A nuclear Iran may bring stability and peace to the world. Israel has rejected every peace initiative and even killed Isaac Robin in order to carry on the apartheid of the Palestinians. With American taxpayers money Israel is building settlements on illegal land and with the lives of American Marines Israel is fighting wars on several grounds. Israel has no rival and wants no peace. A powerful Iran would encourage Israel to settle for peace and America will no longer need to carry on wars for Israel. The people of Iran will kick Islam out of Iran once there is no threat from outside.
Q&A
A Different View
Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak sharply disagrees with the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear capabilities.
Michel Euler
/
AP
Barak (right, with former British prime minister Tony Blair): 'We think [Iran's nuclear scientists] are quite advanced, much beyond the level of the Manhattan Project'
From the magazine issue dated Feb 4, 2008
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
SPONSORED BY
Sitting at the world Economic Forum in Davos last week, Israel's Minister of Defense Ehud Barak was sharply critical of the recent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. In an interview with NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth, Barak suggested that, contrary to the impression left by that estimate, Iran continues to develop nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Excerpts:
Weymouth: You were critical of the latest U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.
Barak: We have a somewhat different interpretation of the same facts. Our interpretation is that clearly the Iranians are aiming at nuclear capability. It's probably true that for some reason they may have slowed down the weapons group in 2003 because it was the height of American militarism.
The CIA thinks they shut down the covert program then.
We think that they are quite advanced, much beyond the level of the Manhattan Project. We suspect they are probably already working on warheads for ground-to-ground missiles which are much more sophisticated than those carried by the Enola Gay [the airplane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima]. They are clearly developing missiles, and there is no reason to develop missiles that can fly 1,500 miles if you just want to … it's usually for unconventional warheads.
Do you have intelligence to prove that?
We don't know if they have enough enriched uranium. Probably they cannot build it, but they are working on the technology for warheads. The only challenge is to have enough weapons-grade enriched uranium or plutonium, which they probably don't have, but they are working on this as well. We suspect that probably they have another clandestine enrichment operation beyond the one in Natanz.
What kind?
We don't know enough, but there is no other way to interpret what we see. The dots that we see on the screen cannot be easily connected in a way that does not lead to a nuclear program. We think it is still a major challenge for the world. The leading intelligence communities should concentrate on finding whether there is or is not a clandestine enrichment operation and a weap- ons group working on the weapons technology. There is a lot to do on sanctions. I talked yesterday with President Sarkozy and got the impression that the French are working seriously to convince both China and Russia to keep moving forward on sanctions.
Sarkozy is interested in pushing sanctions on Iran?
The French are very clear about the risk from a nuclear Iran. There is a lot to do without removing any option from the table.
- 1
- 2
- Next Page »
Discuss