New Intelligence Reveals Iran Closer To Attaining Nuclear Weapon Than Previously Thought

Looks like John Bolton was right. I’ve always suspected that Iran was much further along than most of the pundits admitted publicly, and that they may even already possess one nuclear weapon, if not more. Having said that, the fact that Iran is much further along than previously thought shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. It is, after all, the sort technological ambush that the West should have expected from a nation like Iran, a regime all too often determined to see to it that a proxy remain busy doing much of its dirty work …

By Barak Ravid, Haaretz – “New intelligence information obtained by Israel and four Western countries indicates that Iran has made greater progress on developing nuclear weapons than the West had previously realized, according to Western diplomats and Israeli officials who are closely involved in efforts to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb.

A Western diplomat who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss intelligence information said the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Israel agree on that assessment.

According to the source, this assessment began to take shape in February, when Iran refused to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the base at Parchin, where it is believed Iran is carrying out part of the research and development of its military nuclear program. Visits of IAEA inspectors in Iran, and especially revelations of information the Iranians had been trying to hide, intensified suspicions that Tehran was developing nuclear weapons at a faster pace than it had previously seemed.

Last month Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has established a new team of 60 nuclear scientists to develop Iran’s military nuclear program at the Lavizan base near Tehran. In 2006, IAEA inspectors visited that base, which belongs to the Guards’ missile development agency.

The Daily Telegraph based its report on information from the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen al-Khalq. Members of the group told the paper that the work of the Iranian scientists in the ‘weapons group’ is at an advanced facility involved warheads and detonators.

An American think tank called the Institute for Science and International Security released a satellite photo of the Parchin base showing, according to Western intelligence, that Iran is developing nuclear weapons there. Taken on July 25 and released on August 1, the picture shows that the Iranians have completed what the American think tank called ‘cleanup’ of the site where the base was.

According to researchers at the institute, the photos they received show that the Iranians have bulldozed a number of structures at the base and leveled the surrounding land, which the institute’s staff suspect was done to erase evidence of nuclear activity at the site.” Read more.

Flashback: Hundreds of North Korean Nuclear and Missile Experts Working in More Than 10 Locations Across Iran – “Hundreds of North Korean nuclear and missile experts have been collaborating with their Iranian counterparts in more than 10 locations across the Islamic state, a diplomatic source said Sunday. The revelation lends credence to long-held suspicions that North Korea was helping Iran with a secret nuclear and missile program… North Korea has long been suspected of being behind nuclear and missile proliferation in Iran, Syria, Myanmar and Pakistan.” Read more.

Flashback: German Media: North Korea May Have Already Tested Nuclear Warheads For Iran (Google Translation) – “The ‘Welt am Sonntag’ reported, citing Western security circles, some intelligence agencies assumed that the government in Pyongyang had conducted at least one of these [nuclear] tests for Iran. This would mean that Tehran [bomb] has been built with North Korean help, and ignited a nuclear warhead… The longtime director of the Policy Planning Staff in the German Defense Ministry, Hans Rühle, writes in the ‘Welt am Sonntag’ that ‘… North Korea has actually conducted a nuclear test in 2010, at least for Iran.’” Read more.