A couple of items from the WikiLeaks trove suggest that State
Depatment officials do not take particularly seriously Israeli
predictions about when Iran will obtain a nuclear weapon.
That’s because those predictions are so often wrong.
There’s a candid discussion of the matter in a about Israeli views on Iran (emphasis ours):
GOI [Government of Israel] officials have given different
timelines for when they believe Iran will have full enrichment
capability. In February, PM [Ariel] Sharon told the Secretary that he
believes there is still time remaining to pressure Iran, but that the
window of opportunity is closing quickly. DefMin Mofaz cautioned that
Iran is “less than one year away,” while the head of research in
military intelligence estimated that Iran would reach this point by
early 2007. Technical experts at the IAEC predicted that Iran would have
enrichment capability within six months of the end of the suspension
agreement. A few GOI officials admitted informally that these
estimates need to be taken with caution. The head of the MFA’s [Ministry
of Foreign Affairs] strategic affairs division recalled that GOI
assessments from 1993 predicted that Iran would possess an atomic bomb
by 19… >>>
