Iran NOT building nukes

[Donkey®]

[U.S.: Iran stopped nuclear weapons work - CNN.com

Originally Posted by article

U.S.: Iran stopped nuclear weapons work

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Iran halted work toward a nuclear weapon under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015, a U.S. intelligence report says.

A declassified summary of the latest National Intelligence Estimate found with "high confidence" that the Islamic republic halted an effort to develop nuclear weapons in the fall of 2003.

The estimate is less severe than a 2005 report that judged the Iranian leadership was "determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure."

But it says Iran -- which declared its ability to produced enriched uranium for a civilian energy program in 2006 -- could reverse that decision and eventually produce a nuclear weapon if it wanted to.

Enriched uranium at low concentrations can be used to fuel nuclear power plants, but much higher concentrations are needed to yield a nuclear explosion.

"We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon is late 2009, but that this is very unlikely," the report states. A more likely time frame for that production is between 2010 and 2015, it concluded.

Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is strictly aimed at producing electricity, and it has refused the U.N. security council's demand that it halt its enrichment program.

Monday's report represents the consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies. It suggests that a combination of "threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways," could persuade the Iranian leadership to continue its suspension of nuclear weapons research.

Available intelligence suggests that the Iranian leadership is guided "by a cost-benefit approach," not a headlong rush to develop a bomb, it concludes.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, has reported that Iran is cooperating with its inspectors by providing access to declared nuclear material, documents and facilities. However, the report also stated that Iran is withholding information in other areas, and as a result, the agency's knowledge about the status of the program is "diminishing."

Iran has has refused the U.N. Security Council's demand that it halt its uranium enrichment work, which it says it is allowed to pursue under the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Security Council has passed two rounds of sanctions against Tehran, but Washington missed its goal of reaching consensus on tighter restrictions by the end of November, the State Department acknowledged last week.

U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley expressed hope after the announcement, but he said Iran remains a serious threat.

"The estimate offers grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically -- without the use of force -- as the administration has been trying to do," Hadley said in a statement.

"But the intelligence also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem," Hadley's statement said.

NIEs examine current capabilities and vulnerabilities and, perhaps more importantly, consider future developments. Estimates are usually requested by policymakers, but can be initiated by the intelligence community itself.

So all that huffing and puffing really was over nothing. Go figure.

[7960]

Didn't they deny every having tried to build one?

So now they should be celebrated for trying but failing?

Maybe I'll win citizen of the year for preventing that armed robbery I was going to do but had to cancel because I couldn't get a gun.

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by 7960

Didn't they deny every having tried to build one?

So now they should be celebrated for trying but failing?

Maybe I'll win citizen of the year for preventing that armed robbery I was going to do but had to cancel because I couldn't get a gun.

There's no proof they tried and failed to do anything...more speculation. Any kind of nuclear research that's LEGAL shouldn't matter or be a concern to ANYONE.

[David Octavius]

Originally Posted by 7960

Didn't they deny every having tried to build one?

So now they should be celebrated for trying but failing?

Maybe I'll win citizen of the year for preventing that armed robbery I was going to do but had to cancel because I couldn't get a gun.

Your logic does not apply to this case unless of course you add "under police scrutiny, I thought better" in your story.

Nothing in that article said they FAILED, they tried but under "international scrutiny" they stopped 4 years ago. They could of gotten the gun, they didn't and it did not take a war, it took international cooperation and pressure, something that people on this side of the Atlantic forgot could work.

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by article

Democrats incredulous over Bush's account of Iran report

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden on Tuesday said he can't believe President Bush hasn't known for months about a recent intelligence estimate that downplays the nuclear threat from Iran.

Other Democratic candidates also slammed Bush for continuing to ratchet up the rhetoric against Tehran.

On Tuesday the president acknowledged he had given a speech warning that Iran's nuclear development risked "World War III" about two months after his intelligence chief told him a reassessment of Tehran's nuclear ambitions was under way.

