Finally, after weeks of headlines (initially in January e.g. see the 'Nuclear Iran' entry from Jan 27th) and then repeated in March 2009 re Iran and nuclear weapons (e.g. see eight example headlines above) General Petraeus in a CNN interview this past weekend said that Iran was still a couple of years from having a nuclear weapon. "The bottom line: we think it's a couple of years away in that regard. It could be more, could be a little bit less," he said...The multiple headlines re "breakthroughs" and "Iran has enough fissile material to build a nuclear bomb" were all rather alarmist., and anyone reading them would have (if they were entirely correct) cause for serious concern. However, a careful reading of the articles showed that actually Iran had a sufficient amount of low-enriched uranium (LEU at approximately 4%) that IF/WHEN enriched to over 90% (to make HEU) would be sufficient to make a nuclear device. A not negligible task! And even then that assumes a) the technology to successfully make a nuclear weapon from the HEU, and, b) a delivery mechanism... Additionally, the LEU would have to be abstracted from IAEA surveillance to enrich further, something that would be noticed immediately (Note: it is unlikely but certainly possible that Iran has additional unknown stocks of LEU that it could enrich behind the backs of the surveillance regime).
Is it really possible that all the journalists writing these stories are so scientifically / technologically inept as to not understand the issue? Or do they just prefer sensational headlines?
Iran Would Need One Year to Produce Bomb-Grade Uranium, Expert Says
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