The insightful (but sometimes unreliable) Debka.com, presumably relying on its sources in Israeli intelligence, has an interesting short post (dated May 13) suggesting that the US and Israel differ on estimates of when Iran will have the bomb. The US estimates 3-4 years, while Israel suggests 2 years:
Ten days before Ehud Olmert pays his first visit to Washington as Israeli prime minister, US intelligence is digging in its heels on its own timeline, which estimates that Tehran needs at least three to four years in stages to reach the point of being able to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium for a bomb and nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. The view there is that military action need not be considered before then.
This distancing from the Israeli estimate cut the ground in advance from the main theme Olmert proposed to raise in his talks with US leaders.
The message Washington delivered in advance of those talks was that Jerusalem would not be allowed to dictate American moves – diplomatic or military – on the Iranian crisis. The Olmert government would be best advised to line up behind Washington on this issue, as did the Sharon government in 2003 before the US invasion of Iraq. . . .
Olmert may be confronted in his talks with the president, vice president and secretaries of state and defense, with an American demand for a guarantee against any unilateral Israeli initiative on Iran without first touching base with Washington.
The Bush administration turned tough, according to DEBKAfile’s Washington sources, after receiving a briefing from two high-ranking US officials on secret talks they held with top Israeli government officials last week. The visitors, Stuart Levey, US Treasury Undersecretary for countering terrorist financing and a National Security Council Iran expert, found the Israeli government ill-informed and unfocused on the specifics of the Iranian nuclear program. They also reported that Israeli officials were not on top of the methods by which Iran finances its clandestine nuclear activities and feeds money to Tehran-sponsored terrorist, including the radical Hizballah and Palestinian Hamas.
I know Stuart Levey only slightly, but he strikes me as a serious and capable guy.
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