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Iran has much of what it needs for N-bomb: US
US fears that Iran might pass "the point of no return" where nobody could stop it from building a bomb.
The US State Department has said that Iran has much of what it needs to build a nuclear bomb and lacks only the know-how to put the pieces together.
The comments by spokesman Sean McCormack on Tuesday constituted the second worrying assessment by the US in the last two days as it stepped up efforts to mobilise support for UN action against Tehran.
McCormack said that the Iranians had highly trained scientists, electrical infrastructure, raw materials and machining equipment necessary for producing an atomic bomb.
"They have many of the pieces, many of the capabilities that are needed in order to finally build a nuclear weapon," he told reporters. "They have not yet meshed together all of those capabilities.
"There are still certain techniques and pieces of know-how that we do not believe that they have simply by the fact that they don't have a nuclear weapon yet," McCormack said.
He fears that Iran might pass "the point of no return" where nobody could stop it from building a bomb.
On Saturday, the US had finally won approval from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report Iran to the Security Council which could eventually impose sanctions.
