Another nation blazed the trail for Iran in developing a nuclear program

Another nation blazed the trail for Iran in developing a nuclear program
By Walter Pincus March 9 at 7:19 PM 


Iran may be following the path of another country as it seeks clandestinely to develop a capability to produce nuclear weapons.

Was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remembering his own country’s success in hiding its nuclear weapons program in the 1960s from U.S. inspectors when he questioned whether inspections will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon?

“Iran not only defies inspectors, it also plays a pretty good game of hide-and-cheat with them,” Netanyahu told the joint meeting of Congress last week.

Excuse the metaphor, but the elephant in the House chamber was that Israel blazed a trail decades ago. Its own clandestine building of nuclear weapons facilities in the Negev desert began 60 years ago, and the country now has about 200 nuclear bombs and missile warheads.

When Israel began building a reactor with France’s help, its officials in June 1960 described it to the U.S. Embassy there as “a textile plant” and later as “a metallurgical research installation,” according to a March 1964 memo prepared for then-National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy.

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/another-nation-blazed-the-trail-for-iran-in-developing-a-nuclear-program/2015/03/09/0222ec28-c41c-11e4-ad5c-3b8ce89f1b89_story.html