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Report Claims Iran Has Data To Build a Nuclear Bomb

reporter writes "According to a startling report just covered by the New York Times, 'senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable atom bomb.' In 2007, American intelligence erroneously concluded that Tehran in 2003 stopped further research into designing a nuclear bomb. This conclusion was contradicted by German, French, and Israeli intelligence. Recently, London also concluded that the American assessment is incorrect. So, here we are. The Iranians have the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb and have been working relentlessly to perfect its design. Tehran is apparently able to create the components (e.g. enriched uranium) that can be assembled into such a weapon. Meanwhile, Jerusalem is communicating with the Kremlin about a list of Russian scientists it believes are assisting Iran's efforts to develop the bomb."

4 of 630 comments (clear)

  1. Re:US Intelligence by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 1, Troll

    How reliable? Hard to say. There have been no further attacks since 9/11. The same people who cry about the poor iraqies are the ones who cried about the poor kurds when they were gassed and right now people who protest Iraq are demanding the worlds intercedes in Darfur and ask why the world allowed rwanda to happen.

    Remember, that everyone who reports on these issues has an agenda and that includes the intelligence agencies.

    And one of their agenda's is that it is NOT in their intrests to tell everyone what they know.

    To get an idea of how hard intelligence is, you should watch the movie Tora Tora Tora! It shows the japanese and american actions before the attack on Pearl Harbour. If you don't know your history that well, you might think at one point that the american have cracked it. A major alert is send out that the japanese WILL attack Pearl Harbour and the entire base is put on full alert. On novermber 31st (forgive me if the date is not exact). The real attack happened of course on the 7th of december. The US intelligence had cracked the code, analysed the enemies actions and correctly predicted their plans. Just got the date wrong.

    The result? A cry wolf situation. To many "false" alerts, so that when the final one came, it came to late.

    Conspiracy theorists, they are listening in on your line, right NOW!

    The japanese had none of these problems, they knew the entire time what day they would attack, they only had one thing to worry about, would they be spotted or not?

    The defender always has the thougest job. The attacker only has to be lucky once, the defender every single time. A goalie ain't remembered for the ones he stopped but for the ones he let through.

    Iraq was one that got through, how much of it was bad luck, bad judgement or policy, that is very hard to say.

    In many ways, I think Iraq was a case of american "arrogance". Americans are raised entirely in their own culture. When I grew up in holland, if you wanted to watch a second tv station, you watched either the brits, belgians or germans depending which was closests. Americans have none of this. Their cultural view is really that everywhere outside america "there be dragons".

    They thought that they would simply go into Iraq, topple the leadership and everything be fine. They couldn't comprehend that the oppresive regime had been the lid on a boiling pot of tribal resentment. That there were groups who were NOT waiting to taste the american way of life.

    I think someone made a phib, they wanted saddam gone, they knew he had used gas in the past and had been looking for other mass destruction tech and so combined the most dangerous bits of info into a very lethal combo that made the worsed case scenario of a worsed case scenario seem like it was happening right now.

    We all do it. "If we don't replace the server TODAY, it will BLOW-UP" is often the only way to get management to move. Only in this case, management was the goverment and armies moved.

    How much of all this was pre-planned and how much was bad judgement calls depends on your level of belief in the ability of people to govern (I don't believe goverment is clever enough for big conspiracies, incompetent enough to screw up badly however...)

    To get back on track, we know that Iran has backed themselves into a corner. They current powers in Iran need a scapegoat, a boogyman to allow them control all activity in Iran (which is making those in power very rich). They know that invading a nation is certainly possible and Iran is a lot less capable then Iraq was. So, they can't afford to take things to far (Israel has bombed them before and can do so again) but they also can't afford to back down.

    Nuclear tech ain't all that hard, building a nuclear bomb you can put on a missle is slightly harder but not impossible. Iran would have to be playing some extreme bluff poker if they weren't at least trying. But so what if they got a bomb? It would put them in an impossible situation. Israel ha

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  2. Re:Not the first middle east nuke by Brian+Stretch · · Score: 1, Troll

    That's like saying that if the reasonably sane and responsible fellow is allowed to own firearms then why isn't the violent and mentally unbalanced crackhead, played by Ahmadinejad this week?

    Seriously, Israel has a tiny sliver of land and is surrounded by neighbors who have repeatedly tried to exterminate them. The Iranian theocracy has made it abundantly clear that they want to nuke Israel. Given that a) Israel is already a nuclear power, b) Tehran's geography is an ideal nuclear kill zone, and c) the Iranian theocracy thinks it's possible to induce the return of the "twelfth imam" and the end of the world, maybe it would be a bad idea to let Iran's suicidal dictatorship get nukes?

    Personally I'd like to see the Iranian pro-democracy dissidents succeed and overthrow the mullahs but since the theocrats have all the guns and no qualms about using them it doesn't seem likely. Too bad, it looks like Iran is about where the Soviet Union was in their final years, a brutal but wobbly government hated by its people. We need another Reagan but we've got another Carter.

  3. Re:Not the first middle east nuke by uassholes · · Score: 1, Troll

    We were talking about nukes here, remember? I dont think Isreal or the US have nuked anybody lately, Korn pone.

  4. Re:Mod parent Informative. by dmesg0 · · Score: 1, Troll

    That's bull$hit, I wonder why this troll wasn't moderated as such. Do some research yourself first, at least read the wikipedia article.