Inside the Ring

Iran’s nuclear program

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Republican and ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Tuesday that Iran is continuing its nuclear program and an Obama administration one-year plan for diplomatic engagement poses national-security dangers.

“That’s a high-risk strategy … based on the estimates that we have that are out there” on when Iran could field a nuclear device or warhead, Mr. Hoekstra told reporters and editors of The Washington Times.

U.S. estimates of Iran’s nuclear program are that Tehran could deploy a nuclear weapon by 2010 at the earliest if a decision were made to do so. Israeli intelligence estimates are that Iran could have a nuclear bomb sooner, according to published reports.

Mr. Hoekstra said any military option for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program would be difficult. “I’ve got concerns whether we know where all their capabilities and things are [located],” he said.

A 2005 U.S. Energy Department report on the Iranian nuclear program stated that Iran had at least 13 facilities involved in nuclear research, many of them located in fortified underground facilities or disguised by camouflage.

Mr. Hoekstra said he favors a U.S. policy of organizing a “global coalition” of the United States, Europe, Russia and China to pressure Tehran with “a vigorous sanctions regime,” rather than a yearlong diplomatic initiative favored by President Obama.

Iran’s government has denied its nuclear efforts are part of a weapons program and claims that it is developing power-generating nuclear stations.

On the controversial 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that said Iran halted nuclear-weapons design in 2003, Mr. Hoekstra said Michael McConnell, until earlier this year the director of national intelligence, has stated that the wording of the NIE was “very inappropriate” in asserting Iran’s nuclear program was stopped.

Mr. Hoekstra said Iran only halted one of the three elements of a nuclear program - weaponization - in 2003 and that the other two, fissile-material production and delivery systems, are continuing.

“The third one that could be done in the shortest period, we didn’t know whether that had started up again or not,” he said of the weaponization work. “That was just an awful document, poorly written.”

CIA Director Leon Panetta said in a speech in California Monday that Iran’s nuclear program remains a significant intelligence concern.

“On the nuclear front, the judgment of the intelligence community is that Iran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop deliverable nuclear weapons,” he said, noting that Iran halted weaponization in 2003, “but it continues to develop uranium-enrichment technology and nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.”

“And that represents a danger for the future,” he said.

Iran tested a missile Wednesday with a range of about 1,200 miles.

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