Israel: Time runs short to stop Iran nuke

WASHINGTON -- Iran is less than a year away from being unstoppable in its goal of producing a nuclear weapon, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview with CNN released Saturday.

In a transcript of an interview to air on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" program Sunday, Barak said Israel was focused on the prospect of a nuclear Iran and what "should and could be done about it on time."

"It's true that it won't take three years, probably three-quarters before no one can do anything practically about it because the Iranians are gradually, deliberately entering into what I call a zone of immunity by widening the redundancy of their plan, making it spread over many more sites with many more hidden elements," he said.

Barak, a former Israeli prime minister, said a report earlier this month by the UN nuclear watchdog that Tehran appeared to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be conducting secret research had had a sobering effect on world leaders and was driving urgent, intensive diplomacy.

Also , a government-run Iranian newspaper reported that a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander killed in an explosion at an ammunition depot west of Tehran on Nov. 12 died while testing an intercontinental missile. The paper quoted the commander's brother, himself a Guard officer.

The International Atomic Energy Agency report confirmed long-standing concerns that Iran aims to build a nuclear weapon, which Israel sees as a threat to its existence. Tehran has said its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The United States and Israel have not ruled out possible airstrikes on Iran's nuclear sites.