President Barack Obama secretly ordered sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, ramping up a program started by George W. Bush, his predecssor in the Oval Office.
But the program hit a major stumbling block when part of the computer worm "escaped" from Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment plant and made its way on to the Internet, the
New York Times reported.
The worm. developed by the United States and Israel was named “Stuxnet.” The attack operation was codenamed “Olympics Games.”
After the worm's escape in summer 2010, Obama considered closing the whole operation down, the Times reported, but members of his national security team persuaded him that it was worth continung. Within weeks a newer version took out up to 1,000 centrifuges in Natanz.
The Times said it is not clear how effective the Olympic Games program has been in slowing Iran's pursuit of a nuclear bomb. Unofficialy the Obama administration believes it has delayed the program by up to two years, while others note that Iran already has enough enriched uranim to produce five bombs.
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