Former Ambassador John Bolton: Iran May Be Much Closer to a Nuclear Bomb Than the World Realizes

In addition to what Bolton surmises below, I would also contend that the production of the first weaponized Iranian nuke will not be preceded by an underground nuclear test.  North Korea has done much of the leg work for them already, not to mention the assist from the architect of Pakistan’s own atomic weapons program …

“A report that Iran is about a year away from having the capability to build a nuclear bomb may be too optimistic, contended John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

‘I worry the publicly available information is giving only a very small picture and that Iran is actually even much further along,’ Bolton said today in a radio interview.

Bolton was on ‘Aaron Klein Investigative Radio’ on New York’s WABC Radio. The former ambassador was asked about a statement from a former head of U.N. nuclear inspections claiming Iran is now just a year or so away from having enough enriched uranium to assemble a nuclear bomb.

Olli Heinonen wrote in an article published earlier this week that Iran made this advancement after switching production of its higher-grade enriched uranium to a new, underground site.

Reacting to the one-year timeline, Bolton stated, ‘I think it can be even less than that.’

The interview can be listened to at the Klein Online website.

Continued Bolton: ‘They’ve got, by publicly available information from the International Atomic Energy Agency, enough low-enriched uranium that if enriched up to weapons grade would be enough for four weapons.'” Read more.

How much longer can Israel and the US wait before they bomb Iran’s nuclear sites? – “Events are once again throwing a spotlight on this question. Last November, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the world’s nuclear watchdog, judged that ‘Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device’. Iran’s decision this week to build a second uranium enrichment site at Qom – a site that cannot be bombed from the air – is also significant. It raises fears in Israel that the nuclear programme is moving to a point where it will no longer be possible to halt it by external military action… Some diplomats hope that the nuclear programme can be sabotaged by killing scientists or infecting it with computer worms. But there is no sign yet that this is bringing a decisive blow. Others hope that the Iranian leadership will be forced to negotiate. But the Iranian leadership seems increasingly determined to resist international demands to stop enriching uranium.” Read more.