Iran Just Two Years From Bomb: Britain
In an unusually frank briefing to senior British civil servants, Sir John Sawers, the chief of MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service said that British agents have been active against Iran’s nuclear program since 2008. Despite their efforts though, Sawers said that Iran would likely achieve nuclear capability by 2014.
Sawer’s remarks reported today in the Daily Telegraph were made last week at a lecture to a hundred senior civil servants in London. He said that since Iran was “two years away” from becoming a nuclear power, and that Israel and the United States would have to decide before then whether to attack Iran. He is quoted saying that “the Iranians are determinedly going down a path to master all aspects of nuclear weapons; all the technologies they need,” and that “it’s equally clear that Israel and the United States would face huge dangers if Iran were to become a nuclear weapon state.”
Regarding his own service’s performance, he took credit for delaying Iran’s ambitions saying that without MI6’s operations, “you’d have Iran as a nuclear weapons state in 2008 rather than still being two years away in 2012” and that the service’s goal was to “delay that awful moment when the politicians may have to take a decision between accepting a nuclear-armed Iran or launching a military strike against Iran… it will be very tough for any prime minister of Israel or president of the United States to accept a nuclear-armed Iran.”
This is the first official confirmation that Britain’s intelligence services are actively involved in the campaign against a nuclear Iran, though the Tehran regime routinely accuses Britain of cooperating with the U.S. and Israel against its interests.
For more, go to Haaretz.com
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
