Speaking to the US House Armed Services Committee, Undersecretary of Defense Colin Kahl falsely testified that Iran could make enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb in “about 12 days.”
Kahl claims that Iran’s enrichment capacity has increased sufficiently over the course of the past five years — since the US abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, aka the “Iran nuclear deal” — to reduce that timeline from more like a year, and regrets that the JCPOA is “on ice.”
Other officials concede that Iran is not stockpiling any uranium enriched beyond 60%, well short of weapons grade, and also doubt Iran’s other technical capacities to build nuclear weapons.
Getting a bomb’s worth of 90% uranium is no small task, even before trying to make it into a deliverable weapon. Iran’s weapons development capabilities would be in doubt even if they were stockpiling uranium, which again they aren’t.
Pentagon officials still maintain that getting back into a deal with Iran is preferable to not having one.
How many years have they been 12 days from being bomb ready?
Not sure, but I was considerably younger at the beginning of the 12-day countdown.
Sounds like Israeli math. Last ten yesrs it was twelve days. Somehow.
William Burns,the CIA Chief said two days ego that ,,Iran not resumed it’s plan to get nuclear weapons abandoned many years before,,
Media in Israel not referred on Burns declaration but insisted on those of ,,Iran is to weak away to get atomic bomb ,,
So what if they are, dafuq you gonna do about it?
Nixon sometimes wonders if he were in politiccs ahead of his time.
“The Biden administration has tried but failed to revive the pact over the last two years.”USNews
That reporter is thinking if Colin can lie, why I cant . At least ‘ try ‘ can mean a lot of things .
Those who oppose the JCPOA and claim that Iran is close to a bomb are labeled as alarmists and often warmongers seeking a confrontation with Iran. On the other hand, here’s Colin Kahl, a man who supports the JCPOA and “regrets that it is on ice” but claims that Iran is very close to making a bomb. This man sounds credible. He supported the agreement with Iran, but now recognizes that they have made substantial advances towards producing nukes. Why is this so hard to believe?
Well, that’s the thing:
Those who are actually convinced, despite the lack of any evidence for the proposition and considerable evidence against it, that the Iranians want a nuke and are trying to get one, would love to see the JCPOA reinstated.
The people who claim Iran wants nukes and are about to get them, but oppose going back to the JCPOA are just fear-mongering because they think it works for them.
Yes, but I don’t believe for a minute that Kahl actually believes Tehran is trying to build a nuke.
Then let’s take him at his word. Now call those responsible for the JCPOA being on ice. Ask for Bibi.
“Pentagon officials still maintain that getting back into a deal with Iran is preferable to not having one.”
Not high enough on the pecking order.
Colin Kahl must be a graduate of DC Lie School with top honors…!
Kahl doesn’t specify which person and what orifice his 12 day estimate comes from, but in any event officials don’t believe Iran “has mastered the technology to actually build a bomb”, presumably because 1940s technology is too archaic for their industry to duplicate. Government clowns like this don’t know enough for their political spinning to make sense.
Presumably he’s talking about a “real” nuke — a fusion, rather than fission — device.
You could build a fission device in your basement from plans published in the Whole Earth Catalog back in the late 1960s, and the fissile material was the only really hard part to get.
The fusion device require simultaneous, symmetrical implosion and other stuff that is apparently difficult to get right even with unlimited funds to spend on experimentation. But I’d be surprised if the Iranians didn’t have it figured out by now, if they want it figured out.
The big problem with nukes for Iran, if they want them, is being able to deliver them. Which they could also do, but wouldn’t want to do for real without testing their gear first, which everyone would then know about. Ballistic missile launches followed by nuclear detonations at points of impact aren’t something that can really be hidden.
I’m confident nobody has or ever will say “Oh, that’s just an atomic bomb”. 20kt is quite a few, even without the radiation. And call me old fashioned but if it was good enough for the Japanese it ought to be good enough for the Israelis.
Fusion is indeed more challenging than fission and pulls us into the 1950s. Fusion conditions are created by a process called ablative implosion, driven by the gamma radiation from a fission bomb. As I like to point out, the fusion bombs of the 1980s were designed using computers yours would blow away. Iranian engineering students could build a working fission bomb, and I expect an Iranian fusion bomb would have >90% probability of successful detonation.
I don’t think establishing a credible delivery system is a problem. I’m not aware that a live warhead has ever been launched on a missile, so it’s just a matter of proving the carrier, and Iran has plenty of capability on that.
Yes, 20 kiloton is quite large.
If you can get it to where you want to detonate it, and have it actually detonate once it gets there, it’s a threat.
The Fat Man model produced a yield of 20-23 kilotons. It also weighed more than 10,00 pounds.
A fusion warhead with a 20 kiloton yield weighs less than 150 pounds.
Which one sounds easier to deliver across hostile airspace to you?
I think the Iranians would at least go with a boosted fission weapon but the tricky thing is they need an operational credible deterrent when they test else Israel will nuke them while the dust is settling. I wouldn’t try to bluff or BS the Israelis on this, they would need a concrete reason to be afraid. The Iranians have the throw weight to put warheads of a few thousand pounds on target and I would go for reliability over competition level yield, with a launch on warning capability. It would be serious business any way you slice it. As you say, we’ve been headed toward the inferno since 1945.
Well, if you use the Airbus on the regular flight from Tehran to Beirut, the hostile airspace may be more manageable than one might imagine. 😏
Anyway, 10K-pound weapons don’t have to fly through the air.
Also, as Ted says, It’s very unlikely that construction of a fission weapon would present serious difficulties for Iran, if it wanted to build one, which it fairly obviously does not.
Kahl may now count himself among the shamefully-long list of American officials (and Israelis and various shills around the world) who don’t even bother to make their lies about Iran remotely credible.
I agree that constructing a fission weapon wouldn’t present serious difficulties for the Iranians.
But being known to have a fission weapon would — absent being known to have the means to reliably deliver it to and detonate it at a distant target — likely be very, very bad for them.
Bad as in “extended bombing campaign to destroy all of Iran’s nuclear facilities, most of Iran’s military facilities, and much of Iran’s infrastructure.”
Oh, yes, very bad, unless they were able, as you say, to simultaneously demonstrate a missile delivery system.
Therefore,Israel is justified in launching an all out nuclear first strike.
And Iran would by the same token be justified in launching a counter strike on Israel’s 10 largest cities, killing half the population and leaving the other half to be overrun.