Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post dutifully acts as an administration propaganda mouthpiece by claiming that:
Iran is working to produce a 20-to-50-pound stockpile of enriched uranium that it can use to build atomic weapons within eight to 10 weeks, once it decides to do so -- and has consistently lied to the United Nations about those efforts.
Of course, the fact that Iran has been trying to enrich uranium is hardly a secret and never was: as I have pointed out in my article in Le Monde diplomatique, Iran announced the discovery of uranium on national radio in the early 1980s during an interview with the head of Iran's nuclear agency; the IAEA was planning on providing Iran with technical assistance in developing uranium enrichment capabilities until the US interfered in 1983, and Iran even invited IAEA inspectors to visit Iran's uranium mines in 1990s - note that uranium has no other use except to be enriched (OK, I guess uranium ore can also be used as paper weights. Oh, and door stops. That's about it.)
Note further that Iran is only making "reactor grade" uranium fuel which is only enriched to levels that contain 3% to 5% of the fissile U-235 atoms, and not the highly enriched, "weapons grade" uranium that has 90% or higher concentrations of the U-235 atoms. Oh, and nevermind that even the CIA says that assuming Iran ever manages to make highly-enriched uranium, it would take years to make an actual bomb rather than "eight to 10 weeks" as Jim Hoagland says, and that a bipartisan Congressional intelligence investigation panel concluded that the US doesn't really know much of anything about Iran's nuclear program.
How was it that the New York Times described the actual state of US intelligence on Iran's nuclear program?
One person who described the panel's deliberations and conclusions characterized American intelligence on Iran as ''scandalous,'' given the importance and relative openness of the country, compared with such an extreme case as North Korea. (Data Is Lacking On Iran's Arms, U.S. Panel Says - NY Times March 9, 2005)
You know what their problem was? They didn't ask Jim Hoagland! Who else? Why get in the way of Jim Hoagland with such teeensy, itsy-bitsy irrelevant things as the actual facts? Heck, Jim Hoagland is drawing his conclusions from the highest, most trusted sources in the world!
That headline conclusion is one of two basic points that I draw from a series of private meetings on Iran's nuclear ambitions involving diplomats, leading academic experts, senior military officers and experienced analysts from around the globe.
Course, Jim can't be bothered to actually name any of these "leading experts" and "senior officials" or anything, nor the actual substance of what they've said. No, that would constitute "journalism" - which requires, you know, piddly things like objectivity, sourcing, fact-checking, etc., all of which which gets in the way of Jim's "conclusions" drawn rom his "series of private meetings" schlock.
No, Jim doesn't do any of that. He simply Opines from On High. And we all just should accept Jim Hoagland's presentation of the usual bullshit: that "time is running out" as Iran is building nukes, and the only options available in dealing with Iran is either sanctions or war, so those darned Chinese and Russians should see past their shallow, greedy economic interests and side with the Bush administration (which naturally, is never driven by shallow greedy self-interest).
Regarding Jim's assertion that Iran will have nukes in eight to 10 months - boy, that will sure shock the Israelis who, for the last 20 years, have been predicting that Iran is going to have nukes in next 2 to 5 years. But after all, this is Jim Hoagland's world, and we just happen to live in it.
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