Instead, he has given Tehran until the end of next month to give his inspectors improved access to documents and sites. Only if Iran does not accede would he be ready to declare his investigation was no longer making progress and that his hands were tied.
Yet again, the Bush administration and it's warlike poodles abroad find themselves at odds with the major investigative and regulatory organisation involved. It really is just like the lead up to invading Iraq, isn't it?
I mean it really, really is! If you're wondering why El Baradei isn't as fired up as Condi Rice then look no further than today's excellent article by the Arms Control Wonk, Dr. Jeffrey Lewis. Assuming that Iran does in fact want a nuke (something that is still highly questionable), how close are they to developing one?
The short answer is between three and ten years if all goes well - and these things never go well.
When some moron like Charles Krauthammer claims Iran is now just “months” away from a bomb, you can pretty much ignore him: He has no idea what he is talking about.There's years of development and research still to do. Dr. Lewis has the facts and the math to back his assertion. A MUST READ if you're at all interested in the truth rather than the narrative.
Overall, Iran is probably a little less than a decade away from developing a nuclear weapon. The key question here is how long it will take Iran to enrich a few tens of kilograms of uranium to more than 90 percent U-235.
Dafna Linzer reported that the US Intelligence Community does not believe that Iran could do so before “early to mid next decade”—a revision of previous assessments that Iran would “have the ability to produce nuclear weapons early in the next decade.”
Why so long? The answer is that Iran still has to build, install and operate its centrifuges to enrich uranium.
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