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Page added on October 25, 2013
Iran may be month from a bomb
Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear bomb in as little as a month, according to a new estimate by one of the USA’s top nuclear experts.
The new assessment comes as the White House invited Senate staffers to a briefing on negotiations with Iran as it is trying to persuade Congress not to go ahead with a bill to stiffen sanctions against Iran.
“Shortening breakout times have implications for any negotiation with Iran,” stated the report by the Institute for Science and International Security. “An essential finding is that they are currently too short and shortening further.”
David Albright, president of the institute and a former inspector for the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, said the estimate means that Iran would have to eliminate more than half of its 19,000 centrifuges to extend the time it would take to build a bomb to six months.
The Obama administration has said Iran is probably a year away from having enough enriched uranium to make a bomb. Requests for comment from the National Security Council and the State Department were not answered.
In the report, Albright said negotiations with Iran should focus on so-called “breakout” times, or the time required to convert low-enriched uranium to weapons-grade.
Albright, who has testified before Congress, said the negotiators should try to find ways to lengthen the breakout times and shorten the time that inspectors could detect breakout. ISIS’ analysis is based on the latest Iranian and United Nations reports on Iran’s centrifuge equipment for producing nuclear fuel and its nuclear fuel stockpiles.
Iran’s stockpile of highly-enriched uranium has nearly doubled in a year’s time and its number of centrifuges has expanded from 12,000 in 2012 to 19,000 today.
Sen. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican whose Senate Banking Committee is considering legislation to tighten Iran sanctions, said the report shows that Iran is expanding its nuclear capabilities under the cover of negotiations.
“The Senate should move forward immediately with a new round of sanctions to prevent Iran from acquiring an undetectable breakout capability,” he said.
The White House has said new sanctions legislation should wait while current negotiations — scheduled to resume officially in Geneva next month — are moving forward.
The White House said Thursday it will continue consulting with Congress “so that any congressional action is aligned with our negotiating strategy as we move forward,” said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for President Obama’s National Security Council.
Bernadette Meehan, an NSC spokeswoman, said the intelligence community maintains “a number of assessments” regarding potential time frames for Iran to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one weapon or a testable nuclear device.
“We continue to closely monitor the Iranian nuclear program and its stockpile of enriched uranium,” Meehan said.
World powers are seeking an agreement “that ultimately resolves all of the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program,” she said. “The ultimate goal is a comprehensive agreement that is credible, transparent, and verifiable.”
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said his country has no interest in nuclear weapons but that producing nuclear fuel is Iran’s right. His foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has said Iran will not ship its nuclear stockpile to a third country.
However, Iran has blocked international inspectors from some suspected nuclear facilities to verify they are being used for peaceful purposes, access required under international agreements it has signed.
United Nations inspectors have found evidence of a weapons program in violation of Iran’s commitment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The USA and the U.N. Security Council have implemented crippling economic sanctions on Iran to sway it to take steps to assure the world it is not developing a bomb.
Israel, which sees an Iranian nuclear bomb as a threat to its very existence, has said it will take military action to prevent Iran from getting a bomb.
ISIS estimated in October 2012 that Iran could produce enough highly-enriched uranium for a bomb within two to four months. The new estimate is based on an analysis of the latest reports by Iran and the the IAEA.
ISIS considered various scenarios, including if Iran decided to build a covert enrichment plant like it has under a mountain in Fordow, near the city of Qom, that was designed for optimal efficiency and minimal time to enrich enough uranium for bomb making. Such a facility built with current Iranian technology could produce enough material for a bomb in a week, according to the ISIS report.
“If they did that and they were caught it would be a smoking gun of a nuclear weapons program,” Albright said.
If Iran moves ahead with installation of its more efficient, second generation centrifuges, it would be able to produce enough nuclear fuel for a bomb with so few of them, between 2,000 and 3,300 centrifuges, that they could fit in a small warehouse, Albright said.
12 Comments on "Iran may be month from a bomb"
J-Gav on Fri, 25th Oct 2013 11:15 am
So what? N. Korea has it, Pakistan has it, India has it, Israël has between 150 and 200 warheads …
What Israël is really worried about is Iran’s much improved and expanded mid-range conventional missile capabilities.
Arthur on Fri, 25th Oct 2013 2:13 pm
Bad news.
This David Albright fellow has the guts to challenge official stories:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Albright
“In September 2002, Albright and his organization ISIS were the first to publicly criticize the claims of the Bush administration and the CIA about the infamous Iraqi Iraqi aluminum tubes. In response to Iraqi aluminum tubes, Albright said it was far from clear that the tubes were intended for a uranium centrifuge.[2] From the August/September 2003 American Journalism Review: “On December 8 [2002] Bob Simon reported on ‘60 Minutes’ that the aluminum tubes story was being challenged. He quoted British intelligence officials and David Albright, a weapons inspector in Iraq for the U.N. in the 1990s. Albright said, ‘People who understood gas centrifuges almost uniformly felt that these tubes were not specific to gas centrifuge use.’ Simon said to Albright: ‘It seems that what you’re suggesting is that the administration’s leak to the New York Times, regarding aluminum tubes, was misleading?’ Albright: ‘Oh, I think it was. I think–I think it was very misleading.'””
