My answer: to justify stealth bombers.

That might - - might, though I don't think so - - explain the request in and of itself, but not the "emergency." I agree with Dave that we won't be bombing Iran anytime soon, but it seems to me that this is a purposefully public step towards developing a more robust "Plan B."

Anyone who thinks making a nuclear bomb is as simple as getting some uranium, and slapping it together is deluded.

That's pretty much how Little Boy worked. Two pieces of enriched Uranium, quickly put together to form a sphere of critical mass.

First one must create an isotope of uranium named U-235 which is unstable.

You don't actually create U-235, you remove as much U-238 as possible from natural uranium. U-235 has a half-life of 700 Million years, so it is relatively stable.

The US spent billions of dollars and countless man-hours learning how to make a fusion device.

And most of that knowledge is now publicly available. See this list of Uranium enrichment methods.

I seriously doubt the Iranians have that technology yet.

Iran already has a facility for enriching uranium with gas centrifuges, a more efficient process that the USA is just now starting to use.

James: Sorry for all the links, but I wanted to cite whatever seemed relevant.

Per Mr. Hayden's cogent observation, this assertion makes no sense.

WASHINGTON | The Bush administration plans to roll out an unprecedented package of unilateral sanct...

It was World War THREE. And that is what we are going to get if Ahmed Obama-Nejad attains the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb.

The funny thing is that they already know _how_ to build a nuclear bomb. It turns out that fission bombs are not very complex, Uranium bombs in particular require nothing more than the Uranium itself. They also know _how_ to obtain and purify the fission materials.

The only thing keeping Iran from having a bomb right now is logistics: getting everything they need, putting it together, and cleaning the fuel. Like everything, their options are fast, good, and cheap (pick any two). If you skimp on quality, you get a fizzle like the DPRK's test, and with all of Ahmedinijad's spending on keeping the Iranian poor happy with him, plus the current international attention to Iran's nuclear projects, he probably can't divert a large amount of money to it right away, so they're probably taking the slow good+cheap route.

(who himself just blathered on about WWII with respect to Iran). So, please forgive those of us who are a little jumpy about the administration's intentions with respect to "Axis-of-Evil" club member Iran, whether now or anytime until January 2009.

Typical liberal distorting the facts. Bush said NOTHING about "WWII."

It was World War THREE. And that is what we are going to get if Ahmed Obama-Nejad attains the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb.

They’re dealing with incredibly limited options.

Can someone again remind me why doing nothing in Iran is bad for us?

The first group is the “Bomb Iran Now” club, whose members will take the Administration’s reluctance to bomb as yet another sign of the Administration’s stupidity and fecklessness.

the "bomb iran now" club happens to include the sitting vice president, his advisors, and people like Norman Podhoretz who recently had a heart to heart with POTUS (who himself just blathered on about WWII with respect to Iran). So, please forgive those of us who are a little jumpy about the administration's intentions with respect to "Axis-of-Evil" club member Iran, whether now or anytime until January 2009.

Could this be as simple as wanting to put this on the newest weapons platform as opposed to say the B-52 which are being flown by the grandsons of the original pilots of the plane?

My answer: to justify stealth bombers. Their utility today is significantly less than it was in the Cold War days—they’re an artifact of the belief that we’ll face a high-tech superpower adversary. But they still have their exponents who are looking around for justifications for having more of them.

Heh. I'm reminded of a friend of mine in college who was absolutely convinced that the reason the U.S. spent so much money on ridiculously high-tech military equipment is because the Pentagon had incontrovertible evidence of a hostile E.T. threat.

What's more amazing is that he believed this even when sober.

That continues to be my sense of the Administration’s thinking on Iran. They’re dealing with incredibly limited options.

However, the consequence of our limited options could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.