Germany’s top spy agency said Iran could have an atomic bomb within four to six years, playing down a report in that the government in Tehran could detonate a nuclear device within six months.
The German prediction is in line with a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate issued in November 2007, a spokesman for Germany’s BND intelligence agency said today in a telephone interview. He declined to comment on the report on Stern’s Web site.
Stern cited an unidentified agent at the BND as providing the six-month timeline. Agency experts told the magazine Iran could test a device underground, as North Korea has done.
