Iran moves closer to making a nuclear bomb

Though, technically, that headline's correct, its terribly misleading. At least the second paragraph clears things up a bit.

The point is to first instill fear and then slip in a smidgen of reality which most people won't even notice.

Iran has moved significantly closer towards acquiring the ability to make a bomb as the regime claims to have stockpiled 100kg of enriched uranium.

So far, this uranium has only been enriched to the level needed for generating electricity in civilian nuclear power stations.

But if Iran chooses to enrich it to 84 per cent purity, it would reach weapons-grade level and become the essential material for building a bomb.

Iran would need 50kg of weapons-grade uranium in order to make one nuclear weapon of the kind that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.

By storing twice this quantity of low-enriched uranium, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime is widening its options.

However, the shortest time-frame I've seen says Iran can't go weapons-grade in less than 18 months.

Iran may be able to produce its first nuclear bomb by 2009, the U.S.-based news channel ABC News reported on Monday.

The report said that Tehran had more than tripled its ability to produce enriched uranium in the past three months, adding some 1,000 centrifuges which are used to separate radioactive particles from the raw material.

The development meant Iran could have enough material for a nuclear bomb by 2009, it quoted sources “familiar with the dramatic upgrade” as saying.

The unexpected expansion is taking place at Iran's uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, the report said.

Iran had previously informed the United Nations nuclear watchdog that it had 320 centrifuges running in Natanz.

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