WORLD: Iran 'poised and able to build nuclear bomb within months'

Iran is ready to build a nuclear warhead and is merely waiting for the word from its Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah, to manufacture its first bomb, it was reported today.

Intelligence sources said that the country halted a nuclear arms research programme in 2003 which allowed it to create weapons-standard uranium. They said that Iran could feasibly make a bomb within a year on an order from its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A US National Intelligence Estimate two years ago concluded that Iran had ended the programme because of a threat to invade Iraq by America.

But the intelligence sources told The Times today that Tehran had in fact stopped the research because it had achieved its goal.

Iranian military scientists had found a way of detonating a warhead that could be launched on its long-range Shehab-3 missiles, the sources said.

They added that it would take six months to enrich enough uranium and another six months to assemble the warhead, should Ayatollah Khamenei give the go-ahead.

The Iranian defence ministry has been running a secret nuclear research department for years. It employs hundreds of scientists and researchers, in a programme costing billions of dollars, to develop technology alongside the civilian nuclear programme.

The sources said: "If the Supreme Leader takes the decision [to build a bomb], we assess they have to enrich low-enriched uranium to highly-enriched uranium at the Natanz plant, which could take six months, depending on how many centrifuges are operating. We don't know if the decision was made yet."

Iran could have created smaller, secret facilities, away from those at the heavily guarded bunker in Natanz province, to develop materials for a first bomb, The Times says.

International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors only track nuclear material produced at monitored sites, and not the number of centrifuges that Iran has built.

Washington has given Iran until next month to start talks on its disputed nuclear programme. But hopes of a breakthrough have receded after the Iranian regime's crackdown on pro-reformist protesters after June's presidential elections.

British intelligence services are familiar with the secret information about Iran's experiments, sources at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said.