{"id":95353,"date":"2025-06-17T15:11:01","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T15:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/us-assessment-finds-iran-years-away-from-nuclear-weapon-refutes-israeli-claims\/"},"modified":"2025-06-17T15:11:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T15:11:01","slug":"us-assessment-finds-iran-years-away-from-nuclear-weapon-refutes-israeli-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/us-assessment-finds-iran-years-away-from-nuclear-weapon-refutes-israeli-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"US assessment finds Iran years away from nuclear weapon, refutes Israeli claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As Iran and Israel warned on Tuesday of intensifying<\/a> their attacks against each other after Tel Aviv attacked Tehran last Friday, a US intelligence assessment found that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon programme and was \u201cyears away from producing one\u201d, a report from CNN<\/a><\/em> released on Tuesday claimed.<\/p>\n

After months of attacking Gaza \u2014 flattening homes, targeting hospitals, and starving a besieged population \u2014 Israel expanded its assault by launching wide-scale air strikes against Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities, military sites and private residences last week, killing top commanders, scientists and civilians.<\/p>\n

Israeli officials have claimed the strikes are part of a broader operation codenamed \u2018Rising Lion\u2019 to deter Tehran\u2019s nuclear ambitions, which the latter has consistently denied, saying its uranium enrichment programme is for civilian purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only was Iran not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, it was also up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one to a target of its choosing, according to four people familiar with the assessment,\u201d CNN<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n

This lies in complete contrast with Israeli claims used as a casus belli for the invasion. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said<\/a> in a recorded video message: \u201cWe are at a decisive moment in Israel\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel\u2019s very survival. This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Israeli military official added that Israel was striking \u201cdozens\u201d of nuclear and military targets, including the facility at Natanz in central Iran. The official had claimed Iran had enough material to make 15 nuclear bombs within days.<\/p>\n

Now, after days of Israeli airstrikes, US intelligence officials believe that so far, Israel may have set back Iran\u2019s nuclear programme by only a matter of months, according to one of those people, CNN<\/em> quoted a US official as having said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven as Israel has done significant damage to Iran\u2019s facility at Natanz, which houses centrifuges necessary to enrich uranium, a second, heavily fortified enrichment site at Fordow has remained effectively untouched,\u201d the report added.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the BBC<\/em> reported<\/a> that regarding Israeli claims of an Iranian nuclear bomb being only a month away, Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the US-based Arms Control Association, said that Israel \u201cdid not present any clear or compelling evidence that Iran was on the brink of weaponising\u201d.<\/p>\n

She further told the outlet that Iran \u201chas been at a near-zero breakout for months\u201d, referring to the time it would take Iran to acquire enough fissile material for one bomb if it chose to do so.<\/p>\n

Davenport added that assessments and estimates of Iran being only some months away from a bomb were \u201cnot new\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Iran and Israel warned on Tuesday of intensifying their attacks against each other after Tel Aviv attacked Tehran last Friday, a US intelligence assessment found that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon programme and was \u201cyears away from producing one\u201d, a report from CNN released on Tuesday claimed. After months of attacking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2025\/06\/17195742f8a611d.jpg?r=195812","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}