German Spy Agency Says Iran Bomb Years Off, Plays Down Report

Germany’s top spy agency said Iran could have an atomic bomb within four to six years, playing down a report in Stern magazine that the government in Tehran could detonate a nuclear device within six months. The German prediction is in line with a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate issued in November 2007, a spokesman for Germany’s BND intelligence agency said today in a telephone interview. He declined to comment on the report on Stern’s Web site. Stern cited an unidentified agent at the BND as providing the six-month timeline. Agency experts told the magazine Iran could test a device underground, as North Korea has done. The U.S. accuses Iran of using its nuclear-power program to conceal weapons development, while the Persian Gulf nation has said repeatedly it is using the technology only to generate electricity. The United Nations Security Council has levied three rounds of sanctions on Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, said last month that Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at giving the country the option of developing weapons. Iran denied the allegation. Iran “definitely” wants “the technology that would enable it to have nuclear weapons if they decide to do so,” ElBaradei told the British Broadcasting Corp. The U.S. estimate from 2007 determined Iran probably would be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb between 2010 and 2015, though probably not before 2013. Increased Production Iran, which has enough low-enriched uranium to convert into the minimum needed for an atomic bomb, has been producing the nuclear fuel at a facility in Natanz. The IAEA reported last month that Iran had increased its rate of uranium production and continued to stonewall UN inspectors. The IAEA said in a June 5 report that Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium jumped 33 percent since a report by the UN agency on Feb. 19, which had showed a 20 percent increase over the previous quarter. Iran had also installed 31 percent more centrifuges for enriching uranium, bringing the total to 7,221. The head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, Meir Dagan, told a parliamentary committee last month that, barring technical failures, Iran would be able to launch a nuclear weapon by 2014, according to a person who attended the briefing. President Barack Obama has reiterated the willingness of his administration to negotiate with Iran on its nuclear program, though Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today said the Iran’s chance to engage with the U.S. isn’t indefinite. The Bush administration had demanded Iran cease enrichment as a condition for talks.

To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net.

Posted in: Middle East