New Concerns Iran Could Have Nuke Bomb in a Year

Automatic Centrifuge As newer intelligence on Iran’s nuclear activities has become available, coupled to Iranian leaders’ own claims about how far they’ve come in enriching uranium at any given time, it’s no surprise that the estimates of when the terrorism-supporting state could begin building nuclear weapons also advances. Israeli Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz said this week that Iran’s nuclear technology advancement now is at the point that Iran could develop an atomic bomb in a year, and not the five or more years many Western intelligence authorities have believed it would take the revolutionary Islamist regime. Mofaz's comment reputedly is based on new intelligence. According to reports, Mofaz made the comments during talks with US officials in Washington where he led an Israeli delegation holding meetings within the framework of the Israel-US Strategic Dialogue. Mofaz said Iran must be prevented from attaining nuclear weapons and that all options for preventing Iran from building nuclear bombs are on the table. Photos taken during a highly publicized visit by Ahmadinejad earlier this month to Natanz, where Iran is building centrifuges to enrich uranium, and which were released to the world press by Iran, clearly show the progress Iran has made on installing P-1 and the newer IR-2 model centrifuge, the latter of which seems to be ready for testing. A European centrifuge expert reportedly said “they obviously have months, if not a year, of test work to do [on the IR-2] before they can consider proceeding with mass production.” What intelligence – covertly and overtly obtained – clearly indicates is that Iran is making steady, sophisticated progress on enriching uranium. If it so chooses, it could then proceed to use that uranium to make bombs, a not so easy task, to be sure, but one Iran seems technically capable of pulling off. Given how far Iran has come in its enrichment sophistry, combined with what it likely has been doing in secret, some extrapolations as to how soon it could produce sufficient quantities of bomb-grade uranium put the achievement at 12 to 15 months, intelligence officials said. Meanwhle, the US State Department’s new report on global terrorism, released Wednesday, states “Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism” in 2007. “Elements of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were directly involved in the planning and support of terrorist acts throughout the region and continued to support a variety of groups in their use of terrorism to advance their common regional goals. Iran provides aid to Palestinian terrorist groups, Lebanese Hizballah, Iraq-based militants, and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. The report said “Iran remains a threat to regional stability and US interests in the Middle East because of its continued support for violent groups, such as Hamas and Hizballah, and its efforts to undercut the democratic process in Lebanon, where it seeks to build Iran’s and Hizballah’s influence to the detriment of other Lebanese communities.” Iran also “is a principal supporter of groups that are implacably opposed to the Middle East Peace Process, and continues to maintain a high-profile role in encouraging anti-Israel terrorist activity – rhetorically, operationally, and financially,” stated the State Department’s required annual report on terrorism. The report states “Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad praised Palestinian terrorist operations, and Iran provided Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian terrorist groups, notably Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, with extensive funding, training, and weapons.” Continuing, the report notes that, “despite its pledge to support the stabilization of Iraq, Iranian authorities continued to provide lethal support, including weapons, training, funding, and guidance, to some Iraqi militant groups that target Coalition and Iraqi security forces and Iraqi civilians. In this way, Iranian government forces have been responsible for attacks on Coalition forces. “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-Qods Force, continued to provide Iraqi militants with Iranian-produced advanced rockets, sniper rifles, automatic weapons, mortars that have killed thousands of Coalition and Iraqi Forces, and explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) that have a higher lethality rate than other types of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and are specially designed to defeat armored vehicles used by Coalition Forces.” “The Qods Force, in concert with Lebanese Hizballah, provided training outside Iraq for Iraqi militants in the construction and use of sophisticated IED technology and other advanced weaponry,” the report states, adding “these individuals then passed on this training to additional militants inside Iraq, a “train-the-trainer” program. In addition, the Qods Force and Hizballah have also provided training inside Iraq. In fact, Coalition Forces captured a Lebanese Hizballah operative in Iraq in 2007.” Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent a second US aircraft carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf and, according to a CBS report, ordered military commanders to develop new options for attacking Iran. In response to the report, Lt. Gen. John Sattler, DoD’s director of strategic plans, said the Pentagon had plans on the shelf for all sorts of potential conflicts around the world, but that there had been no order to draw up new plans for a strike on Iran.