Iran has enough fuel to make a nuclear bomb: NYT

WASHINGTON - Iran has created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, but a risky sprint for a nuclear weapon, according to American intelligence agencies.

The new intelligence reports delivered to the White House say that the country has deliberately stopped short of the critical last steps to make a bomb, The New York Times reports.

The American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency declared on Wednesday that Iran now had what he called a “possible breakout capacity” if it decided to enrich its stockpile of uranium, converting it to bomb-grade material.

Ambassador Glyn Davies was intended to put pressure on American allies to move toward far more severe sanctions against Iran this month, if it failed to take up President Barack Obama’s invitation for serious negotiations.

But it could also complicate the Obama administration’s efforts to persuade an increasingly impatient Israeli Government to give diplomacy more time to work, and hold off from a military strike against Iran, the paper reports.

Iran has maintained that its continuing enrichment program is for peaceful purposes, that the uranium is solely for electric power and that its scientists have never researched weapons design. (ANI)