Israeli PM alleges Tehran has capacity to make nine bombs. If so, Israel knows more than the US or the UN watchdog did
Middle East crisis – live updates
In justifying Israel’s attack on Iran, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he had acted to pre-empt a secret Iranian programme to build a nuclear bomb, claiming Tehran already had the capacity to build nine nuclear bombs. Israeli officials also claimed to have presented information to the US that Iran had recently made the necessary technical breakthroughs.
Netanyahu’s critics are saying he acted to pre-empt something else: a diplomatic agreement between the US and Iran on its civil nuclear programme, or even the demise of his own government. They point out that Israel has been saying for 20 years that Iran is on the brink of building a bomb.
Either way, his claim largely depends on Israel’s formidable intelligence community possessing a greater state of knowledge about Iran’s nuclear programme than either its US counterparts or the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
