IRAN CAN FEASIBLY MAKE A BOMB WITHIN A YEAR

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
03.08.2009 18:20 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Iran has perfected the technology to create and
detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its
Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb,
Western intelligence sources have told The Times.

The sources said that Iran completed a research programme to create
weaponised uranium in the summer of 2003 and that it could feasibly
make a bomb within a year of an order from its Supreme Leader.

A US National Intelligence Estimate two years ago concluded that Iran
had ended its nuclear arms research programme in 2003 because of the
threat from the American invasion of Iraq. But intelligence sources
have told The Times that Tehran had halted the research because it
had achieved its aim – to find a way of detonating a warhead that
could be launched on its long-range Shehab-3 missiles.

They said that, should Ayatollah Khamenei approve the building of
a nuclear device, it would take six months to enrich enough uranium
and another six months to assemble the warhead. The Iranian Defense
Ministry has been running a covert nuclear research department for
years, employing hundreds of scientists, researchers and metallurgists
in a multibillion-dollar programme to develop nuclear technology
alongside the civilian nuclear programme.