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Nuclear bomb for Iran not viable for several years

enriching the uranium to bomb grade would take another year, and it would take at least another year for them “to develop the kind of weapon delivery system in order to make that viable……counterproliferation efforts could further delay the Iranians’s efforts to put together a bomb for years further, if they make a final decision to do so.

New Iran Nuke NIE Still Not Ready, Newsweek, by Mark Hosenball June 28, 2010 In an ABC News interview Sunday, CIA Director Leon Panetta alluded to a fact that was reported by NEWSWEEK months ago: U.S. intelligence agencies have revised their widely disputed 2007 conclusion that Iran had given up its efforts to design or build a nuclear bomb.

That shift is expected to be reflected in an update of the controversial 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which was supposed to have been completed months ago, but according to three counterproliferation officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, the formal update still is not finished and may be delayed for months to come.

Even when it’s done, officials have said, the Obama administration is expected to keep the revised report’s contents officially secret—unlike the White House of George W. Bush, which published key portions of the 2007 nuke assessment, to the dismay of many of that administration’s most hardline supporters………..

The CIA director went on to say, “We think they have enough low-enriched uranium right now for two weapons,” but he added that the radioactive material would have to be processed to a considerably higher level before it could be used for a bomb. He said that at the very least, enriching the uranium to bomb grade would take another year, and it would take at least another year for them “to develop the kind of weapon delivery system in order to make that viable.” Panetta added that the Iranians have continued to encounter “problems with regards to their ability to develop enrichment”—problems that and European counterproliferation efforts could further delay the Iranians’s efforts to put together a bomb for years further, if they make a final decision to do so.

New Iran Nuke NIE Still Not Ready – Newsweek

June 29, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, weapons and war | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear weapons