Latest Threat Assessment Underlines Iranian WMD Threat

The annual threat assessment from the Director of National Intelligence for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is out.

While it continues some of the language used in the last NIE which was used to undermine President Bush's efforts to crack down on Iran and their nuclear program, it is more open in its admission that confidence levels in what Iran is doing is shaky.

The report points out that while they think Iran stopped its weaponization program in 2003, Iran is continuing efforts to produce enriched uranium--uranium that can also be used in nuclear weapons.

From the assessment:

We remain concerned about Iran’s intentions and assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We have high confidence that Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons until fall 2003. Also, Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons. Iran continues its efforts to develop uranium enrichment technology, which can be used both for power reactor fuel and to produce nuclear weapons. And, as noted, Iran continues to deploy ballistic missiles inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons, and to develop longer-range missiles. We also assess with high confidence that even after fall 2003 Iran has conducted research and development projects with commercial and conventional military applications—some of which would also be of limited use for nuclear weapons.

We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons design and weaponization activities, as well as its covert military uranium conversion and enrichment-related activities, for at least several years. Because of intelligence gaps, DOE and the NIC assess with only moderate confidence that all such activities were halted. We assess with moderate confidence that Tehran had not restarted these activities as of mid-2007, but since they comprised an unannounced secret effort which Iran attempted to hide, we do not know if these activities have been restarted.

We learned just a couple of days ago that Iran has it's own space program. If you can get something into orbit, getting something on-target somewhere else on the globe is just a matter of refinement.

Can Iran build nuclear weapons at some point in the future? Are they inclined to?

We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons. In our judgment, only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons—and such a decision is inherently reversible. I note again that two activities relevant to a nuclear weapons capability continue: uranium enrichment that will enable the production of fissile material and development of long-range ballistic missile systems.

By the time Iran develops nuclear weapons, it will essentially be too late to do anything about it. Once they have the weapons, it is doubtful that any American president or any other world leader would attempt military action against Iran for fear that the nuclear weapons could be used before we could get control of them.

And nuclear isn't the only threat posed by Iran:

We know that Tehran had a chemical warfare program prior to 1997, when it declared elements of its program. We assess that Tehran maintains dual-use facilities intended to produce CW agent in times of need and conducts research that may have offensive applications. We assess Iran maintains a capability to weaponize CW agents in a variety of delivery systems.

We assess that Iran has previously conducted offensive BW agent research and development. Iran continues to seek dual-use technologies that could be used for biological warfare.

Iran is a leader if not the lead supporter of international terrorism. A nation that has such little regard for innocent human life cannot be trusted with technology that can wipe out an entire city with one strike.

The United States and other civilized nations must take a stand now, before it's too late, and use whatever means necessary to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

We must heed the lessons of history. By the time the free nations realized the threat posed by Adolf Hitler, the wolf was already at the door. This time, the wolf may have nuclear weapons.