Iran's nuclear boasts anything but a bombshell
Between Seymour Hersh's New Yorker piece on Bush's desperate desire to look heroic before leaving office and this week's panicked headlines about Iran's ability to enrich uranium, this article on the science of Iran's capabilities should provide some measure of comfort.
The ability to slightly enrich uranium is not the same as the ability to build a bomb. For the latter, you need at least 80% enrichment, which in turn would require about 16,000 small centrifuges hooked up to cascade. Iran does not have 16,000 centrifuges. It seems to have 180. Iran is a good ten years away from having a bomb, and since its leaders, including Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, say they do not want an atomic bomb because it is Islamically immoral, you have to wonder if they will ever have a bomb.
Think Progress highlights an analysis that says Iran is (at the very, very least) five years away from producing weapons-grade uranium.
The good news, obviously, is that Iran is still very, very far away from constructing a nuclear bomb. The bad news is this administration's track record of going to war on phony intelligence. This is just the sort of revelation that didn't prevent Iraq, but sure as hell should have. And three years after that disastrous invasion, the press at large still doesn't have the guts acknowledge that it was built on lies.
UPDATE (4/13): For the second time in a week, a Washington Post editorial goes against reporting that appeared in its own pages. This time, the spooky op-ed states the following:
Some in Washington cite a U.S. intelligence estimate that an Iranian bomb is 10 years away. In fact the low end of that same estimate is five years, and some independent experts say three.
In the next sentence the piece suggests that it could be as soon as the the end of 2007. But according to a WaPo article from last fall:
A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis.
What's going on at the paper? Another editorial favors the White House line and turns out to be full of dubious claims. Between that and their right-wing blogger mishap, you've got to wonder if they're just 'going Fox' to increase market share.
The ability to slightly enrich uranium is not the same as the ability to build a bomb. For the latter, you need at least 80% enrichment, which in turn would require about 16,000 small centrifuges hooked up to cascade. Iran does not have 16,000 centrifuges. It seems to have 180. Iran is a good ten years away from having a bomb, and since its leaders, including Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, say they do not want an atomic bomb because it is Islamically immoral, you have to wonder if they will ever have a bomb.
Think Progress highlights an analysis that says Iran is (at the very, very least) five years away from producing weapons-grade uranium.
The good news, obviously, is that Iran is still very, very far away from constructing a nuclear bomb. The bad news is this administration's track record of going to war on phony intelligence. This is just the sort of revelation that didn't prevent Iraq, but sure as hell should have. And three years after that disastrous invasion, the press at large still doesn't have the guts acknowledge that it was built on lies.
UPDATE (4/13): For the second time in a week, a Washington Post editorial goes against reporting that appeared in its own pages. This time, the spooky op-ed states the following:
Some in Washington cite a U.S. intelligence estimate that an Iranian bomb is 10 years away. In fact the low end of that same estimate is five years, and some independent experts say three.
In the next sentence the piece suggests that it could be as soon as the the end of 2007. But according to a WaPo article from last fall:
A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis.
What's going on at the paper? Another editorial favors the White House line and turns out to be full of dubious claims. Between that and their right-wing blogger mishap, you've got to wonder if they're just 'going Fox' to increase market share.
posted by Matt Sandwich | 8:46 PM
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