In his State of the Union address Bush mentioned Iran five times. He definitely would like to bomb that country and is looking for reasons to do so.

But in the U.S. the press has started to investigate government claims instead of just repeating them. Without media and public support, a decision to bomb Iran based on unproven facts would lead to impeachment.

But there are still some folks in the U.K. press that are available to spin up reasons to bomb Iran.

Con Coughlin, a so called journalist and the UK’s Judith Miller equivalent, has several times peddled neo-con lies and MI6 disinformation.

Today he is at it again with a conspiracy piece based on one anonymous source and full of impossible facts. In the Daily Telegraph he writes: N Korea helping Iran with nuclear testing

North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year.

Under the terms of a new understanding between the two countries, the North Koreans have agreed to share all the data and information they received from their successful test last October with Teheran’s nuclear scientists.
…
A senior European defence official told The Daily Telegraph that North Korea had invited a team of Iranian nuclear scientists to study the results of last October’s underground test to assist Teheran’s preparations to conduct its own — possibly by the end of this year.
…
As a result, senior western military officials are deeply concerned that the North Koreans’ technical superiority will allow the Iranians to accelerate development of their own nuclear weapon.

"The Iranians are working closely with the North Koreans to study the results of last year’s North Korean nuclear bomb test," said the European defence official.

"We have identified increased activity at all of Iran’s nuclear facilities since the turn of the year," he said.

"All the indications are that the Iranians are working hard to prepare for their own underground nuclear test."
…
Intelligence estimates vary about how long it could take Teheran to produce a nuclear warhead. But defence officials monitoring the growing co-operation between North Korea and Iran believe the Iranians could be in a position to test fire a low-grade device — less than half a kiloton — within 12 months.

The precise location of the Iranian test site is unknown, but is likely to be located in a mountainous region where it is difficult for spy satellites to pick up any unusual activity.

Conspiracy Coughlin has another piece to the accompany the above, The ominous relationship between North Korea and Iran, and he has his editors chipping in with some ridiculous musing of their own: Strange bedfellows – but dangerous none the less

Hmm – so where to start?

North Korea has tested a plutonium bomb. The plutonium was extracted from spend nuclear fuel rods that had previously been used in a nuclear reactor. This after North Korea left the Non-Proliferation-Treaty and IAEA inspectors had left the country.

Iran does not even have the means yet to make nuclear fuel to fill a reactor. It does not have a working reactor either. It thereby does not have any spend fuel rods that could provide plutonium. Its nuclear installations are under IAEA supervision.

To enrich enough Uranium for nuclear fuel, to build a reactor, to "bread" the fuel and to extract plutonium and to prepare a bomb 8-10 years of unhindered, unsupervised nuclear engineering would be needed. It also would have to happen without any of the problems that usually occur in such processes.

But Iran is, according to Coughlin’s source, suspected to do a test within 12 month?

A "low grade device – less than half a kiloton" would be much more difficult to make than a multi-kiloton device. It took the U.S. years of experimenting and tests to be able to make small devices. The North Korean test was so small because it was dud, i.e. the test FAILED.

As for satellites and "mountainious regions" – here is something for Mr. Coughlin to learn. Satellites do indeed fly ABOVE the earth and look DOWN. They see things on the surface of mountains just as well as on the surface of a flat desert.

But some basic science and fact checking is not needed for fanatic ideologists who want to start another mayhem in the Middle East. Be they at the AEI or the Daily Telegraph.