The  item  in AT earlier this morning about Dr. Zin's assessment of the Iranian nuke program is very disconcerting.  However, it may actually be worse than we think.  Dr. Zin focuses on the ability of the Iranians to make Special Nuclear Material (SNM), i.e., highly enriched uranium (HEU) for use in a nuclear weapon.

The actual design and manufacture of the weapon is another matter, but as I wrote about last month, our own intelligence services may have underestimated the time required to produce a bomb.  The singular focus on the most complex type of design, the implosion type, rather than on the simpler and most dependable type, known as the gun design was puzzling, given the CIA's propensity to evaluate data in the 'worst—case scenario' mode.  Dr. Zin's view that the Iranians are a few weeks away from making SNM, coupled with a simple bomb design (perhaps already fabricated), does, in fact, indicate that the Iranians are approaching nuclear power status very quickly.

Doug Hanson  12—22—04