Alexander Ward, Lara Seligman and Dustin Volz
WSJ, June 17, 2025
“I don’t care what she said, I think they were very close to having them.”
Before launching its attack on Iran last week, Israel provided the U.S. with intelligence it deemed alarming: Tehran was conducting renewed research useful for a nuclear weapon, including on an explosive triggering system.
But U.S. officials briefed by the Israelis weren’t convinced that the information pointed to a decision by Tehran to build a bomb, according to a senior intelligence official, another U.S. official and two congressional aides familiar with the discussions.
The gap between Israel’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear program and that of the U.S. helps explain why the two allies haven’t been aligned in recent days on dealing with Tehran.
The intelligence Israel shared within the last month covered multiple lines of Iranian research into technology necessary for building a nuclear weapon, according to the U.S. officials. They described “a multi-point initiation system,” a technique used to detonate multiple simultaneous explosions that is used in nuclear bombs, the officials and aides said.
The Israelis also mentioned Iran’s work on neutron particles to generate a chain reaction—a critical part of nuclear fission—as well as on plastic explosives and on integration of fissile material in an explosive device, the U.S. officials said.
The U.S. response was that the intelligence only showed Iran was still researching nuclear weapons, including revisiting work it had done before its nuclear weapons program shut down in 2003, the senior intelligence official and the other U.S. official said.
The U.S. and Israel largely agree that Iran has in recent months put itself in a stronger position to build a nuclear bomb. Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. ...SOURCE