CIA Director William Burns said Monday that there’s no evidence Iran has decided to build nuclear weapons, comments that come amid calls in the US and Israel for strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
“No, we do not see evidence today that the supreme leader has reversed the decision that he took at the end of 2003 to suspend the weaponization program,” Burns told the Cipher Brief security conference, according to NBC News.
In 2003, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa prohibiting the development of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. His predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, also rejected the idea of starting a WMD program while facing chemical attacks from a US-backed Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.
Burns said that if Iran did move to make a nuclear weapon, US intelligence would likely be aware of the decision. “I think we are reasonably confident that — working with our friends and allies — we will be able to see it relatively early on,” he said.
The CIA chief noted that Iran has increased uranium enrichment levels since the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, in 2018. Iran is enriching some uranium at 60%, which is still below the 90% needed for weapons-grade.
Iran increased uranium enrichment to 60% in 2021 following an Israeli sabotage attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, which was timed to sabotage indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran.
Burns claimed Iran would only need one week to “produce one bomb’s worth of weapons-grade material,” but the NBC report noted most experts say it would take at least one year to build an actual nuclear warhead.
The reasons why the neocons want Israel to strike Iran's nuclear facilities are twofold. First, they want to create the largest possible contaminated area, but more importantly they want to keep the country from entering the market for nuclear power plant fuel.
Hmmm…
Contaminating a country of 90 million has consequences. One that will not sit well with their allies let alone with Iranians.
It’s supposed to terrify everyone else into kowtowing the the biggest bullies because that’s what our “leaders” would do, roll over and show their bellies to anyone stronger.
Bullies exist, because good men do nothing. A final lesson for humanity when WW3 takes place.
Ritter on Judge Nap is claiming one or two weeks. He's wrong, too. No surprise there, he's on to one of his "too soon" analyses that he can turn into a rant.
I'm surprised that Burns is willing to go against the consensus by stating Iran still doesn't have a nuclear weapons program.
These moronic reports that Iran conducted a nuclear test the other day – even George Galloway has fallen for this crap – read that again – evidently provoked this statement.
Read my lips: Iran does not have, does not need, and does not want a nuclear weapons program. Anyone who thinks they do or need one are people with zero clue about correlation of forces and means.
Iran may not have nukes, but I disagree with your editorial assessment: Iran does not have BUT IT DOES NEED, even if it doesn't want nuclear weapons. It is the only thing that will stop the escalation ladder. M.A.D. is indeed mad, but it provides stability in a World with no competent diplomacy.. Plus, Iran with or without nukes will be equally heavily sanctioned. Israel has demonstrated that it thinks it can have nukes and it has some divine right to assail other nations
with impunity. Sorry, but I believe it too needs to be counterbalanced.
USA specifically wants to proscribe other nations from getting nukes because an adversary with nukes instantly negates and makes moot USA's insane spending on conventional weapons. No other nation has the means (or the stupidity) to spend on conventional weapons like the USA does—so the only rational and cost effective counterbalance to the USA (and its lackey Israel) is nuclear a deterrence.
Russia, USA, Pakistan, France, China, India, Israel …. all believe that they need nukes for what reason? 'cause they are "clueless"??
Pakistan "needs" them against India; India likewise "needs" them against Pakistan. The DPRC "needed" them against the USSR until they didn't, and now they're useful to worry the USA. The UK has them because Who Actually Knows; France has them in case Germany gets ideas again. The USSR had them because the USA had them, and the USA continues to have them because of a USSR that no longer exists but that the USA still fears & wishes to destroy.
And the DPRK has them because Kim knows both the ROK and USA would like to finish off that thing from '53.
Every moderately advanced nation is capable of developing nukes in a short period of time.: welcome to the modern World where technology is abundant. The Neocon-Israeli war hawks are just outraged that Iran is no longer a nation of barefoot goatherds that can be killed and pushed around with impunity—"the savages have not only learned fire, but also electricity!!".
Yes, it is called "breakout capacity" and basically any nation with nuclear reactors (as in, fission technology) can do it.
If Iran had nukes, it would have been attacked by US and/or Israel by now…!
Well…let's see. Iran just tested one of the two Nukes that Obama gave them. That leaves them one; which is more than enough to destroy Israel; which was their instructions from Obama when he gifted them the Nukes.
The WHAT now ?
Oct. 5, 2024 10:40pm Iranian time…Big news around the world; except in the west; where it's being censored. Israelis are scared absolutely senseless. Lets hope they are scared enough to finally remove Netanyahu and gang.
I do not believe your claim. At all. AT ALL.
I would ask you to explain a part of your dumbs**t claim, however.
So you allege Obama gave the IRI two nuclear weapons. Let’s accept this preposterous claim for sake of exposing the flaw in your lie.
The IRI gets two nukes from the USA. THEN F**KING TESTS ONE ?!??
WHY ???
The USA is a technological leader in nuclear weapons – they invented tho POS’s. Why test what absolutely will work as advertised, and f**king waste one ?
That’s like being handed a magic gun that can kill any target anywhere on Earth, and ONLY 2 BULLETS, and you test-fire HALF YOUR ADVANTAGE into a m.f.-ing Coke bottle to see if it works !
Do you proofread your s**t fantasy-fiction before you publish ? Soooo stupid !!
Google is your friend……………..Try it sometime.
Reality is my friend. You should try living in it.
And answering the flaw in your s**t story.
“Why test what absolutely will work as advertised, and f**king waste one ?”
To signal to your adversary that you have some unknown number of them. Could have just been the one, could be 100.
I don’t have any reason to believe that they have, or have tested, any. But that’s why you’d do that.
Maybe that s**t worked once, on the pilot episode of ST : DS9 when Sisko used up all six of the station’s photon torpedos in a bluff against the Cardassians. Or in WW2 when the Americans tested one nuke, used two, and had nothing left on the shelf.
But to telegraph a major deception is either dumb, exceedingly stupid, or both. The IRI is none of those. We cannot apply American strategies to other cultures.