Vice President Biden discusses Iran at the debate. Photo: Screenshot.

In last night’s vice presidential debate, Joe Biden insisted that the Israelis and the U.S. are on the same page with regard to the timeline of Iran’s nuclear program, specifically with regard to the ability of the intelligence communities to detect the beginning of the construction of a nuclear weapon. Here is what he said.

Biden: “The Israelis and the United States, our military and intelligence communities are absolutely the same exact place in terms of how close — how close the Iranians are to getting a nuclear weapon. They are a good way away. There is no difference between our view and theirs. There is no weapon that the Iranians have at this point. Both the Israelis and we know — we’ll know if they start the process of building a weapon.”

But on September 27th, in his address to the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was very clear about his opposition to this precise line of thought. Here are his exact comments:

Netanyahu: “Some who claim that even if Iran completes the enrichment process, even if it crosses that red line that I just drew, our intelligence agencies will know when and where Iran will make the fuse, assemble the bomb, and prepare the warhead…For over two years, our intelligence agencies didn’t know that Iran was building a huge nuclear enrichment plant under a mountain.

Do we want to risk the security of the world on the assumption that we would find in time a small workshop in a country half the size of Europe?”

A video of Biden’s statements on Netanyahu and Iran can be viewed below, starting at 00:54.