Although it has been known for a long time that Iran's violations of the nuclear agreement brought it within a few weeks of a bomb - from the moment the decision was made - on Tuesday the administration even gave an exact number.
No. 3 at the Pentagon, US Undersecretary of Defense Colin Kahl, testified before lawmakers in the House of Representatives in Washington and was asked about the state of the Iranian nuclear program and President Joe Biden's strategy to delay it.
Kahl said that the Biden administration is interested in principle in bringing the nuclear deal back to life, some five years after the US withdrawal under the previous administration, and to illustrate the apparent benefits of the move, he used the number 12.
"We need the agreement because Iran's progress in the nuclear field since our departure is significant," Kahl said.
"So, in 2018, before the Trump administration decided to leave the deal, Iran needed about 12 months to get enough fissile material for one bomb; today [if it decides to go ahead with a bomb], it would take 12 days."
Iranian media
For a long time now, the US administration has been claiming that the "break-in window" for the bomb has been significantly reduced from a year to a few weeks in light of the amount of highly enriched uranium that Tehran has.
However, this is the first time that the specific number of days has been spelled out, even if it is apparently a rhetorical device intended to create an illustration compared to 12 months.
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