Cordesman: The Iran Attack Plan

Iran's acknowledgment that it is developing a second uranium-enrichment facility does little to dispel the view that the regime is developing a weapons program.

 

Israel's political and military leaders have long made it clear that they are considering taking decisive military action if Iran continues to develop its nuclear program.

 

Reporting by the International Atomic Energy Agency and other sources has made it clear that whether or not Iran ties all of its efforts into a formal nuclear weapons program, it has acquired all of the elements necessary to make and deliver such weapons…It became clear just this week that Iran managed to conceal the fact it was building a second underground facility for uranium enrichment near Qom, 100 miles southwest of Tehran, and that was designed to hold 3,000 centrifuges. Iran is developing at least four variants of its centrifuges, and the more recent designs have far more capacity than most of the ones installed at Natanz…

 

…Iran has acquired North Korean and other nuclear weapons design data… Iran has all of the technology and production and manufacturing capabilities needed for fission weapons. It has acquired the technology to make the explosives needed for a gun or implosion device, the triggering components, and the neutron initiator and reflectors.

 

…Hardly a week goes by without another warning from senior Israeli officials that a military strike is possible, and that Israel cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran… President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to threaten Israel and to deny its right to exist.

 

Anthony Cordesman

Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2009