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Iran 'able to build nuke weapons' - US official
(CNN)
Updated: 2006-02-07 09:32
The U.S. State Department's top official on nuclear issues says Iran used
negotiations with the European Union to play for time to further its nuclear
ambitions and now has the capacity to develop a nuclear weapon and a delivery
system.
"I would say that Iran does have the capability to develop nuclear weapons
and the delivery means for those weapons," Undersecretary Robert Joseph told
reporters on Monday.
Joseph was referring to questions that were raised from documents submitted
to the IAEA last week that pointed to links between the manufacturing of nuclear
weapons components and the weaponization of missile delivery systems.
His comments were the strongest to date by a U.S. official about the ability
of Iran to develop a nuclear weapon and a delivery system without outside help
and sought to put pressure on the international community to deal with the
nuclear threat posed by Iran.
Joseph' words were more definitive than those of U.S. President George W.
Bush, who in a statement Saturday applauding the IAEA board of governors'
decision to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council and said Iran was
"continuing to develop the capability to build nuclear weapons."
Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency to remove its
surveillance cameras and other equipment from its nuclear sites by mid-February.
The United States has long believed that Iran had long-range missile capacity
but has been less sure about Tehran's ability to actually shrink a nuclear
warhead to fit on a missile, a process called "weaponization".
Joseph said Iran had "tremendous financial resources and Iran has a very
sophisticated and very advanced scientific and technical community."
He declined to say how long it would be before Iran would actually be able to
build a nuclear weapon.
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