Iran Has Enough for the Bomb

How far we have come from the 2007:

Straight from the 2007 NIE:
A. We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.......

Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005. Our assessmentthat the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.

Today:

WASHINGTON

By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: September 9, 2009

-- American intelligence agencies have concluded in recent months that Iran has created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, if risky, sprint for a nuclear weapon. But new intelligence reports delivered to the White House say that the country has deliberately stopped short of the critical last steps to make a bomb.

In the first public acknowledgment of the intelligence findings, the American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency declared on Wednesday that Iran now had what he called a “possible breakout capacity” if it decided to enrich its stockpile of uranium, converting it to bomb grade material. The statement by the ambassador, Glyn Davies, was intended to put pressure on American allies to move toward far more severe sanctions against Iran this month, perhaps including a cutoff of gasoline to the country, if it fails to take up Mr. Obama’s invitation for serious negotiations. But it could also complicate the administration’s efforts to convince an increasingly impatient Israeli government to give diplomacy more time to work, and hold off from a military strike against Iran’s facilities..

In interviews over the past two months, intelligence and military officials, and members of the Obama administration, have said they are convinced that Iran has made significant progress on uranium enrichment, especially over the past year.

On a related note here is what our President and Vice President said about the erroneous 2007 report:

What Obama said:

By reporting that Iran halted its nuclear weapon development program four years ago because of international pressure, the new National Intelligence Estimate makes a compelling case for less saber-rattling and more direct diplomacy. The juxtaposition of this NIE with the president's suggestion of World War III serves as an important reminder of what we learned with the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq: members of Congress must carefully read the intelligence before giving the President any justification to use military force.

He also said:

I think Iran continues to be a threat to some of its neighbors in the region. ... But it is absolutely clear that this administration and President Bush continues to not let facts get in the way of his ideology. "

So here we are, Obama either accepted the report hook line and sinker, which reflects on his supposed critical thinking and judgment, or he he was privately skeptical but risked a future nuclear holocaust for political gain. Great choices! Oh by the way there is guy known as Joe Biden said:

"What we learned yesterday from the N.I.E. and what President Bush has said in the past I find extremely troubling. Here in October, President Bush raised the specter of World War III with Iran because, as he said, its pursuit of a nuclear weapon — months after he'd been told by our intelligence community it's likely that Iran had halted its weapons program as far back as 2003.

"And after all we've been through, for this president to knowingly disregard or once again misrepresent intelligence about the issue of war and peace, I find it outrageous. This is exactly what he did — exactly what he did in the run-up to the war in Iraq in consistently exaggerating the intelligence that he had available to him, suggesting that Iraq had W.M.D.; the vice president saying Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program; and so on...

"It further undermines America's credibility around the world, which is at an all-time low, and it undermines the credibility here at home."