Weapon of Mass Destruction?

Weapon of mass destruction? 

Where have we heard this before? President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence testified before congress in March that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and even though the country was enriching uranium it was not being enriched to weapons grade levels. One would think that our spies might be telling the truth or at least the truth as they see it. Here is what Gabbard said to congress: “The intelligence community continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” She said that we were closely monitoring Iran’s nuclear program. She also noted that the country’s “enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.”

The president sharply disagreed. He left the G-7 conference in Canada (the 51^ststate where he chided the group for expelling Russia) and said “I don’t care what she thinks”. Given this put down one would guess that Gabbard would resign. Instead she said “President Trump was saying the same thing that I said.” “We are on the same page.” Since she didn’t resign, if I were Trump I would fire her. One for speaking on a sensitive issue without being vetted by me and two, knowing now that the congress, the press and the American people will not believe another word she says.

We know that Trump was suspicious of the intelligence agencies during his first term. He thought that they were part of the entrenched “deep state” that worked against him those first four years. The agency personnel and its leaders were “neocons” who advocated unilaterally spreading democracy throughout the globe using the military to project “peace through strength.” People like John Bolton, Robert O’Brien, Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley were in the last administration. None are in this current administration which instead is full of Trump loyalists. So Gabbard telling the congress one thing and then immediately contradicting herself with a straight face now devalues anything that the agencies say publicly. It is clear that Trump does not listen to them. What value are they if the president ignores them and no one believes them?

Yet the question remains as to whether Gabbard was actually telling the truth. Who knows? Is Trump? Who knows? What did you think about that “weapons of mass destruction” thing that got us into the war in Iraq? Trump has committed the US to bomb Iran. But what will be Iran’s response? Although the congress is doing their usual whining thing about not being consulted and the president conducting a war without their permission. They are essentially toothless. Iran has been conducting a shadow war against the US since 1979. From the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1979 to the drone attack that killed three servicemen in Jordan in 2023, Iran has financed attacks on Americans through it proxies in Lebanon, Syria and throughout the Middle East. We would occasionally bomb somebody or something but never conducted a serious campaign against the regime. 

This time the American bombing was not in direct response to a terror act by Irani but to aid Israel in its effort to destroy Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities by assassinating its nuclear scientists and generals. Donald Trump, itching to bomb somebody, decided to help the Israelis do this. Will this degenerate into another Iraq with US ground troops? Trump says no but what happens if Khomenei orders the Irani military to attack American installations in the Middle East? What will Trump do then?

But back to the question about those weapons of mass destruction. Lt Col Robert Maginnis who is described as “an experienced and internationally known expert on national security” has written that Iran is not days away from building a nuclear bomb. Of course White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt who like all press secretaries is paid to lie says “Iran has all that it needs to achieve a nuclear weapon … and it would take a couple weeks to complete the production of that weapon.” Maginnis disagrees and says “This is not just a misstatement. It is misinformation—and it risks pushing the United States into a hasty and unjustified war.” Maginnis says that even if Iran had enriched uranium to weapons grade levels the country would still be a long way from producing a bomb. Here us what Maginnis says is required to have the bomb. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/robert-maginnis-dont-misled-iran-isnt-days-away-from-nuclear-bomb

1. Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU): Iran would need U-235 enriched to 90%, but that alone is insufficient.
2. Precision Shaping: The uranium must be machined into a flawless sphere, requiring high-end metallurgy and computing.
3. Explosive Lenses: Carefully placed charges must detonate simultaneously to compress the core—a method called implosion.
4. Trigger Mechanisms: These detonators must be precisely synchronized; even a microsecond delay renders the weapon ineffective.
5. Reflectors and Tampers: Elements like beryllium are required to maintain compression and sustain the chain reaction.
6. Weaponization: The bomb must be ruggedized into a functional assembly, including casing and electronics that can survive delivery.
7. Delivery Systems: The weapon must be fitted onto a missile, aircraft, or another platform capable of reaching its target.

Maginnis says that Iran does not have these capabilities or others that are necessary to produce the bomb. He also says that the feared Fordow facility is not a weapons lab but an enrichment lab.  He asks the question “Why strike now?” Why indeed?