http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

The estimate really doesn't "differ sharply" from the US estimate, but it does differ sharply from the media spin on the US estimate.


The actual NIE assessed "with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know
whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."

It then went on to say "We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame." Which of course was the exact same timetable given in the earlier estimate from 2005.

Mossad is now saying 2011.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080117...l_080117132808

israel has the nuke and fears iran having it for what reason?
possibly because israel will no longer be able to inflict its military against the arab interests without having to consider in-kind retaliation from its foe

is israel testing ICBMs because it is planning a mission to mars or does it have a desire to project its nuclear devices across the sands of the middle east? [hint: mars is safe]

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Originally Posted by Raharu Haruha And spending money is nothing more than another form of voting.

Iran's crazy leaders and support for terrorism, + the regional instability that would result. You know, the same reason that just about every country in the region doesn't want Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

When has Israel ever nuked an arab country -- i don't get how Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon means they can retaliate "in-kind". BTW, Iran isn't an Arab country, they consider themselves Aryan.

Watch - when they do their first nuke test, appeasers will completely forget that they said poor wittle iran has no nuke program, and probably blame Bush for the iran nukes.

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http://politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=27847

Israel is a free functioning democracy. Iran isn't, they are an oppressive theocracy. All the countries around Israel hate them and want to kill the Jews. I'd be worried too if someone who wanted to kill me and my culture obtained nuclear weapons.

Israel isn't the bully by the way, sure they have made some mistakes, but they don't say they want to destroy every Muslim. Both sides have made mistakes, but Israel is a democracy and doesn't threaten to obliterate an entire religion.

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Iran has to be stopped.

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It does in fact differ sharply. First off the US estimate is based on when Iran would be technically capable and the Israeli estimate is based on when they actually will have a weapon. The US specifically says that they believe with moderate confidence that they hadn't restarted their weapons programs. Basically the US estimate is based on the assumption that Iran restarts and goes full speed ahead with nuclear development but they believe with moderate confidence that the assumption is false.

Secondly, having enough HEU is not enough to create a weapon. The US estimate does not take into account a delivery system or the actual making of a bomb from this HEU in their estimate of 2010-2015.

Hmm that's very interesting..especially the differences

As I already mentioned, the article claims the two "differ sharply" based on poor assumptions over the NIE estimate that Iran "halted" development in 2003.

Nonetheless, the two certainly don't "differ sharply" with respect to what you mention. Once you have the HEU, a bomb can be put together in a matter of months. The Mossad estimate is well within the range put forth in the 2007 (&2005) NIEs.

That would account for the "very unlikely" extreme lower end mentioned in the report (2009). For the Mossad estimate to be true, Iran could wait an entire year before starting to produce HEU and still have a bomb by 2011.

They're making progress right now toward having a bomb, whether or not they've officially mothballed their program. If they weren't, we wouldn't care about them enriching uranium.

As mentioned above, that's the easy part.

Okay. I mean, I think that's an arguable point, but let's grant it for the sake of discussion.

So ... how? Attacking them seems like it will maybe help in the short term and definitely hurt in the long term. Seriously, in the history of humanity, has attacking anybody ever actually made them less likely to attack you? And in the long term, nuclear technology being, y'know, technology, you won't be able to keep it away from them forever.

Iran will have nuclear weapons. Everybody will. There's no stopping that.

Any plan that relies on anybody not having nuclear weapons is destined to fail eventually.