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Summary If Iran decides to make a nuclear weapon US will have a little more than a year to act and stop it.
The US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said this on Tuesday .Its roughly about a year right now. A little more than a year. And so ... we think we will have the opportunity once we know that theyve made that decision, take the action necessary to stop (Iran), Panetta said on CBSs This Morning program.He said the United States has pretty good intelligence on Iran. We know generally what theyre up to. And so we keep a close track on them.Panetta said the United States has the capability to prevent Iran from building an atomic bomb.We have the forces in place to be able to not only defend ourselves, but to do what we have to do to try to stop them from developing nuclear weapons, he said.The United States and Israel believe Iran is working toward developing nuclear weapon development capability. Israel, widely thought to be the Middle Easts only atomic power, says a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to its existence.Iran says its nuclear work is for peaceful energy purposes only.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday ramped up threats to attack Iran, saying if world powers refused to set a red line for Tehrans nuclear program, they could not demandthat Israel hold its fire.
