Fat Man and Little Boy
"Long Boy" Manute Bol
Posted on 04/13/2006 11:56:20 AM PDT by Toddsterpatriot
WASHINGTON - Iran remains years away from obtaining the materials and technology necessary for a nuclear weapon despite its announcement this week that it has begun enriching uranium, several top U.S. intelligence officials said Thursday.
Kenneth Brill, the head of the newly created National Counterproliferation Center, said the U.S. assessment on the timeframe of Iran's weapons development was sufficiently broad that it does not need to be modified.
Senior intelligence officials alternatively say Tehran will have a nuclear weapon within a decade, or within several years.
"What the Iranians have announced, is what they've announced," said Brill, speaking alongside nine senior intelligence officials at a discussion of the Office of the National Intelligence Director's first year. "They need to let the ( International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors in there to see it, because they have obligations."
He noted that the regime has blustered before about developments that did not readily materialize.
"We really have to see what's happened in Iran," Brill said. "There is still a very significant amount of time that needs to be worked through by the Iranians to get to where they want to go."
Defending the quality of intelligence assessments, Brill said much of what the intelligence agencies have predicted has been validated by the IAEA and others.
U.S. intelligence officials are scrubbing their information and analysis on Iran as tensions increase over its nuclear program. Tehran insists its work is solely for peaceful, civilian purposes, but the U.S. and a number of its allies believe it is after a nuclear arsenal.
The nation's No. 2 intelligence official, Gen. Michael Hayden, said the Iran intelligence has benefited from the lessons-learned exercises on estimates about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Based on all the data available to spy agencies, he said confidently that Iran is intent on developing a nuclear weapon. Over time, he added, "We are able to be more clear." He declined to offer specifics about the information — or the gaps in information.
The top U.S. intelligence analyst, Thomas Fingar, said changes have been made in how analysis is done. "All of us have greater confidence in the judgments that we are making and bringing forward on Iran," Fingar said.
He said the various intelligence agencies took to heart the various reports on the flawed intelligence leading up to Iraq. "We get it," Fingar said. "We realize we have got to rebuild confidence."
Once they can get a sufficient amount of enriched Uranium or plain old Plutonium, the game is up. Any physics graduate student could probably make a "Long Boy" type fission bomb. Heck, the U.S. didn't even test the design before it dropped the first one over 60 years ago.
Message: Kick the can down the road some more.
newly created National Counterproliferation Center?
According the the Iranian president and the Drudgereport. He says their country can have a nuc bomb in 16 days.
Someone is clue-less here.
Lets keep nukes out of the equation for a moment:
How do the words "Dirty Bomb" grab ya? Coocoo-boy doesn't have to have a full nuke to really make a mess. And he may just get an actual nuke earlier than these guys estimate.
We have to grease this guy.
And we're going to entrust millions of lives to a potentially faulty assessment?
Only fools would do that.
Remember what these so-called "intelligence officials" told us about China, India, Pakistan, North Korea?
Our Intelligence Community has missed every single nuclear development for the last 15 years!
I think you mean Little Boy or Fat Man.
1945: "It will be at least 50 years before the Soviets can make their own atom bomb."
They missed the Russian efforts in 1947, as well. Predicting how and when a country goes nuclear is not the simple exercise these dinks always think it is.
Trusting Iran and that madman is like trusting Adolph Hitler.
GMTA. If we can see this fallacy, why can't they? D*mn scary, this is.
Fat Man and Little Boy
"Long Boy" Manute Bol
I agree with you completely. In fact he doesn't even need a dirty nuke to make a mess. Just activate a couple of platoons worth of sleepers in every city of America and have them go around blowing water mains and setting fires all over the place. Snipe out the fireman and you've got something much worse than San Francisco circa 1906.
I'm inclined to believe this based on some research I did. But regardless it does not change my opinion that we should not wait to take action.
If what the Iranians said Tuesday is true then they have activated 164 centrifuges. This would signify that they have their pilot plant running in Natanz. It was estimated that it could hold 160 centrifuges.
It also would mean that the main facility is not operational yet.
At 30 grams per year, per centrifuge it would take them slightly over 4 years to generate enough HEU to create a 20kg weapon that would have a 10 to 20 ton yield.
This implosion weapon would, if 20 ton, generate 500 rems at detination in a 400 meter radius and a 1350 rem (instantly fatal)exposure at a 300 meter radius.
However, if they are using the pilot plant to cover the fact that in actuality they have the main facility operational then they would have the capability to create 81 of this size weapon per year. Or enough material to create one every 4 and a half days.
In the news of the late Forties after we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima it was said by the Democrats then it would take the USSR ten years to make a bomb. They exploded one two years after that announcement and a hydrogen bomb three years after that ....
Too many variables to make a really informed guess, even if you're the Iranians. Number of centrifuges, quality of starting material, efficiency of processing, bomb design, and a host of others. Best guess is that it'll be between six months and six years. The "16 days" thing assumes 50,000 centrifuges which they don't have...probably.
This AP reporter has an extremely dubious track record for veracity and balance. I would take anything she writes with a huge grain of salt. She should have been nominated for the Walter Duranty prize ages ago. You have to wonder where AP finds them.
Hello Mr. Gopher. Yeah it's me, Mr. squirrel. Just a squirrel, not a plastic explosive, nothing to be worried about.
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