Iran Has the Bomb

For several years now, myself and others have been warning that Iran probably already has the bomb. Contrary to Obama Administration promises that they will know when Iran crosses “the red line” to build the bomb, we have warned that such claims are false.

U.S. intelligence is not good enough to so precisely and with such high confidence monitor and verify the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Defense Science Board Report

A recently published Defense Department study “Assessment of Nuclear Monitoring and Verification Technologies” (January 2014), by the blue ribbon Defense Science Board, concludes the following:

“Closing the nation’s global nuclear monitoring gaps should be a national priority. It will require, however, a level of commitment and sustainment we don’t normally do well without a crisis. …monitoring for proliferation… presents challenges for which current solutions are either inadequate, or more often, do not exist. Among these challenges are… Small inventories of weapons and materials…. Small nuclear enterprises designed to produce, store, and deploy only a small number of weapons…Undeclared facilities and/or covert operations, such as testing below detection thresholds, or acquisition of materials or weapons through theft or purchase… Use of non‐traditional technologies…”

These intelligence blind-spots align perfectly with U.S. monitoring gaps against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The Defense Science Board Report is tantamount to an admission that Iran probably already has the bomb.

Clandestine Nuclear Weapons Program

Like the North Korean nuclear weapons program, Iran’s nuclear weapons program is clandestine, mostly underground, mostly inaccessible to international inspections, and impenetrable to U.S. national technical means. Most of what we know about Iran’s nuclear program has been disclosed voluntarily by Tehran to the International Atomic Energy Agency.