Broken Record: Once Again, Fox Analyst Claims Iran Is On The Verge Of Getting Nukes

Fox News national security analyst KT McFarland has again claimed that Iran is on the verge of having nuclear weapons, despite the fact that there are significant questions as to whether Iran is planning to build nuclear weapons at all.

During an appearance on Fox's “straight news” program America's Newsroom, McFarland told co-host Bill Hemmer that “Iran is an expansionist country on the verge of getting nuclear weapons.”

However, there are significant questions about whether Iran is even planning to acquire nuclear weapons. Indeed, 2007 and 2011 National Intelligence Estimates found no conclusive evidence that Iran is trying to build a bomb. According to Greg Thielmann, former State Department intelligence analyst and former Senate Intelligence Committee senior staffer, and Benjamin Loehrke, senior policy analyst at Ploughshares Fund (a global security foundation), the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) November 8, 2011 report is consistent with that finding.

Moreover, in January 31 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper reiterated the fact that the U.S. intelligence community does not know whether Iran will try to build a bomb.

Of course, the claim that Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons is particularly rich coming from McFarland, as she has been warning for years that Iran is just around the corner from having nukes. In December 2008 McFarland said, “Iran is probably two years away from a nuclear weapon. Now, that's really frightening. But that's two years.” In April 2010 she said that “in a couple of months time -- 6 months, 9 months -- we're going to be faced with this choice: bombing Iran or letting Iran get the bomb.” And just earlier this year she distorted comments by Secretary of Defense and former CIA director Leon Panetta to claim that “Iran will have a nuclear weapon in a year or sooner.”