Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Foreign Policy & News 1992 Netanyahu Says Iran Close to Nuclear Weapon

Apparently many US congressmen and senators have fallen for this line of bovine scat or been threatened or blackmailed into cooperating with Israel. This deadly hoax has been repeated so often and so loud that many Americans have been fooled into believing that it is true. All of the world’s major intelligence agencies have unanimously stated that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program and their research is strictly In the area of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. In fact Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has given a fatwa against nuclear weapons. For those unfamiliar with the power structure in Iran, he is the real power broker. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is mostly there for show. His power is quite limited.

What many of us may not recall is that this drumbeat about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program began many years ago. Netanyahu is on record as early as 1992 claiming that Iran was “close” to having a nuke.

Scott Peterson at the Christian Science Monitor did a useful timeline for dire Israeli and US predictions of an imminent Iranian nuclear weapon, beginning 20 years ago.

1992: Israeli member of parliament Binyamin Netanyahu predicts that Iran was “3 to 5 years” from having a nuclear weapon.

1992: Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres predicts an Iranian nuclear warhead by 1999 to French TV.

1995: The New York Times quotes US and Israeli officials saying that Iran would have the bomb by 2000.

1998: Donald Rumsfeld tells Congress that Iran could have an intercontinental ballistic missile that could hit the US by 2003. (no link to CSM right now, it didn't work for me.)