The ambiguity over what is and isn't a weapon — North Korea's, our spies reckon, produced a pfffffft that was less than India's weapon but still dangerous — has befuddled our national intelligence bureaucrats.
The next day, speaking before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the director, Admiral McConnell, said estimates within the intelligence community vary as to when Iran will test an explosive, to between 2010 and as late as 2015. But, the admiral warned, Iran could theoretically master the technology for a nuclear yield as early as 2009. "Theoretically, they could do it, given their current effort, by 2009," Admiral McConnell told Rep. Heather Wilson. "We don't think they're moving quite that fast, but we don't have perfect insight and understanding."
"If the intent was to do nothing but have a nuclear yield, just a yield, something that you could haul around on a truck or bury in the ground, they could do that in six months to 12 months," he said.
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