[Washington Post] Henry Kissinger - The new NIE holds that Iran may be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon by the end of 2009 and, with increasing confidence, more warheads by the period 2010 to 2015. That is virtually the same timeline as was suggested in the 2005 National Intelligence Estimate. It is therefore doubtful that the evidence supports the dramatic language of the NIE summary and, even less so, the broad conclusions drawn in much of the public commentary. If my analysis is correct, we could be witnessing not a halt of the Iranian weapons program - as the NIE asserts - but a subtle, ultimately more dangerous, version of it that will phase in the warhead when fissile material production has matured. The NIE does not reject this theory; it does not even examine it.
2007-12-13 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive