The Bloomberg story supposedly says it all — Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days, U.S. Says.

But that’s not quite what the US official quoted in the piece actually said:

“Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days,” Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, told reporters today in Moscow.

Making enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb and assembling an actual device are two entirely different things. I do not know if Bloomberg wrote the misleading headline on its own, or whether an Iranian bomb in three weeks is what Rademaker wanted to suggest — but not actually say outright — with the comment.

Building a bomb takes engineering and metallurgical skills and machinery that Iran may or may not have. Reactor fuel need only be enriched to a very low level, while bomb fuel needs a great deal more work. Uranium spheres must be cast, shaped and honed. Even creating a kaboomable device is not the same thing as creating a militarily usable weapon. Can Iran make a bomb that can be carried by a warplane or put atop a missile? Even with A.Q. Khan’s help, the Iranians still likely to have a lot of nut and bolt skills to learn IF they are building a usable nuclear bomb.

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