IRAN’S NUKESWe Need a New Discussion About Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Work
U.S. intelligence is shielding the Biden-Harris administration from having to take serious action on Iran’s nuclear program. While hinting at nuclear weapon activities taking place, the U.S. intelligence community is focusing on public Iranian statements and old news on Iran’s capabilities to produce weapon-grade uranium — but it avoids any type of public discussion on what nuclear weaponization activities Iran may be undertaking, and how soon it can build a nuclear weapon. Likely, because some uncomfortable truths would come out: Iran can do it way too quickly, and initial activities to build the bomb could be difficult to detect.
U.S. intelligence is shielding the Biden-Harris administration from having to take serious action on Iran’s nuclear program. For years, they clamored repeatedly that Iran was not “currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities that would be necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.” Now, it has shifted slightly to Iran has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.” While hinting at nuclear weapon activities taking place, it is focusing on public Iranian statements and old news on Iran’s capabilities to produce weapon-grade uranium, while continuing to avoid any type of public discussion on what nuclear weaponization activities Iran may be undertaking and how long it would take Iran to produce a testable nuclear device if it started today.
Likely, because some uncomfortable truths would come out: Iran can do it way too quickly, and initial activities to build the bomb could be difficult to detect and could predate any effort to enrich up to weapon-grade at its enrichment plants.
Moving on from its mantra, which ties back to the unclassified 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), widely misinterpreted as Iran ending its nuclear weapons program in 2004 altogether, would require the intelligence community to take a hard look at that NIE, its definition of nuclear weapons programs, and see where Iran fits with its nuclear weapons preparatory, or “on-demand,” program, a scenario not considered in the NIE.
While briefly uncomfortable, this discussion is desperately needed. It is time for U.S. officials to face the Iran nuclear situation as it is.
The U.S. intelligence community was largely able to avoid this discussion for years, because Iran was many months away from having enough weapon grade uranium (WGU) for a nuclear weapon, and likely would have needed to keep international inspectors out of multiple facilities to make it, providing ample time and opportunity for detection, international discussion, and reaction.
This has changed over the last two years, but dramatically in the last several weeks: Iran can now ironically break out quickly, in days, using only its deeply buried Fordow facility. Ironically, because this facility, called originally the Al Ghadir project, was built to make weapon-grade uranium as a key part of Iran’s Amad Plan, its crash nuclear weapons program in the early 2000s, and Iran continued to build this facility in secret for years.
