David Albright of ISIS (AKA the “Institute for Scary Iran Stories“) has never seen an alarmist allegation about Iran that he did not amplify in another somber “Iran is weeks (days, minutes, seconds) away from a nuclear weapon and must be stopped NOW” report.
Four and a half years ago, Albright’s over-active imagination led him to somberly assert that:
Iran continues to move forward on developing its nuclear capabilities, and it is close to having what we would call a ‘nuclear breakout capability.’ That’s a problem because once Iran reaches that state then it could make a decision to get nuclear weapons pretty rapidly. In as quickly as a few months, Iran would be able to have enough weapons-grade uranium for nuclear weapons.
Nothing came of his assertions.
In December, 2009, an “alarming secret document” emerged that purported to show Iran’s secret nuclear goals. Again David Albright was trotted out to opine that the document was a smoking gun:
The only realistic use of this is in a nuclear weapon. It shows that either Iran is developing the capability [to build nuclear weapons] or it is moving to implement a bomb program — and either one is bad.
Nothing came of his assertions.
In early 2010 Albright gave an interview with CFR’s Bernard Gwertzman in which he claimed that Iran was…six months away from a nuclear weapon!
In October, 2012 Albright asserted that Iran could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb in just two to four months!
Albright was not always so obsessed with Iran. He used to be in charge of spreading “Scary Iraq Stories” before the US invasion in 2003. For example, on Sept. 10, 2002, he wrote in “Is the Activity at Al Qaim Related to Nuclear Efforts?” that:
“High-resolution commercial satellite imagery shows an apparently operational facility at the site of Iraq’s al Qaim phosphate plant and uranium extraction facility (Unit-340), located in northwest Iraq near the Syrian border. This site was where Iraq extracted uranium for its nuclear weapons program in the 1980s. …
[Without inspections] he international community cannot exclude the possibility that Iraq is secretly producing a stockpile of uranium in violation of its commitments under Security Council resolutions. The uranium could be used in a clandestine nuclear weapons effort.”
Oops!
But now David Albright is back!
In a article in the October 24th issue of USA Today, Albright is more alarmist than ever! He now opines that Iran may be one month away from a nuclear bomb! Half of Iran’s centrifuges must be destroyed to even give us a six-month lead time until the Iranian bomb, asserts “expert” Albright.
Worse even, Albright yesterday asserted in the USA Today article that:
if Iran decided to build a covert enrichment plant like it has under a mountain in Fordow, near the city of Qom, that was designed for optimal efficiency and minimal time to enrich enough uranium for bomb making. Such a facility built with current Iranian technology could produce enough material for a bomb in a week, according to the ISIS report.
“If they did that and they were caught it would be a smoking gun of a nuclear weapons program,” Albright said.
On no! Only a week! We should believe him this time. Never mind that he has never been right! He is an expert! Bombs away!
