Mossad Chief: Iran Will Have Nuclear Bomb by 2014

Mossad Chief Meir Dagan warned אםגשט that Iran was capable of developing and launching its first nuclear weapon by 2014. “Launching a bomb these days is no problem, technically speaking,” Dagan told members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs Committee. “If the project has no technical glitches, and if Iran’s program does not malfunction in any way, they will have a bomb to launch by 2014. This is a significant existential threat for the State of Israel. We must distance this threat,” he said.

The Mossad chief referred to the ongoing violence which has erupted in Tehran in the wake of a disputed presidential election as “an argument between Iran’s elite. This is an internal matter, not external.”Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency found earlier this year that Iran has crossed the “technological threshold,” and has built up one ton of enriched uranium.

If the material undergoes further processing at the Natanz enrichment facility, it will be sufficient to produce one nuclear bomb.

Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin said in March that the Islamic Republic’s strategy is not merely to produce one bomb, which could force them into a conflict with the world, but to enrich a large amount of fissionable material at a low level of 4.5 percent. But Iran claims that it needs to do this for civilian purposes only, Yadlin said.

{Haaretz Service/Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Israel}