President Trump’s claim that Iran will soon have a missile that can hit the US is not backed by American intelligence reports and appears to be exaggerated, reports Reuters.
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@newsguyusa Didn’t #Trump claim a few months ago that his attacks had completely destroyed _everything_ #Iran had in their underground bunker for nuclear weapons development? He cannot have this all the ways - either he lied then, or he’s lying now, or he’s lying each time.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa it's gotten to the point where I don't think he has any real tracking of what he's said in the past so as to formulate anything consistent with past statements. A lot of the time, I think he's just confabulating, which is a common symptom of dementia
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@newsguyusa Didn’t #Trump claim a few months ago that his attacks had completely destroyed _everything_ #Iran had in their underground bunker for nuclear weapons development? He cannot have this all the ways - either he lied then, or he’s lying now, or he’s lying each time.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa One of the things that's very disturbing about the past attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure is that Trump so promoted and telegraphed that he was going to do this that it gave Iran a huge window of opportunity in which to move materials and Iran cut off IAEA inspections before the attack. Under the IAEA we knew somewhat. What Iran had and where it was located and much of the most concerning you material was essentially locked and under seal. Now we don't know jack.
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa One of the things that's very disturbing about the past attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure is that Trump so promoted and telegraphed that he was going to do this that it gave Iran a huge window of opportunity in which to move materials and Iran cut off IAEA inspections before the attack. Under the IAEA we knew somewhat. What Iran had and where it was located and much of the most concerning you material was essentially locked and under seal. Now we don't know jack.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa it's extremely plausible to me that the deep penetrating missile tech that was used in the first attack wasn't as effective as made out. I looked at a lot of imagery on sites like TWZ taken via Maxar's highest resolution commercial offerings and there seemed to be a lot of variance of opinion as to the degree of damage done to the underground infrastructure that Iran had built up to that point.
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa it's extremely plausible to me that the deep penetrating missile tech that was used in the first attack wasn't as effective as made out. I looked at a lot of imagery on sites like TWZ taken via Maxar's highest resolution commercial offerings and there seemed to be a lot of variance of opinion as to the degree of damage done to the underground infrastructure that Iran had built up to that point.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa A lot of the discussion centered around the destruction of Iran's infrastructure for taking gaseous uranium and re-metalizing it and talked about the years that would be needed to construct a plant of similar size to what they had before.
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa A lot of the discussion centered around the destruction of Iran's infrastructure for taking gaseous uranium and re-metalizing it and talked about the years that would be needed to construct a plant of similar size to what they had before.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa The thing was with the low quantities of material that they would need to actually run through such a plant in order to cross the nuclear finish line...
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa The thing was with the low quantities of material that they would need to actually run through such a plant in order to cross the nuclear finish line...
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa ...and process their existing stockpile of high grade Uranium into something truly weapons grade, you don't really need a full-sized plant. You could make do with something much more lab or demonstration scale and we're basically just talking about a bunch of steel pressure vessels here, which it seems well within their capability to have not knocked together by now.
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa ...and process their existing stockpile of high grade Uranium into something truly weapons grade, you don't really need a full-sized plant. You could make do with something much more lab or demonstration scale and we're basically just talking about a bunch of steel pressure vessels here, which it seems well within their capability to have not knocked together by now.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa I'm sort-of of the opinion that the US left military strikes off the table too long for them to be effective at keeping Iran from crossing the finish line. They may limp across, but the 400 plus kilograms of high purity Uranium that they had prior to Trump's Mission Accomplished moment is probably enough that with some reprocessing they could build 10 or 11 nuclear devices once brought up to fully weapons grade levels of purity.
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa I'm sort-of of the opinion that the US left military strikes off the table too long for them to be effective at keeping Iran from crossing the finish line. They may limp across, but the 400 plus kilograms of high purity Uranium that they had prior to Trump's Mission Accomplished moment is probably enough that with some reprocessing they could build 10 or 11 nuclear devices once brought up to fully weapons grade levels of purity.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa The thing that gets overlooked a lot by the news media I think is that you don't actually need weapons grade material to build nuclear bombs, and the first Uranium bombs during world war II were not up to weapons grade spec.
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa The thing that gets overlooked a lot by the news media I think is that you don't actually need weapons grade material to build nuclear bombs, and the first Uranium bombs during world war II were not up to weapons grade spec.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa Sure, the yield would be low and the devices large, but gun type devices like Little Boy were within easy reach of Iran before the first strikes, so if they did manage to make off with the high purity material before the US went in with their bombers...well, who is to say positively that they don't have two or three Hiroshima class devices right now? Untested, yes, but gun type devices aren't exactly rocket surgery. They'd probably work.
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa Sure, the yield would be low and the devices large, but gun type devices like Little Boy were within easy reach of Iran before the first strikes, so if they did manage to make off with the high purity material before the US went in with their bombers...well, who is to say positively that they don't have two or three Hiroshima class devices right now? Untested, yes, but gun type devices aren't exactly rocket surgery. They'd probably work.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa The question then becomes under what circumstances Iran would use such devices and what effective mechanisms they have to deliver what would probably be a fairly chunky bomb at this point. Israel has pretty good interception capabilities already and with US aircraft carriers and their escorts in the area that's going to make it even harder Iran to launch an effective reprisal attack, but it's not impossible and we saw a little of Iran's offensive capabilities last time.
