Guardian reporter tours Iranian uranium enrichment plant, comes up with really good question

John from OPFOR I here this from the left all the time “why worry it’ll be year before they can blow us up. If I may I would like to remind you of a little something that happened in May of 1998

Pakistani clandestine underground nuclear tests According to a preliminary analysis conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory, material released into the atmosphere during an underground nuclear test by Pakistan in May 1998 contained low levels of weapons-grade plutonium. The significance of the Los Alamos finding was that Pakistan had either imported or produced plutonium undetected by the US intelligence community.

Gwillie on July 30, 2007 at 1:18 AM

John from OPFOR: The point is we don’t really know how far away they are from getting what they need to make a bomb! No one saw the Pakistani test coming and Iran’s program was running under the radar for years, same with North Korea and Libya was well on the way when they just said “look at what we got” no one saw that ether. so if you want to trust the IAEA when they say Iran is 5 to 10 years form a bomb go ahead, I say we have to act now because the IAEA has been saying this for at least 5 years now…

One diplomat said details were emerging slowly since the Libyans “had for more than 20 years run their nuclear programme in secrecy and now all of a sudden they have to talk to foreigners. It’s like a change of regime.”

Gwillie on July 30, 2007 at 2:52 AM

This was in 2003

VIENNA, Austria (AP) — A U.N. nuclear agency report said Iran produced small amounts of plutonium as part of covert nuclear activities. While finding “no evidence” that Tehran tried to make atomic arms, it said such efforts cannot be ruled out.
The significance of the plutonium extraction was unclear. The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency did not link it to weapons activity but it criticized Iran for not reporting its processing activities, listing it among dozens of cases where Tehran had covert programs in place.

And a few months earlier

The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a confidential report Tuesday that IAEA inspectors have uncovered traces of enriched uranium in environmental samples taken from a nuclear facility in Natanz, Iran, according to Reuters news agency.
The report, to be distributed to the IAEA’s Board of Governors on Sept. 8, heightens suspicion that Iran may be running a covert nuclear weapons program.

And in 2004

ELBARADEI: Well, I hate to speculate, Wolf, but let me put it this way: We haven´t seen in Iran any material imported or produced that could be used for nuclear weapon. That is the good news. We haven´t also seen any of their small experiment directly related to a nuclear weapon program. However, I should add that this program has been going on for almost two decades. We´re still going through a lot of investigation. We are making good progress and understanding the nature and extent of the program.
So I´m not sure we are facing an imminent threat, but we are facing Iran acquiring, if not already acquired, a capability to produce the material that can be used of nuclear weapon should they decide to do that.

Call me a fear monger but this is scary stuff.

Israel and the United States believed in 1992 that Iran would attain a military nuclear capability within eight to 10 years. In 1995 ACDA Director John Holum testified that Iran could have the bomb by 2003, though by 1997 he testified that Iran could have the bomb by 2005-2007. In the mid-1990′s the view of the United States government was that Iran was implementing a military nuclear program that could achieve a weapons capability within five years, that is, by the year 2000. As of 1998 the estimate of the US Central Command was that Iranian efforts could result in the development of a nuclear device by the middle of the next decade, that is, by the year 2005.

snip

In January 2000, marking a significant departure from previous assessments, the Central Intelligence Agency concluded that Iran might now be able to make a nuclear weapon.

snip

In an April 2004 speech, John R. Bolton, the Bush Administration’s primary policymaker on weapons of mass destruction, said: “If we permit Iran’s deception to go on much longer, it will be too late. Iran will have nuclear weapons.”

Gwillie on July 30, 2007 at 3:24 AM