Consortium News: 02-07-2025,
Iran is capable of building a nuclear weapon in days if the political decision is made, the author wrote in CN last October. He maintains that view after the U.S. and Israeli strikes on three nuclear facilities last month.
Anti-aircraft guns guarding Natanz Nuclear Facility, Iran. (Hamed Saber/Wikimedia Commons)
Scott Ritter, the former U.N. weapons inspector, wrote the following article for Consortium News last October, in which he says that following the first missile exchange that month, Iranian officials made it clear that the fatwa against nuclear weapons could be lifted; that Iran was prepared to obtain a nuclear weapon; that it had the means to do so and that the decision could be implemented in days once the Supreme Leader gave the order.
Following the more intense 12-day war in June, Ritter told Consortium News‘ CN Live! and Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Judging Freedom that Iran could still be days away if a decision is made to build a bomb. There was no damage done to the facility at Isfahan, where Ritter told Napolitano 90 percent enriched uranium could be converted into metal, an important step in the bomb-making process.
The IAEA says it does not know where 400 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium was removed to from the Fordow enrichment plant,