| Funny that this happened the Day of the State of the Union address, but wasn't reported on... |
In the "US Intelligence Worldwide Threat Assessment," delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Clapper reported that Tehran has made significant advances recently in its nuclear program to the point where it could produce and deliver nuclear bombs should it be so inclined.
"Despite this progress, we assess that Iran would not be able to divert safeguarded material and produce enough WGU [weapons grade uranium] for a weapon before such activity would be discovered," Clapper wrote. He said the increased supervision and other "transparency" to which Iran has agreed under the new interim deal, reached with the world powers in Geneva in November and finalized last week, could offer earlier warning of a breakout to the bomb. Should Iran cooperate with the interim deal, halt enrichment, and "provide transparency," then "This transparency would provide earlier warning of a breakout using these facilities."
Clapper told the Senate committee that the interim deal will have an impact on Iran's nuclear weapons program's progress and "gets at the key thing we're interested in and most concerned about," namely, Iran's 20 percent enriched uranium. Iran had also worked hard to advance its program at the Arak heavy water facility, wrote Clapper. Its ballistic missiles, he noted, of which it has "the largest inventory in the Middle East," are "inherently capable of delivering WMD." And its space program gives it the means to develop longer-range missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles.
"We do not know if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons," Clapper wrote. But he noted that Iran's overarching "strategic goals" were leading it to pursue the capability to do so. The national intelligence director reiterated that imposing additional sanctions against Iran would be "counterproductive" and would "jeopardize the [interim] agreement." He advised that additional sanctions against the Islamic Republic should only be kept "in reserve."
The report was released a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the interim nuclear agreement only set back the Islamic Republic's nuclear program by six weeks. [On January 22nd,] Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused the Obama administration of mischaracterizing the terms of an interim nuclear deal. "We did not agree to dismantle anything," Zarif told CNN. "We are not dismantling any centrifuges, we're not dismantling any equipment, we're simply not producing, not enriching [uranium] over 5%."