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US Ambassador Gregory L. Schulte on Iran, December 11, 2007

Nuclear Proliferation at a Crossroads: Iran, the U.S. and the Arab States, Remarks by Ambassador Gregory L. Schulte U.S. Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Office in Vienna, Brookings Doha Center Doha, Qatar December 11, 2007.

Thank you for being here today to discuss one of the major challenges facing this region and the world nonproliferation regime: Iran's determined pursuit of dangerous technologies in violation of its international obligations.

The NIE's Judgments on Iran's Nuclear Program and the Need for Continued Concern

Last week, the US Administration made public a summary of the National Intelligence Estimate-or NIE-on Iran's nuclear program.

The most-discussed judgment in this report is the assessment that Iran halted its nuclear weapons activities in late 2003 because of increasing scrutiny and international pressure on Iran for its nuclear activities. This halt came at the same time that Iran signed the Additional Protocol and at the same time that Iran agreed to suspend its enrichment activities.

This point has often been misrepresented and underemphasized in world press. What is particularly important is that the NIE notes with high confidence that Iran did, indeed, have a covert nuclear weapons program until fall 2003-a clear violation of Iran's NPT obligations to use its nuclear technology towards only peaceful ends. It also notes that Iran's leadership continues to keep open the option to pursue nuclear weapons, and that Iran's enrichment program-which it continues in contravention of its international obligations-is part of keeping open that option.

The report, however, also gives us good news. It concludes that Iran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons work was the result of concerted and sustained international pressure, and thus suggests that the United States and its international partners have been on the right path in pressuring Iran to accept a diplomatic solution to the dispute over its program.

Yet, we still have serious reasons to be concerned.

The NIE says that Iran continues to develop technologies that could be applied to a nuclear weapon, thus bringing Iran closer to a nuclear weapon if Iran's leaders chose to restart that program.

It says that despite halting the nuclear weapons program in 2003, Iran still could have the capability to produce enough material for a nuclear weapon between 2010 and 2015 if the leadership chose to build one.

At the same time as the NIE reports that Iran is continuing to develop dual-use technologies and Iran gets closer to perfecting some of the technologies necessary to build a nuclear weapon, the IAEA Director General has stated that the IAEA's knowledge of Iran's nuclear program is "diminishing."

Iran's nuclear weapons program could be restarted at any time. The intelligence community's confidence-level that Iran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007 drops to moderate, meaning there is a continuing need to verify Iran's intentions.

Iran will try to exploit the conclusions of this NIE and already has begun to selectively pull from and misinterpret the intelligence community's assessments. President Ahmadi-Nejad called the report evidence that the US and its partners had "filled the world with lies and threats under the forged pretext of Iran's nuclear weapons program." He clearly did not read the summary very closely. The report says that the intelligence community has high confidence that Iran had a nuclear weapons program until fall 2003-a nuclear weapons program that Iran's leadership has never admitted, a nuclear weapons program that Tehran denies existed despite increasing evidence that it did.

The Continued Role of the IAEA

The International Atomic Energy Agency continues to have a key role to play in the case of Iran.

The new information in the NIE makes it even more imperative that Iran come clean on its past and present nuclear activities, including possible nuclear weapons-related work. In view of the confidence gap that Iran created by hiding past activity, the world must have confirmation of these indications that it has stepped away-at least temporarily-from its nuclear weapons program. The IAEA's Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei, has called for a "confession" from Iran about its past and full transparency into the present. We support this call.

Through the work plan, Iran has promised to resolve outstanding issues that the IAEA has identified about its nuclear program. It is certainly important for Iran to answer these questions. We agree with Director General ElBaradei when he said on December 4-after the NIE was released-that "Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities." Resolving these issues is an important start in answering some of the questions that the world has about Iran's nuclear program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Motaki this week called the NIE "proof" that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons, but denied that Iran had a nuclear weapons program previously. Given Iran's history of denials and concealment about its nuclear program, we are not willing to simply take his word for it.

Iran still needs to provide detailed and satisfactory explanations for studies related to uranium conversion, to high explosive testing, and to the design of a missile reentry vehicle. Answers to these questions are long overdue and will-in part-tell us whether Iran has chosen to come clean about its past. We expect Iran to move from a model of minimum disclosure and of answering questions only when confronted to providing willing transparency that illuminates the full scope of Iran's activities.

The Need for Suspension Remains

The Security Council also continues to have a role. Iranian officials have tried to argue that the assessments in the NIE mean that Iran's file was illegally reported to the UN Security Council and that its file should be returned to the IAEA. This is not the case. Iran's nuclear file was not reported to the Security Council because Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program, but rather because it had violated its safeguards obligations and was failing to cooperate with the IAEA, which-despite years of investigation-could not certify the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's programs. The IAEA Board suspected, and the Security Council agreed, that Iran's nuclear pursuits were a threat to international peace and security.

Obtaining fissile material is the pacing element for building nuclear weapons. Thus, Iran's continued pursuit of enrichment in the face of Security Council obligations, and in the face of increasing information about one of the original-and long held-purposes of the program, is deeply troubling and remains a serious threat to international peace and security. The focus of our policy must remain on the verifiable suspension of Iran's enrichment-related activities

The Strategic Decision for Iran's Leaders

In the NIE, the intelligence community judges that Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach that suggests that some combination of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security and prestige goals in other ways, could extend Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program. This is good news, since this is the dual-track that the United States and its P5+1 partners have been following. We are looking to prompt a strategic rethinking in Tehran.

The goal of the UN Security Council process and international sanctions is to persuade Iran that it is more advantageous to cooperate and negotiate than to delay and deny. The United States is ready to engage in negotiations with Iran alongside our partners from Europe, Russia and China with the aim of achieving a long-term agreement to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue. The six P5+1 countries all favor a diplomatic resolution of the issue and continue to keep their June 2006 offer on the table in exchange for suspension of proliferation-sensitive activities.

In fact, in exchange for Iranian cooperation, the six-country proposal offers Tehran much of what it claims it wants from its nuclear program-advanced technologies, economic benefits that would help better integrate Iran into the world economy, a nuclear energy program that would reserve some of Iran's oil and gas for sale on the world market, and guaranteed fuel supply to ensure that those reactors continue to run and to produce energy for Iran's growing population.

Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran's leaders would not make Iran any more secure. Rather, the nuclear pursuits of the leaders in Tehran risk sparking further proliferation in the region that would present all of us-including the people of Iran-with new dangers.

Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons has not given it additional prestige. Rather, Iran's violation of its safeguards obligations and Security Council Resolutions led Iran to become increasingly isolated.

And Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons did not bring it the economic benefits commensurate with a country of its resources. Instead its nuclear pursuits brought Iran under sanction and suspicion that is impeding technological growth and investment.

If Iran's leaders are interested in security, prestige, and economic benefits, they would take up the six countries on their offer rather than pursuing capabilities that cause the world such concern.

Source: US Mission in Vienna, http://vienna.usmission.gov/.

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