Admiral mongers twaddle - beware

It was all over the Google News headlines earlier today. This evening I had to scroll down a bit and actually look for it.

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Iran most likely has enough material to build a nuclear weapon, the U.S.'s top military official indicated on Sunday.

The remarks by U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen are the first assessments officially made by Washington on Iran's nuclear capabilities.

"We think they do, quite frankly," Mullen told CNN's John King on State of The Union, when asked to comment on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assessment.
--Mayur Pahilajani - AHN News Writer

Clutch the pearls and pass the salts, Mabel.

Did I not just post a debunking of this sort of fear- and twaddle-mongering (2/21/09)? Yes, I did.

And here is Admiral Mike Mullen pushing bullshit on the American people.

In the article cited above we also read this:

The international agency said in the recent report that the Islamic Republic now has 1,010 kilograms of low-enriched uranium (LEU) hexafluoride, which according to some physicists is enough to build a nuclear bomb.

Now the first half stands up; it is the second half - the classic "according to some" - that is questionable.

As Cheryl Rofer, a chemist, wrote (and I posted earlier):

The concentration of U-235 is 3.49% in the enriched uranium that the Natanz plant is turning out. The IAEA has found no evidence (Download Iran 0902) that any higher enrichment is being produced. 3.49% is not enough to make a bomb. Iran is not in a position to make a bomb, unless there is a bunch of hidden stuff that nobody has found, involving big buildings that can be seen by satellite surveillance.

It would take a reconfiguration of the Natanz facility that the inspectors would notice to produce bomb-grade uranium (concentration of U-235 of 90%). The inspectors also take environmental samples to verify the concentration of U-235. They would have to be kicked out of the facility and their video cameras taken down for Iran to do this.

[Emphasis mine]

I don't know who the "some physicists" are but I'd like to know their names and what they base their opinion on.

I have to ask: Cui bono? (Who benefits?) Pentagon budget, maybe. Or some behind-the-scenes power play among military Brass and the Obama administration. I don't know, but it stinks.

--the BB