DC on Fri, 25th Oct 2013 5:15 pm
ROfl @ PropagandaToday
Iran, along with Iraq, has been ‘One month’ away from a ‘bomb’ since 1980. Yellow-cake, ScuDs, all lies.
Q/United Nations inspectors have found evidence of a weapons program in violation of Iran’s commitment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The USA and the U.N. Security Council have implemented crippling economic sanctions on Iran to sway it to take steps to assure the world it is not developing a bomb.
Hilarious! The US is a serial violator of the NPT. Like all other international treaties, the US only supports them it is in the washington war-regimes interest to do so. The rest of the time, it can safely ignored. The US has been ‘proliferating’ nuclear weapons technology to select satrap states now for decades. The only time the US brings up the NPT, is when states that wish to remain independant of the USs global collection of puppet states, does the US suddenly start talking about the NPT.
Iran is not a threat to the world, but the US is by a huge margin. Why do opinion polls consistently show the US and Israel as top threats to world peace? Mmmmm wonder why that would be….
The US of Lies does not give a damn about nuclear weapons proliferation. All it wants, is a puppet regime back in Iran. For decades now, Iranian oil revenue has been used to improve the lives of the people of Iran-not BP, Exxon, or Shell.
That is why this garbage is being printed. Not make-believe nukes. Still need further proof there is no such thing as credible journalism in the US of lies? 5 mins research(on-line no less) would show that Iran is NOT one month from any ‘bomb’.
action on Fri, 25th Oct 2013 5:23 pm
So basically forget everything you just read, who knows how much, if any, of this is true. To me, it sounds suspiciously like the previous pre-war agendas the US, in particular, is fond of. But who freakin knows, they have the intel, we have what they tell us.
action on Fri, 25th Oct 2013 5:25 pm
Annnnnnnd, thank you DC.
bobinget on Fri, 25th Oct 2013 5:55 pm
Is a stage being set, by Israel or Saudi Arabia for some crucial last ditch talks putting Iran on defensive?
Any additional sanctions and certainty of a nuclear armed Iran is assured.
IOW’s the US goes into talks demanding Iran give up on further weapons grade enrichment and we will consider lifting (some) sanctions. If not, we will find another sanction to apply.
When will we find out how much Iran is spending supporting Assad’s Syria despite sanctions. Are BOTH
Saudi Arabia and Israel fixin to bomb Iran if they don’t flat out surrender and withdraw Hezbollah from Syria?
Always concerned Friday. Not this Friday, but the next three.
Arthur on Fri, 25th Oct 2013 7:46 pm
Regardless of the obvious hypocrisy of the US and Israel regarding Iranian nuclear technology, the truth is that any additional country having nukes at it’s disposal will push the world closer to Armageddon. I don’t know if Iran has intentions to build nuclear weapons, I do know from their own admission that they have aggressive plans to build 80 GW nuclear capacity. That’s huge.
Don’t get me wrong, Iran has no history of attacking it’s neighbors, it signed the NPT and allows inspections, so there is no case for intervention. But I can’t say I am very happy about the Iranian nuclear program. One Fukushima is one too many already.
J-Gav on Fri, 25th Oct 2013 8:23 pm
Arthur – I’m with you on that one. Not happy to see anybody adopt any sort of nuclear option, whether civil or military. My point, as I believe you understood, was to show up the flagrant hypocrisy of the ‘Western’ position on Iran.
Feemer on Fri, 25th Oct 2013 11:15 pm
Oil related problems is not the only reason This scares me. As opposed to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as I am, i would fully support military action to prevent Iran from getting a nuke. military force would disrupt oil production in Iran, but Iran threatening its neighbors with a nuke or closing the gulf of hormuz would be far more damaging to global oil supply
Feemer on Fri, 25th Oct 2013 11:24 pm
The west is hypocritical but i condemn any nuclear activity, be it for civil or military purposes. Unlike Iraq though, there is hard concrete evidence that Iran not only is enriching uranium, but continues to do so despite sanctions. It seems VERY likely that Iran is going after a nuke because of this. Iran getting a nuke is much different that N. Korea getting a nuke, because Iran has intercontinental ballistic missiles and will almost certainly use a nuke.
rollin on Sat, 26th Oct 2013 2:23 am
Iran must see India or Pakistan as a threat and are trying to balance the playing field. They will only have fission bombs, very weak compared to the fusion bombs that would come against them if they dared to initiate an ICBM war with anyone else.
If they were to use nuclear bombs against US forces or it’s allies, they would be committing total suicide.
Arthur on Sat, 26th Oct 2013 6:53 am
Correction of my previous post: Iran wants to build 20 GW (before 2020), not 80 GW.