It's Deja Vu!

Tuesday 20th September, 2005

Israel Says Iran Six Months From Having Nuclear Bomb  

Big News Network.com     Tuesday 20th September, 2005   

*** More Like deja poo because we've all heard this bushit before.  Way too similar to the same lame bushit we all heard about Saddam "He's got nothing" Hussien.  This is the same game those neocons played for Iraq's oil and they're getting ready for a US / Israeli strike on the Iranian nuke plant, oops, I mean aspirin factory.  ~~~KJG ~~~

Iran may be as little as six months away from completing the know-how to build a nuclear bomb, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Monday.

According to Haaretz newspaper, Shalom told a meeting of U.S. Jewish leaders in New York, "The question is not if they are going to hold that bomb in 2009 or 2010 or 2011, the question is when they will have the full knowledge."

"According to our people, security and intelligence, they are very, very close. It may be only six months before they will have that full knowledge," he said.

Israel has been pressing the United States to pressure Iran through ardent supporters Vice President Dick Cheney, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, and former Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard Perle.

Just Monday U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters in New York City at the UN World Summit, "I'm quite certain that at some point in time Iran is going to be referred to the Security Council." 

Rice was emphatic the U.S and its Western European allies and other parties have serious concerns about Iran's nuclear activities.

"Iran must be prevented from gaining the technology and the technological know-how that would potentially lead to a nuclear weapon in a very volatile region," she said.

Iran stresses its nuclear ambitions are peaceful and are designed only to generate electricity. It also points out that Israel has one of the largest arsenals of nuclear weapons in the world and yet attracts no scrutiny.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is continually evaluating Iran's nuclear program. U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte said this week, "We think a report to the Security Council is long overdue." 

The 35-country IAEA began meeting on the Iran issue on Monday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a speech to the UN General Assembly on Saturday, described the campaign by opponents of his country's plans as "nuclear apartheid."

Earlier this month the International Institute for Strategic Studies issued a comprehensive report based on detailed analysis which concluded Iran was at least five years, and could be up to 15 years, away from having the know-how to produce nuclear weapons. "Iran's nuclear option is not imminent," said the report. "On purely technical grounds, Iran appears to be at least several years away from producing enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon, and whether Iran has the expertise to fabricate a nuclear weapon from this material is unknown."

Israel's Foreign Minister though, disagrees. Shalom warned that if the IAEA hesitated in reporting Iran to the Security Council, it would be very difficult to do so in future, and it might be too late as the Iranians were pushing ahead with their nuclear research.

"They have some technical problems recently," he said, but he added that they were continuing with experiments to complete their research. He declined to give further details or discuss the source of his information, Haaretz reported.

"That's all the information that I can give," he told reporters. "That's our assessment, that the Iranians are very close and it might be only six months before they will have the full knowledge to develop this nuclear bomb."