NIE SAYS IRAN HAS THE KEY TO A NUKE - SO, WHY ARE WE NOT WORRIED?

From Frank Warner:

Thomas Fingar, one of the three principal authors of the new and controversial
National Intelligence Estimate, makes my point for me -- or at least he made the
point in 2001.

The most difficult thing a trouble-maker has to do to make an atomic bomb, he said six and a half years ago, is obtain the highly enriched uranium (or plutonium) for the weapon.

Yet Fingar concludes in the new NIE report that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. He reaches this conclusion despite knowing that Iran today is obtaining highly enriched uranium by producing it IN PLAIN SIGHT.

‘Difficult ... to produce.’ Fingar, deputy director for analysis to the U.S. Director of
National Intelligence, testified Feb. 13, 2001, before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

“[A]lthough the basic understanding of nuclear weapons physics is widespread, nuclear weapons are, fortunately, the most difficult kind to produce or acquire. Access to fissile material is a critical impediment.”

The “critical impediment” is finding the highly enriched uranium, which a nuclear device can split with devastating effect. At this moment, Iran’s theocracy has at least 3,000 centrifuges enriching uranium, producing a bomb’s critical ingredient.

Of, course, the mullahs say the enriched uranium is for nuclear reactors to make electricity. But considering how Fingar and the others contributing to the NIE agree that Iran did have a nuclear weapons program before 2003, what makes them think with “high confidence” or even “moderate confidence” that Iran’s regime truly has halted the program?

Just four months ago, Fingar told the House Armed Services Committee:

“We assess that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons -- despite its international obligations and international pressure. This is a grave concern to the other countries in the region whose security would be threatened should Iran acquire nuclear weapons.”

What happened between then -- July 11 -- and three days ago, when the NIE declared the Iranian regime probably stopped the weapons program four years ago?

Short of mental telepathy, how can our intelligence community conclude that the Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, isn’t pursuing a nuclear weapon?

There is some evidence supporting the NIE. Apparently, in August of this year, intelligence services obtained the minutes of conversations and deliberations of Iranian military officials. The “military notes” indicate these military officials were angry that their superiors cut off work on fitting a nuclear warhead onto an Iranian missile.

Exactly how long does it take to draw up and build a shell capable of carrying an atomic bomb atop a missile? Iran already has launched conventional warheads on its missiles. If Iran has the nuclear bomb design -- and most in the intelligence community assume Iran does have it -- cradling it in a nose-cone is the least of the ayatollah’s problems.

Something doesn't add up here. Enrichment is the key "critical impediment." And, we know Iran has been enriching uranium, right? Additionally, we know they have admitted [BRAGGED!] to have an array of 3000 centrifuges.

One has to wonder why we are so confident.

Do we, perhaps, know of deep technical problems Iran might be having? And, if so, might it be that we know of these problems because we planted them somehow? Information sabotage, perhaps?

*******UPDATE (Reliapundit): HERE'S A LINK ON THE SABOTAGE ANGLE - FROM OUR OWN JON JAY RAY; EXCERPT:

CBS helps Iranian nuke program: "How do you say, "Thank you, CBS!" in Farsi?

The Jerusalem Post notes that CBS has alerted the Mullahs and their nuclear scientists to an intelligence black op that might have set back their nuclear program.

Intelligence operatives in the US and its allied nations have sold Iran flawed technological components in an attempt to sabotage the country's nuclear enrichment program, CBS News revealed Wednesday evening.

In January 2007, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, Vice-President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, said after an explosion at the Natanz nuclear facility (the first Iranian plant to attempt enrichment) that some of the equipment had been "manipulated."

The explosion destroyed 50 of the plant's centrifuges.

Other evidence has indicated that sabotage was the reason for some of the technical problems Iran has encountered in its enrichment enterprise.

Sources told CBS intelligence agencies have altered technical data, making it "useless."

Reliapundit adds: Maybe Bush has stopped worrying and has learned to love the Iranian bomb? There another possibility: This is a head-fake by the USA to gain the element of SURPRISE when we DO ATTACK.

(I'D PREFER KNOWING WE SABOTAGED THEIR ENRICHMENT ARRAY.)