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa The question then becomes under what circumstances Iran would use such devices and what effective mechanisms they have to deliver what would probably be a fairly chunky bomb at this point. Israel has pretty good interception capabilities already and with US aircraft carriers and their escorts in the area that's going to make it even harder Iran to launch an effective reprisal attack, but it's not impossible and we saw a little of Iran's offensive capabilities last time.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa You wonder what Iran would be willing to do if they genuinely felt like the US was making an attempt to outright end the Islamic Republic or was willing to use tactical nuclear weapons to more thoroughly destroy Iran's nuclear sites.
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa You wonder what Iran would be willing to do if they genuinely felt like the US was making an attempt to outright end the Islamic Republic or was willing to use tactical nuclear weapons to more thoroughly destroy Iran's nuclear sites.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa Let's not forget that the US used up most of its known deep penetration arsenal, so unless they've got a lot more MOPs sitting around that we don't know about, one of the options that might have been presented to Trump is the use of tactical nukes.
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa Let's not forget that the US used up most of its known deep penetration arsenal, so unless they've got a lot more MOPs sitting around that we don't know about, one of the options that might have been presented to Trump is the use of tactical nukes.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa Do you really expect Donald Trump, a man who can't read normal briefings and instead has big words written on cue cards with sharpies, to sit through an extended game theory analysis as to why the US has forsworn the use of tactical nukes?
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa Do you really expect Donald Trump, a man who can't read normal briefings and instead has big words written on cue cards with sharpies, to sit through an extended game theory analysis as to why the US has forsworn the use of tactical nukes?
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa I think at the very least you have to consider that even if Iran doesn't have nukes, they have a lot of nuclear material and could quite simply granulate large amounts of the lower grade stuff and shovel it into the cavities of of Shahed drones and launch a few thousand of them at Israel.
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa I think at the very least you have to consider that even if Iran doesn't have nukes, they have a lot of nuclear material and could quite simply granulate large amounts of the lower grade stuff and shovel it into the cavities of of Shahed drones and launch a few thousand of them at Israel.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa The US and Israel might take out an overwhelming majority of them and might even do so before such drones cross into Israel, but then you have the prospect of many, many drones worth of interest uranium being scattered dirty bomb style over places like Jordan or other neighboring countries which might be on approach vectors. Anyways, that's my thinking at this moment in time. I expect the coming week or two to be very interesting in ways I do not like in any way.
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa The US and Israel might take out an overwhelming majority of them and might even do so before such drones cross into Israel, but then you have the prospect of many, many drones worth of interest uranium being scattered dirty bomb style over places like Jordan or other neighboring countries which might be on approach vectors. Anyways, that's my thinking at this moment in time. I expect the coming week or two to be very interesting in ways I do not like in any way.
@Infoseepage @newsguyusa Well, UK, USA and others are currently telling everyone and their staff to leave the Middle East already (except the poor souls who have no options). So it looks like Trump, Hegseth et al are going to do something insane and dangerous asap. I’m concerned that any of them have no hesitation in putting their finger on a nuclear button. (1/2)
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@Infoseepage @newsguyusa Well, UK, USA and others are currently telling everyone and their staff to leave the Middle East already (except the poor souls who have no options). So it looks like Trump, Hegseth et al are going to do something insane and dangerous asap. I’m concerned that any of them have no hesitation in putting their finger on a nuclear button. (1/2)
One things for sure - the claim that Trump ended a lot of wars might come true, but there’s not going to be anyone around to verify it, if the Americans do this. (2/2)
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@Infoseepage @newsguyusa Well, UK, USA and others are currently telling everyone and their staff to leave the Middle East already (except the poor souls who have no options). So it looks like Trump, Hegseth et al are going to do something insane and dangerous asap. I’m concerned that any of them have no hesitation in putting their finger on a nuclear button. (1/2)
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa Yup, and if that's the sort of thing that the US is willing to do, what's to say that Iran's regime doesn't decide to go down swinging and just launch everything that they have? They could probably at the very least low end of my estimation dirty bomb the f*** out of every US ally in the Middle East and if they do have a limited number of nukes at their disposal, the question is how do they use them?
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa Yup, and if that's the sort of thing that the US is willing to do, what's to say that Iran's regime doesn't decide to go down swinging and just launch everything that they have? They could probably at the very least low end of my estimation dirty bomb the f*** out of every US ally in the Middle East and if they do have a limited number of nukes at their disposal, the question is how do they use them?
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa I'm reminded of something I think Nobel Physicist Richard Feynman once said. He worked on the Manhattan project and later was on the panel which analyzed the space shuttle disaster. He said something to the effect of anyone smart enough to build a nuclear bomb is smart enough to load it into the back of a U-Haul and drive it to Washington, DC.
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@HarriettMB @newsguyusa I'm reminded of something I think Nobel Physicist Richard Feynman once said. He worked on the Manhattan project and later was on the panel which analyzed the space shuttle disaster. He said something to the effect of anyone smart enough to build a nuclear bomb is smart enough to load it into the back of a U-Haul and drive it to Washington, DC.
@HarriettMB @newsguyusa In other words, a lot of wasted column inches gets spent on discussion of the inter ballistic missile programs of various countries and whether they're ready to strike the US. We fail to consider that these countries might simply sneak a bomb out of the country and put it on a sailing yacht and sail it into San Francisco Bay. There are a lot of potential delivery methods for nukes that don't involve miniaturization and the complexity of an effective ICBM program.
