Investors Business Daily, Editorial, June 24, 2008

WMD: Only last fall, the head of the U.N.’s nuclear “watchdog” said Iran would need three to eight years to acquire an atomic bomb. Now he says six months to a year. Is he dishonest or incompetent — or both?

The new estimate by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), came in an interview with Al-Arabiya TV last week.

The interviewer followed up by asking the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner if he was asserting that “if Iran decides today to expel the IAEA from the country, it will need six months to produce weapons.” To which ElBaradei replied: “It would need this period to produce a weapon, and to obtain highly enriched uranium in sufficient quantities for a single nuclear weapon.”

Compare that with what ElBaradei told France’s Le Monde newspaper last October: “Supposing that Iran does intend to acquire a nuclear bomb, it would need between another three and eight years to succeed.”

And contrast it with what he said two years ago to the Monterey Institute of International Studies: “Our assessment is that there is no immediate threat . . . we still have lots of time to investigate.”

How exactly, in so short of a time, did we get from a period of up to eight years — “lots of time to investigate” — to as little as six months? It has become quite obvious that the much-lauded Mr. ElBaradei cannot be taken seriously. He also cannot be trusted.

The production of an Iranian bomb itself is not the only concern. Iran’s Islamofascist regime is also feverishly developing missiles with which to carry its future weapons of mass destruction.

Dinshaw Mistry, professor and missile proliferation expert at the University of Cincinnati, warns of the development or acquisition of missiles that “would give Iran the capability to strike Western Europe. A 3,000-kilometer-range Iranian missile could reach Rome and Berlin; a 4,000-kilometer-range missile could reach London and Paris.”

Iran may well have missiles of such range up and running before a missile defense system is operational in Europe, expected in about 2012.

What’s more, if Iran acquired North Korea’s improved 10,000-kilometer-range Taepo Dong technology, it might even be able to deliver a nuclear bomb to a U.S. city.

“If North Korea successfully tests such a missile during 2008-2010, and these missiles or their major subsystems such as engines and airframes are transferred to Iran,” Mistry writes, “then Iran could plausibly have a few ICBMs by 2012-2015.”

And the ballistic missile launch earlier this year for Iran’s aspiring “space program” might be cover for developing Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) capability.

Perhaps ElBaradei thinks Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs just want to drop copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion over a few infidel metropolises. The IAEA chief’s latest stunt: threatening to resign if an attack on Iran takes place.

The free world ought not to shed a single tear if he does. ElBaradei has been instrumental in letting Tehran play a deadly waiting game. Last year he even proposed that Iran be permitted to continue some of its uranium enrichment.

Now he adds to his litany of outrages these wildly conflicting assessments regarding how much sand is left in Iran’s nuclear hourglass. All in all, he is a man doing the opposite of his job description — to make the world safer from nuclear weaponry — and the sooner he goes, the better.