U.S. Intelligence Unsure Whether Iran Already Bought Nuclear Bomb From Another Nation: Witnesses

U.S. Intel Experts Say Iran Wields Technological Know-How To Build Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

Iran is moving in two out of three crucial areas needed to develop nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, Dennis C. Blair, director of national intelligence, said.

• One required step is to produce or obtain fissionable materials, beginning with low enriched uranium (LEU) and then refining it further into weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU), Blair noted. Here, Iran is producing LEU now in a clandestine program, and the rogue nation may further refine that material into HEU in a time frame of next year to 2015, Blair said.
• Another key step is weaponization, taking HEU and fashioning it into a nuclear weapon, and also learning how to miniaturize the weapon so it will fit atop a ballistic missile. Blair didn’t indicate that Iran was capable of weaponizing nuclear material.
• A final key step is to build or acquire the delivery system, a long-range ballistic missile or intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). And here, Blair indicated, Iran already possesses the basic technology, which it proved this year by launching a satellite. "Space launch technology is no different from" that required for an ICBM, Blair noted.

At this point, "Iran has not decided to press forward on all three tracks," Blair said.

But he also said that U.S. intelligence can’t say whether Iran already has accelerated its nuclear program by purchasing a nuclear weapon or sufficient fissile material to produce one. If Iran were to purchase a miniaturized nuclear weapon suitable for mounting atop a missile, it could skip that key step.

Further, Blair said, aside from developing ICBM technology, Iran also has progressed with its conventional missile capabilities.

His comments came as a key analyst predicted President Obama will drop U.S. plans to build a European Missile Defense against Iranian missiles aimed toward Europe or the United States. (Please see Space & Missile Defense Report, Monday, Monday, Feb. 9, 2009.)

Even without purchasing nuclear weapons or weapons-grade materials, Iran clearly has produced low enriched uranium (LEU), and will have enough LEU as early as next year to reprocess it into highly enriched uranium (HEU) sufficient to make an atomic bomb, Blair told the Senate Armed Services Committee in an annual report on threats confronting the United States.

While some of his comments about emergent Iranian military capabilities may have been disquieting, the committee was told that Israeli intelligence estimates of Iranian capabilities are far more alarming.

And U.S. intelligence estimates have proven wrong at times. Example one: Some military analysts say Iran already has enough fissile material for one bomb, estimating Tehran will have enough for several bombs by the end of this year. Example two: at the beginning of this year, U.S. intel estimates saw Iran not having a missile able to hit Europe and Russia for two to three years — and then, just a week later, Iran proved it has the technology to build ICBMs able to strike targets anywhere in the world. (Please see Space & Missile Defense Report, Monday, Feb. 2, 2009, and Monday, Feb. 9, 2009.)

Blair and Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, the Defense Intelligence Agency director, both said Iran ceased a nuclear weapons development program in 2003, but both of them also said Iran since then has kept open the option of developing nuclear weapons.

They made their comments in an open, unclassified hearing of the Senate committee, which was followed immediately by a closed, classified-information hearing.

While U.S. intelligence doesn’t know at this point whether Iran has decided to develop nuclear weapons, which it was moving to develop until 2003, Blair said it is clear that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to produce such weapons, if Iranian leaders so order. And persuading Iran to refrain from eventually developing nukes will be difficult.

Tehran doesn’t currently have the bomb, but it has some weapons-grade fissile material that thus far isn’t of sufficient quantity to make an atomic bomb, Blair said.

U.S. intelligence experts see Iran producing enough highly enriched uranium (through further processing) to make a nuclear bomb, anywhere from next year to 2015, with the gap so large because of differences among intelligence experts, Blair said.

Iran is developing and acquiring missiles that can hit Israel and central Europe, Maples said.

Iran’s recent launch of a satellite demonstrates advanced technology, since satellite or space-shot "technology is no different from" that which would be required to develop a future intercontinental ballistic missile, Blair said in responding to a question.