believe Iran has not yet made a decision to actually build nuclear weapons.
There was nothing new in their stories. In fact, that conclusion by the US intelligence community was made and announced publicly more than four years ago in December 2007. It received immense news coverage at the time.
The Los Angeles Times appears to have carried the story last Friday because so many Americans have forgotten that, especially with GOP presidential contenders talking as if Iran had the bomb right now.
The New York Times then decided to re-hash the old news the next day in its issue Saturday.
The position of the intelligence agencies is nuanced and is probably lost on the general public. The 16 intelligence agencies concluded that the Islamic Republic was working on a bomb in years past but probably halted the program in 2003 after the United States invaded Iraq and Tehran was frightened that it was next.
But the intelligence agencies did not conclude that Iran had abandoned a military nuclear program, only that it was not trying to build an actual bomb. Instead, the head of US intelligence has explained, the belief is that Iran is trying to line up all the pieces needed to make a bomb. Once it masters all that technology, the Supreme Leader will have to make decision on whether to build a bomb or not, the intelligence agencies say.
That interpretation was first outlined in 2007. Directors of intelligence have reported to Congress periodically that that remains the official view. The most recent statement of that interpretation was made just last month.
James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee February 16: “I think they are keeping themselves in a position to make that decision. But there are certain things they have not yet done and have not done for some time.”
While he didn’t explain those “certain things,” others have said Iran stopped working on how to construct an actual warhead in 2003 and is not known to have resumed such work since then.
Most obviously, it has not enriched uranium to 90 percent, having stopped just short of 20 percent—but going to 20 percent enrichment takes 97 percent of the effort required to get to 90 percent enrichment.
David Albright, who heads the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), thinks that if Iran decided tomorrow to build a bomb, it could have a crude weapon within a year. It would require more time, however, to develop a large enough missile with a warhead that could carry that bomb.
