanctions imposed on Iran has created fissures among Iran’s political elite and forced a debate about the costs of developing nuclear weapons.

“The argument is over how far to push the program, how close to a weapon they can get without paying an even higher price,” the senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because American assessments on these debates are classified, told Mazzetti and Sanger. “And we’re beginning to see a lot of divisions inside the leadership on that question.”

American officials say that Iran’s uranium enrichment program has not been going well. So far, Iran has produced about 5,730 pounds, enough, with considerable additional enrichment, to produce roughly two weapons.

American officials say that the centrifuges are inefficient and subject to regular breakdowns. “Either they don’t have the machines, or they have real questions about their technical competence,” Samore said.

The New York Times notes that some of Iran’s enrichment problems appear to have external origins. Sanctions have made it more difficult for Iran to obtain precision parts and specialty metals. Moreover, the United States, Israel, and Europe have for years engaged in covert attempts to disrupt the enrichment process by sabotaging the centrifuges.

Now, the record of U.S. intelligence assessments of nuclear developments in the Middle East is far from stellar (see “Of facts and wishful thinking in the Iran debate,” 10 March 2009 HSNW):

  • The U.S. community missed the advances Iraq made in its nuclear weapons program — indeed, in its WMD program more generally — during the 1980s
  • Under unprecedented pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney and the parallel intelligence unit Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld established at the Pentagon, CIA’s analysts produced a “Slam Dunk” analysis of Iraq’s WMD capabilities which bore no relationship to reality
  • If the intelligence community’s treatment of Iraq’s WMD capabilities was corrupted by political pressures from certain segments in the Bush administration to hype the Iraqi threat, then the November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was an example of corrupting the intelligence process in order to down-play the Iranian nuclear threat

American officials agree there are potential vulnerabilities in their assessments, chief among them is what Israel is mostly worried about: whether Iran has hidden another enrichment center somewhere in the tunnels it has dug throughout the country, including some near Natanz.

Last September Iran acknowledged it had spent years building such a hidden facility near the city of Qum, buried in a mountain near a major military base. The admission came just days before Western leaders revealed the existence of the facility (Mazzetti and Sanger note that after detailed surveys, and interviews with defectors, officials say they have no evidence a second such facility is under construction).

“Even as American and Israeli officials agree that the date that Iran is likely to have a nuclear weapon has been pushed into the future, that does not mean that Israel has abandoned the idea of a possible military strike,” Mazzetti and Sanger conclude. “American officials said that Israel was particularly concerned that, over time, Iran’s supreme leader could order that nuclear materials be dispersed to secret locations around the country, making it less likely that an Israeli military strike would significantly cripple the program.”