Report: Obama Lied For Years About Iran's Nuclear Breakout Ability

[headhuntersix]

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-21/obama-kept-iran-s-short-breakout-time-a-secret

The Barack Obama administration has estimated for years that Iran was at most three months away from enriching enough nuclear fuel for an atomic bomb. But the administration only declassified this estimate at the beginning of the month, just in time for the White House to make the case for its Iran deal to Congress and the public.
Speaking to reporters and editors at our Washington bureau on Monday, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz acknowledged that the U.S. has assessed for several years that Iran has been two to three months away from producing enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon. When asked how long the administration has held this assessment, Moniz said: "Oh quite some time." He added: "They are now, they are right now spinning, I mean enriching with 9,400 centrifuges out of their roughly 19,000. Plus all the . . . . R&D work. If you put that together it's very, very little time to go forward. That's the 2-3 months."

Brian Hale, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, confirmed to me Monday that the two-to-three-month estimate for fissile material was declassified on April 1.

Here is the puzzling thing: When Obama began his second term in 2013, he sang a different tune. He emphasized that Iran was more than a year away from a nuclear bomb, without mentioning that his intelligence community believed it was only two to three months away from making enough fuel for one, long considered the most challenging task in building a weapon. Today Obama emphasizes that Iran is only two to three months away from acquiring enough fuel for a bomb, creating a sense of urgency for his Iran agreement.

Back in 2013, when Congress was weighing new sanctions on Iran and Obama was pushing for more diplomacy, his interest was in tamping down that sense of urgency. On the eve of a visit to Israel, Obama told Israel's Channel Two, "Right now, we think it would take over a year or so for Iran to actually develop a nuclear weapon, but obviously we don't want to cut it too close."

On Oct. 5 of that year, Obama contrasted the U.S. view of an Iranian breakout with that of Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who at the time said Iran was only six months away from nuclear capability. Obama told the Associated Press, "Our assessment continues to be a year or more away. And in fact, actually, our estimate is probably more conservative than the estimates of Israeli intelligence services."

[Soul Crusher]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem February 11, 2018.   Israel's Netanyahu makes announcement on Iran 
23 Mins Ago | 03:32
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday revealed a cache of files he claims were obtained from Iran and prove the country ran a secret program to build nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu's office billed the televised statement as a "significant development" regarding the Iran nuclear deal, but it largely rehashed what the world long ago accepted: That Iran sought to develop nuclear weapons.

That acknowledgement marshaled international support for a U.S. campaign to impose a tough series of sanctions against Iran. The impact of those sanctions brought Iran to the negotiating table and ultimately led to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Netanyahu's remarks come less than two weeks before U.S. President Donald Trump must decide whether to continue suspending sanctions against Iran under that deal, or restore the penalties on one of the world's biggest oil producers.

Iranian leaders have long said their nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. But Netanyahu on Monday unveiled tens of thousands of pages of documents, which he said were copied from a "highly secret location" in Iran.

Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference at the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv, Israel, April 30, 2018.
Amir Cohen | Reuters
Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference at the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv, Israel, April 30, 2018.
Those files detail Project Amad, which Netanyahu described as "a comprehensive program to design, build and test nuclear weapons." He said the files provided "new and conclusive proof of the secret nuclear weapons program that Iran has been hiding for years from the international community in its secret atomic archive."

Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, said Netanyahu's statement appeared timed to make sure Trump does not extend the waivers on May 12.

The televised announcement followed a meeting this past weekend between Netanyahu and newly sworn-in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a prominent Iran hawk.

"We've shared this material with the United States and the United States can vouch for its authenticity," Netanyahu said on Monday.

The Obama administration negotiated the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 along with China, France, Germany, Russia and the U.K. The accord lifted a series of sanctions against Iran in exchange for Tehran accepting limits on its nuclear program and allowing international investigators access to its facilities.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and the signatories to the agreement have repeatedly confirmed that Iran is complying with the deal as it is written.

But the Trump administration, Israel and foreign policy hawks have long argued that the accord itself is flawed. Last year, the White House announced a major policy shift aimed at working with U.S. lawmakers and European partners to toughen the nuclear deal.

In January, Trump waived sanctions against Iran, but said he would not suspend them when the next deadline arrived on May 12 unless the United States and Europe had agreed on a path forward.

The European partners are open to opening new talks with Iran, but want to preserve the existing deal. Russia and China also continue to back the accord.

French President Emmanuel Macron is working with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to salvage the deal, following Macron's meeting with Trump last week. At the end of his visit to Washington, Macron said he believes Trump will leave the nuclear deal for "domestic reasons."

[Soul Crusher]

Records show Iran lied about making nuclear weapons, scientists say
UPI ^ | April 9, 2020 | By Clyde Hughes
Posted on 4/9/2020, 11:36:33 AM by Oldeconomybuyer

A non-profit global science and security group says in a new report that Iran has built a plant to produce nuclear weapons despite its insistence that all its atomic endeavors are wholly peaceful.

The Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Science and International Security said the 30-page report is based on documents from the Iran Nuclear Archive that were seized by Israel two years ago.

The analysis, posted Wednesday, said Tehran has "clearly" been dishonest with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which relies on government cooperation and onsite inspections. "Iran should declare this site to the International Atomic Energy Agency and allow its inspection, since the facility was designed and built to handle nuclear material subject to safeguards under Iran's comprehensive safeguards agreement," wrote scientists David Albright, Sarah Burkhard and Frank Pabian. The report says Iran created the Shahid Mahallati Uranium Metals Workshop, near Tehran, to research and develop uranium metallurgy related to building nuclear weapons -- particularly components for weapons-grade uranium, the key explosive material in Iranian nuclear weapon cores.

The group said Iran told the IAEA more than four years ago it hadn't done any metallurgical work intended for nuclear weaponry and wasn't willing to discuss any similar activities "that did not have such an application."

(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...

[IroNat]

Politicians are all liars.

[Humble Narcissist]

A question I have always had is why doesn't Iran just buy nukes from Russia and North Korea buy them from China instead of trying to make their own?  Wouldn't that be much easier?

[IroNat]

Just buy a Chinee nuke on eBay.

Delivery in 6-8 weeks in your mailbox.

[Humble Narcissist]

Just buy a Chinee nuke on eBay.

Delivery in 6-8 weeks in your mailbox.

FedX or UPS?

[IroNat]

FedX or UPS?

UPS airpost