Bush told reporters during a White House news conference that he was not told the details of the new assessment until last week and he said the new report, which found that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons work in 2003, will not change U.S. policy toward Iran.

"Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," Bush said, pointing out that Tehran continues to try to enrich uranium for civilian purposes and therefore develop technology that could be used for a weapon.

"They had the program. They halted the program. It's a warning signal because they could restart it," he said. Video Watch President Bush call Iran 'dangerous' »

Bush told reporters that he was told of "new information" about Iran in August during a briefing by Adm. Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence.

"He didn't tell me what the information was. He did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze," the president said. He said he wasn't briefed about the new information until the new intelligence report was prepared last week.

The Democratic presidential candidates were incredulous that Bush did not know about the assessment's new finding.

Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called that explanation "unbelievable."

"Are you telling me a president that's briefed every single morning, who's fixated on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the U.S. government said they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in '03?" Biden asked in a conference call with reporters.

"I refuse to believe that," he added. "If that's true, he has the most incompetent staff in modern American history, and he's one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history."

The Bush administration has spent years warning that Iran's development of nuclear power plants and enriched uranium masked an effort to produce an atomic bomb. Top officials have called the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable."

In an October 17 news conference, Bush said that "If you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

And four days later, Vice President Dick Cheney told a Washington think tank that Iran would face "serious consequences" from the international community if it continued to enrich uranium.

But in a report released Monday, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Iran had suspended nuclear weapons work in 2003 and was unlikely to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb until at least 2010.

The assessment reverses a 2005 National Intelligence Estimate that found the Islamic republic was "determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure." See how the 2005 and 2007 estimates differ »

The United States and its European allies are pushing for tighter sanctions against Tehran as a result of that continued refusal, and Bush said Monday's report "makes it clear that the strategy we have used in the past is effective."

But Biden said Monday's report was an unpleasant echo of the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 -- a war that was launched based on mistaken conclusions about Iraq's weapons programs. He said the result of Bush's rhetoric has been to make it "far more difficult" to round up support for continued sanctions on Tehran.

"It's hard to think of a more serious and more self-inflicted wound to our national security than this president continues to inflict," Biden said.

Republican National Committee spokesman Brian Walton said, "Apparently Joe Biden has seen recent polling that shows his statistical insignificance and is looking for relevance in the debate by offering heated rhetoric."

Biden and other Democrats now hoping to replace Bush after 2008 used the report to call for new talks with Iran over the nuclear issue, offering the prospect of renewed economic and diplomatic ties in exchange for a halt to uranium enrichment.

"I think we do know that pressure on Iran does have an effect," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, said during a Democratic debate Tuesday held by National Public Radio. "I think that is an important lesson. But we're not going to reach the kind of resolution that we should seek unless we put that into the context of a diplomatic process."

And Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, told the same forum that Bush "continues to not let facts get in the way of his ideology."

"They should have stopped the saber rattling; should have never started it. And they need, now, to aggressively move on the diplomatic front," he said.

But national security adviser Stephen Hadley said Monday that Bush was not told to tone down his rhetoric about Iran's nuclear ambitions when advised that a change in the U.S. estimate was coming -- and would have made his remarks about "World War III" either way.
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"It was making a point that the president and we have been making for two or three years -- that the international community has to exert more pressure, because Iran needs to suspend [its] enrichment program," Hadley said. "That continues to be our policy after this latest national intelligence estimate."

And Bush said the new estimate "doesn't do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world -- quite the contrary."

Man I wish the elections would get here already. He's a complete idiot and a fucking tool.

[7960]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

Man I wish the elections would get here already. He's a complete idiot and a fucking tool.

With hillary at the top of your list things aren't going to get any better.

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by 7960

With hillary at the top of your list things aren't going to get any better.

On the war mongering front? Yes, it would get better. Let's save the hate Hillary comments for the hate Hillary threads.

[7960]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

On the war mongering front? Yes, it would get better.

How does anyone know that?

