NYT at it again: "Report Says Iran Has Data to Make a Nuclear Bomb"

[chimpymustgo]

Scott Ritter on C-SPAN this morning says this report STINKS of disinformation. It's based on something on someone's laptop computer - probably the CIA. Says IAEA's position is misrepresented in the piece. Does this remind anyone of earlier reporting in a lead-up to war?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04nu...

Report Says Iran Has Data to Make a Nuclear Bomb

By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: October 3, 2009

Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb.

The report by experts in the International Atomic Energy Agency stresses in its introduction that its conclusions are tentative and subject to further confirmation of the evidence, which it says came from intelligence agencies and its own investigations.

But the report’s conclusions, described by senior European officials, go well beyond the public positions taken by several governments, including the United States.

Two years ago, American intelligence agencies published a detailed report concluding that Tehran halted its efforts to design a nuclear weapon in 2003. But in recent months, Britain has joined France, Germany and Israel in disputing that conclusion, saying the work has been resumed.

A senior American official said last week that the United States was now re-evaluating its 2007 conclusions.

The atomic agency’s report also presents evidence that beyond improving upon bomb-making information gathered from rogue nuclear experts around the world, Iran has done extensive research and testing on how to fashion the components of a weapon. It does not say how far that work has progressed.
-edit-

[Turbineguy]

1. They have the internet in Iran?

who knew?:shrug:

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. They don't even need that...

...you need a (mediocre) state A&M university mechanical engineering department and a copy of Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb. And some fissile material. There's a reason why everyone follows the uranium and not the scientists.

The uranium-gun design is so simple, and so obvious, that the US Army Air Force went straight to combat with it without testing, unlike the plutonium-implosion bomb tested in New Mexico -- sixty-five years ago.

[hobbit709]

3. Having the data to make one

and having the technological ability to actually build one are not the same.
I know what it takes to actually build one-getting the materials and facility to do it are a completely different matter. There's nothing secret about making one-the biggest question was answered on Aug. 6, 1945-it works. After that it's really just a matter of reverse engineering.

[malaise]

4. Scott Ritter destroyed the NYT on this BS already

Fugg the New York Times.

[spanone]

5. is judy miller back on the team?

[BumRushDaShow]

6. + 1 - My thoughts exactly! n/t