White House "Not Ready" for Nuclear Iran

[IsraelForever]

From Times Online April 18, 2010

White House ‘not ready’ for nuclear Iran

U.S Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned in a secret memo to senior White House officials that the United States does not have a long-term strategy for dealing with Iran’s nuclear programme.

The three page document, written in January, set off intense efforts within the Pentagon, White house and America’s intelligence agecies to come up with new options, including the use of the military, according to the New York Times newspaper. One senior official described teh report as a "wake up call:, the newspaper reported.

Mr Gates outlined a number of concerns including the absence of an effective strategy if Iran managed to assemble all the major components for a nuclear weapon but stopped short of putting together a missile.

In that case, the Times said, Iran could remain a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty while still becoming a “virtual” nuclear weapons state.

The memorandum also urged new thinking about also urged the White House to consider how to contain Iran if it decided to produce a weapon and how to deal with the possibility that one of the terror groups supported by Iran might get hold of a nuclear weapon.

Last week President Barack Obama described the possibility of terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons as the “single biggest threat” to US security.

Ben rhodes the National Security Council spokesman, said it was "absolutely false" that the memo had led to a reassessment of options. "This administration has been planning for all contingencies regarding Iran for many months," Mr Rhodes told the Associated Press.

Mr Gates’s spokesman, Geoff Morrell refused to confirm the memo but issued a statement saying, “The secretary believes the president and his national security team have spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort considering and preparing for the full range of contingencies with respect to Iran.”

Mr Obama is pushing for a fourth round of sanctions against Iran and used the opportunity of last week’s nuclear security summit in Washington to lobby Chinese president Hu Jintao to support a UN sanctions resolution.

He also unveiled a revamped nuclear strategy that for the first time declared the US would never use the bomb against a non-nuclear state provided it complied with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — a caveat that leaves Iran and North Korea still vulnerable to attack.

Last week Mr Gates also spoke of his concerns that Iran might go to nuclear capability before American intelligence agencies realised, telling NBC television: “If (Iran’s) policy is to go to the threshold but not assemble a nuclear weapon, how do you tell that they have not assembled? I don’t actually know how you would verify that.”