DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - U.S.A./THE WEST/IRAN: IRAN'S NUKES

Intel report to Bush: Iran has nuclear weapons

President George W. Bush said Tuesday that Iran was still a danger and refused to take military options off the table, despite an intelligence report saying it had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. (AFP/Mandel Ngan )

The Bush administration has received intelligence that Iran has acquired nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union.

Intelligence sources said an assessment presented to the White House asserted that Tehran has received at least six plutonium-based nuclear weapons. The assessment said the Iranians were taught by former Soviet scientists how to maintain such weapons via a plutonium processing plant.

"Iran has more than one bomb in the basement," said an intelligence source. "But once somebody in authority says that, we have a political and military crisis that we are not ready for."

The sources said the administration has consistently sought to steer the debate away from whether Iran obtained nuclear weapons. They said in classified briefings to Congress the administration has hinted at the acquisition of Iranian nuclear weapons.

The sources said Iran's plutonium-based weapons are more powerful than those assembled from enriched uranium. They said the plutonium bombs require a smaller warhead to be fitted onto medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles.

The plutonium bombs have been maintained by Iran with assistance from North Korea. Over the last five years, the sources said, Iran has acquired indigenous capability to maintain plutonium bombs.

Iran was believed to have received its first nuclear weapon after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1992. The first suggestion of Iranian nuclear acquisition was contained in an assessment by the House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare in the early 1990s.

In 2004, Iran launched a Shihab-3 ballistic missile with a North Korean-designed nuclear warhead casing. The casing was said to have been empty but meant to determine the aerodynamics of a nuclear warhead.

Over the last two years, the sources said, Iran has assembled a secret reprocessing plant to maintain plutonium bombs. They said Iran has a research reactor that could produce enough plutonium to assemble one nuclear weapon per year.

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1) Intel report to Bush: Iran has nuclear weapons