Pat Lang at SST, here"...Israeli general staff intelligence believes that the Iranians possess an immediate ability to assemble at least one nuclear weapon and are close to achieving an industrial ability to manufacture such weapons and their matched delivery systems.
Admiral (Ret.) Dennis Blair has testified before Congress that US intelligence (using the same data) does not agree. The National Intelligence Council (NIC) of the United States believes that the Iranians could not have enough weapons grade fissile material to make ONE atomic weapon until 2010. (Some members of the NIC would say 2015) Admiral Blair has also testified that the NIC does not believe that the Iranians have yet made a decision to manufacture nuclear weapons. So far they have not produced uranium concentrated enough to use in fission weapons.
Israel has always had a very limited ability to collect hidden information in Iran. More than that I do not wish to say. What they know of things like the Iranian nuclear and missile programs are largely the result of others' efforts. The reason why the Israeli and US estimates reach such different conclusions is the persistent and "traditional" habit of IDF intelligence of"worst casing" every single shred of supposed information and then compiling those shreds into a pastiche satisfactory to their collective fear. This is reminiscent of the analytic technique of the neocons in the campaign to sell the Iraq War to the American people.
The "Israel First" crowd want a US national estimate that will justify and virtually require a US attack on Iran. There will be a strong effort made to appoint a chairman for the NIC who will preside over the creation of such an estimate.
Dennis Blair has defied the Lobby, the neocons and IDF intelligence. .."
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