Actually I shouldn't have brought her up because apparently even she has no fucking clue what she thinks about iraq.... first it was support, then get everyone home, then I'm not sure, then home, then "do what we need to do" then wait and see......................................... I'll wait until her pollsters tell her what to say tomorrow before bashing her for her stance.


hillary's stance on anything is just like new england weather.....if you don't like it wait 5 minutes, it'll change.

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by 7960

How does anyone know that?

Actually I shouldn't have brought her up because apparently even she has no fucking clue what she thinks about iraq.... first it was support, then get everyone home, then I'm not sure, then home, then "do what we need to do" then wait and see......................................... I'll wait until her pollsters tell her what to say tomorrow before bashing her for her stance.


hillary's stance on anything is just like new england weather.....if you don't like it wait 5 minutes, it'll change.

Great...now let's put that in a thread that ISN'T about Iran. Thanks.

[7960]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

Great...now let's put that in a thread that ISN'T about Iran. Thanks.

She wants to be president. She's going to have to deal with the Iran situation but she's letting her policy toward Iraq be dictated by whatever gets her 51% of the voters.

She's the worst kind of shill.

[SoFlaJDM]

did i just come into a hillary thread? let's talk about how this administration has been wrong about prettyt much everything

instead it's been hijacked and the thread is now anti hillary since these guys have absolutely nothing to fall back on

[SoFlaJDM]

its funny to see that the subject at hand just can't be addressed... that says a lot right there

[phreak]

so... now we're believing what our gov't agencies tell us?

not saying i agree nor disagree with the findings. but... its amusing how some people react to things like this.

[SoFlaJDM]

Originally Posted by phreak

so... now we're believing what our gov't agencies tell us?

not saying i agree nor disagree with the findings. but... its amusing how some people react to things like this.

you tell me... it's a government agency that reported these findings

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by phreak

so... now we're believing what our gov't agencies tell us?

not saying i agree nor disagree with the findings. but... its amusing how some people react to things like this.

We ignored them when it came to Iraq, and then we got to Iraq and what the agencies had said was correct.

I think erring on the side of caution would be beneficial to everyone. Invading a sovereign nation spending billions (and billions) of dollars getting American citizens killed and increasing hatred for the US globally then being wrong about the reasons used to attack the nation but remain there for years on end is the riskier course of action. Let's not do that this time.

[7960]

Originally Posted by SoFlaJDM

did i just come into a hillary thread? let's talk about how this administration has been wrong about prettyt much everything

instead it's been hijacked and the thread is now anti hillary since these guys have absolutely nothing to fall back on

it's not being hijacked........he said he thinks this "problem" will end after the election, he said he's voting for hillary, I said if she's elected the "problem" won't go away.

Sorry I expected people to make the connection.

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by 7960

it's not being hijacked........he said he thinks this "problem" will end after the election, he said he's voting for hillary, I said if she's elected the "problem" won't go away.

Sorry I expected people to make the connection.

The problem is it doesn't matter who I vote for (which is very much undecided at this point) in this IRAN thread. You're starting shit about Hillary for no reason. Get off it.

[Rouger2]

Maybe these govenment agencies are turning over a new leaf and are going to start to give us the truth and not build up these threats to keep us on edge and spending money on the military and voting for politicans who get our vote just because they are good at acting tough and because of that we feel they would protect us better from all the fears that are manufactured.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

The problem is it doesn't matter who I vote for (which is very much undecided at this point) in this IRAN thread. You're starting shit about Hillary for no reason. Get off it.

Well you're talking about the future of America and what will happen after Bush. The reality is the Democrats are leading in the polls and most of them don't want to do much of anything about Iran. So the implication is the problem will go away on its own or was made up by the Bush administration.

The article clearly states that they believe Iran could have the uranium by 2010 to 2015. Whoever is elected will be president from 2008-2012, right in line with when they believe it's possible. So this problem won't simply go away with Bush. Something needs to be done by the next president if we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons relatively soon.

Also keep in mind the NIE report does not match what some other countries believe.