The Islamic Republic of Iran now has enough weapons grade uranium to produce a nuclear weapon within a week, according to a new report.
The Institute for Science and International Security said that the threat level with respect to Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon had entered into its “extreme danger” rating, the first time the threat level has ever gone that high, according to a report obtained by the Free Beacon.
The report said that the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program has “increased dramatically” since May 2023, in part due to the series of events that have unfolded in the wake of the Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack on Israel.
“The volatile situation in the region is providing Iran with a unique opportunity and increased internal justification for building nuclear weapons while the United States and Israel’s resources to detect and deter Iran from succeeding are stretched thin,” the report said. “The ongoing conflicts are leading to the neglect of the Iranian nuclear threat at a time when Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities have never been greater.”
The threat is even higher as Iran goes to greater and greater lengths to conceal its nuclear program, including building an underground facility that it hopes will be deep enough that America’s conventional bunker buster bombs won’t be able to destroy it.
The most alarming area of concern that the report identified was the nuclear breakout time for Iran, which refers to the amount of time that it would take the country to develop a nuclear weapon given its current capabilities.
“If Iran wanted to further enrich its 60 percent enriched uranium up to 90 percent weapon-grade uranium (WGU), used in Iran’s known nuclear weapons designs from the Amad Plan, it could do so quickly,” the report said. “It can break out and produce enough weapon-grade enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in a week, using only a fraction of its 60 percent enriched uranium. This breakout could be difficult for inspectors to detect promptly, if Iran took steps to delay inspectors’ access.”
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“Using its remaining stock of 60 percent enriched uranium and its stock of near 20 percent enriched uranium, it could have in total enough weapon-grade uranium for six weapons in one month, and after five months of producing weapon-grade uranium, it could have enough for twelve,” the report added.
The news comes as the Biden administraiton launched what critics have said were weak retaliatory strikes late last week against Iranian-backed terrorists in Syria and Iraq, which were responsible for killing three U.S. soldiers late last month in a drone attack on a U.S. base in Jordan. U.S. forces have been attacked approximately 170 times since mid-October.
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) said in its most recent analysis of U.S. relations with Iran that the situation was “trending very negative.”
In its assessment, FDD analysts wrote as it relates to Iran’s nuclear weapons program: “Despite a late December 2023 report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warning that Iran had dramatically accelerated its production of high-enriched uranium, the United States did not request an emergency IAEA board meeting to hold Iran accountable.”
