How long?

In an Haaretz article on March 11, 2006, the following appeared:

“[Israel Defense Forces chief Moshe] Ya’alon also reportedly estimated that Iran would have the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb within six to 18 months, and would actually have the bomb within three to five years”.

An Israeli contact asks the obvious questions:

I’ve been reading such estimates of when Iran will have the bomb for many years now, and they always appear to list a few months to a small number of years as the time this will supposedly happen. (The figure of five that Ya’alon used this time is actually a high upper limit.)…  That’s what estimates were 5 years ago, that’s what they were two years ago, and that’s what they are today. These couldn’t all be right, and the impression one gets is that there’s more propaganda than science behind such official “estimates”.

Has anyone kept track of these estimates emanating from Israeli sources over the years?

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