ID :
187826
Sat, 06/11/2011 - 09:00
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/187826
The shortlink copeid
Seymour Hersh says no evidence Iran seeking nuclear bomb
TEHRAN, June 11 (MNA) -- There is no conclusive evidence that Iran has made any effort to build the bomb since 2003, according to Seymour M. Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist.
Hersh was widely criticized by White House officials for his exposés on the torture at Abu Ghraib, secret U.S. operations overseas, and U.S. policy in Iran during the George W. Bush administration.
He made the remarks on Iran’s nuclear program in a commentary entitled Iran and the Bomb: How Real Is the Nuclear Threat? published in the New Yorker magazine on June 6.
Following are excerpts of his commentary:
Is Iran actively trying to develop nuclear weapons? Members of the Obama Administration often talk as if this were a foregone conclusion, as did their predecessors under George W. Bush.
There’s a large body of evidence, however, including some of America’s most highly classified intelligence assessments, suggesting that the U.S. could be in danger of repeating a mistake similar to the one made with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq eight years ago - allowing anxieties about the policies of a tyrannical regime to distort our estimates of the state’s military capacities and intentions. The two most recent National Intelligence Estimates (N.I.E.s) on Iranian nuclear progress have stated that there is no conclusive evidence that Iran has made any effort to build the bomb since 2003.
Yet Iran is heavily invested in nuclear technology. In the past four years, it has tripled the number of centrifuges in operation at its main enrichment facility at Natanz, which is buried deep underground.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors have expressed frustration with Iran’s level of cooperation, but have been unable to find any evidence suggesting that enriched uranium has been diverted to an illicit weapons program.
Hersh was widely criticized by White House officials for his exposés on the torture at Abu Ghraib, secret U.S. operations overseas, and U.S. policy in Iran during the George W. Bush administration.
He made the remarks on Iran’s nuclear program in a commentary entitled Iran and the Bomb: How Real Is the Nuclear Threat? published in the New Yorker magazine on June 6.
Following are excerpts of his commentary:
Is Iran actively trying to develop nuclear weapons? Members of the Obama Administration often talk as if this were a foregone conclusion, as did their predecessors under George W. Bush.
There’s a large body of evidence, however, including some of America’s most highly classified intelligence assessments, suggesting that the U.S. could be in danger of repeating a mistake similar to the one made with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq eight years ago - allowing anxieties about the policies of a tyrannical regime to distort our estimates of the state’s military capacities and intentions. The two most recent National Intelligence Estimates (N.I.E.s) on Iranian nuclear progress have stated that there is no conclusive evidence that Iran has made any effort to build the bomb since 2003.
Yet Iran is heavily invested in nuclear technology. In the past four years, it has tripled the number of centrifuges in operation at its main enrichment facility at Natanz, which is buried deep underground.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors have expressed frustration with Iran’s level of cooperation, but have been unable to find any evidence suggesting that enriched uranium has been diverted to an illicit weapons program.
