What we mean when we talk about Iran nukes

Two clocks are ticking, one in Jerusalem and one in Washington. These are the clocks that measure the Iranian nuclear threat. Apparently these do not show the same time. That, at least, would be the impression of anyone reading the Israeli and American intelligence assessments. The head of Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, told a cabinet meeting less than two weeks ago that Iran "has crossed the technological threshold." The United States Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, told the Senate Armed Services Committee two days later that "Iran has not decided to press forward ... to have a nuclear weapon on top of a ballistic missile."

The head of MI used the term "technological threshold" to mean that Iran already has the knowledge, the technology, the equipment and the materials with which to produce its first nuclear bomb, if it so desires. Yadlin placed the emphasis on Iran's technological capability, which is advancing that state toward the production of nuclear weapons. He made no reference at all to the intentions of the leadership. To most of Israel's national assessors, including Yadlin, it is clear as day that the regime of the ayatollahs is trying to acquire nuclear weapons.

The head of U.S. intelligence was speaking more in terms of intentions. It's not clear to us, Blair in effect said, where the Iranian leadership is heading. Is it planning to acquire nuclear weapons, or only to have control over nuclear technology - what could be called "being one turn of the screw away from making a bomb."

That is also why the clocks in Jerusalem and in Washington are not synchronized. Israel believes Iran is no more than a few months, perhaps a little over a year, away from putting together its first nuclear device. According to U.S. estimates, on the other hand, even if Iran takes the political decision to manufacture a bomb it would not be ready until 2013 or perhaps even 2015.

Because the manufacture of nuclear weapons is scientifically and technologically complex, there is considerable confusion in the media on the topic. There is already more than one ton of low-level enriched uranium in the pilot plant built over a decade ago at Natanz, which under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. At its current level of enrichment (about 4 percent), this uranium cannot produce a nuclear weapon. Iran has stated that the uranium is intended to fuel the nuclear power plant built by Russia in the city of Bushehr, which is due to go on-line this year.

This amount of uranium, however, is far too small to power the Bushehr reactor, the nuclear fuel for which the Russians have contracted to supply in any event. So there is a justified suspicion that Iran has other intentions. It can take the ton of uranium, run it through the Natanz centrifuges again, at much higher speed, and produce about 20 to 25 kilograms of 90-percent enriched uranium - sufficient fissile material for a nuclear bomb.

It would take between a few months and a year to do this, but it would be discovered immediately by international inspectors. Iran could expel the inspectors, but that would cause an acute international crisis, including a confrontation with Russia, which might end its nuclear cooperation with Iran.

There is another possibility, that Iran has built an additional, clandestine uranium enrichment facility in which it is already producing highly enriched uranium.

In any case, the differences between the Israeli and the U.S. assessments are smaller than one might think and are based largely on geographical proximity. Israel, which feels itself threatened by Iran, has more reasons for concern than the U.S.

At the margins of these differences we can also conclude that Yadlin's clock is not necessarily synchronized with that of Mossad chief Meir Dagan. Yadlin's assessment can also be interpreted as an insult, if not an actual slap in the face, to Dagan. The latter promised senior Mossad officials, the wider intelligence community and the country's leaders that he would stop Iran's nuclear program. He has not succeeded yet, as Yadlin has now effectively determined.

Chaim Carmon, the first Malmab

Chaim Carmon, a pillar of the Defense Ministry, was laid to rest in the Herzliya cemetery last Thursday. Carmon was the person who invented the Hebrew acronym Malmab for the security arm of the Defense Ministry.

Old friends, including several former senior officials, attended the funeral. Absent from it were quite a number of government leaders, such as President Shimon Peres, who knew Carmon well. Pinhas Buchris, the director general of the Defense Ministry, made do with a laconic telegram.

Carmon was born Haim Weinrich in Lodz, Poland, in 1927. As a teenager he fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He was sent to the Majdanek death camp, and in 1946 he immigrated to Israel. He joined the Haganah militia and fought in the War of Independence, in the Kiryati Brigade. Later he became the bodyguard of prime minister David Ben-Gurion.

"To this day I remain a 'Bengurionist,'" Carmon said in an interview with Haaretz about five years ago.

Carmon joined the Defense Ministry as a security officer, subordinate to and alongside chief security officer Benjamin Bloomberg, succeeding him in 1974. He was given the title of "Malmab," head of security in the Defense Ministry, and responsibility for keeping Israel's greatest security and strategic secrets. These included the nuclear reactor in Dimona, Rafael Armament Development Authority (now Rafael Advanced Defense Systems), the Israel Institute for Biological Research in Nes Tziona, and, according to foreign reports, Israel's weapons and nuclear dealings with South Africa and the sales of weapons to Iran in the 1980s ("Irangate"). In 1992 Carmon retired, or in his words "was helped to retire" - among the "helpers" was his protege Yehiel Horev, who succeeded him as head of security in the ministry.

At his peak, Carmon was one of the most powerful figures in the defense establishment, and he was feared by many. On one occasion, for example, 25 years ago, he prevented this writer from entering Israel Aircraft Industries. But even when he clashed with rivals or friends he always remained, as many testify, a "mensch."