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Amanpour

The Nuclear Physicist Negotiating for America; Officer Charged with Murder after Video Surfaces; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 10, 2015 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Tonight: is the question of sanctions relief already muddying the waters that swirl around Iran's nuclear deal?

I ask a key insider on the talks, the U.S. energy secretary, top physicist and technical negotiator advising President Obama on the fine print.

Also ahead, America this week has been rocked by another fatal police shooting. Protesters take to the streets, body cams on order for the cops.

But when it comes to prosecutions, the numbers will shock you.

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the special weekend edition of our program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

As the reality of a far-ranging nuclear deal with Iran begins to sink in, it was becoming clear this week how many objections and obstacles are

still in the way of a final agreement. On Thursday, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, expressed his concern, taking to Twitter to accuse the West

of, quote, "lying and breaching promises," an accusation triggered by a White House fact sheet on the deal that he says didn't accurately reflect

the agreement.

In a speech on Iranian television --

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AMANPOUR: -- in the United States, Democrats and Republican opponents to the deal are backing a bill that would give them the right to reject any

final agreement.

So can this deal be closed?

I spoke to one of President Obama's closest advisers, the most important technical expert on America's negotiating team, Energy Secretary

Ernest Moniz. He joined me from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Secretary Moniz, welcome to the program.

ERNEST MONIZ, U.S. SECRETARY OF ENERGY: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: This is, many people say, an amazing thing. You yourself have said, quote, "We have blocked all pathways to a nuclear bomb by Iran."

What makes you so sure?

MONIZ: Well, it's a combination of things. Certainly we have imposed some very strict limits on what they can do in particular in the

first 10 years, although there are additional restrictions that go on for 15, 20, 25 years and some even longer than that.

Those block Iranian pathways; they block a plutonium pathway.

But probably most important of all, we have extraordinary access and transparency requirements so that we cannot only reinforce these direct

plutonium and uranium breakout possibilities, but also we believe we'll have excellent insight into any possible covert activities.

AMANPOUR: Can I ask you specifically about the inspections? People who have looked at the fact sheet that's been put out seem to be quite

amazed that this amount of transparency was achieved.

Can you tell us is it any place, anytime? Is it additional protocol plus? And is transparency a deterrent as some have suggested?

MONIZ: Well, we certainly think so on your last point. And it is additional protocol plus. For example, we will have -- or, I say we, but

of course in the end, it's the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors will have access throughout the entire supply chain going all

the way back to uranium production through centrifuge manufacturing to actually operating facilities.

And some of these measures, for example, on the early parts of the supply chain will actually last for 25 years. So these are pretty

extraordinary, I think, measures. But we thought it was essential. Let's face it, we wouldn't be where we are today with international sanctions et

cetera if there were not significant suspicions shall we say about earlier activities.

AMANPOUR: In plain English that inspection regime means what exactly?

MONIZ: Well, it means that the inspectors will have continuous surveillance opportunities to all the declared facilities for sure.

There's also put in place a defined time limit in terms of access to undeclared facilities, where there's reason to think there might be

activities not allowed in the agreement.

Furthermore, there's agreement that the IAEA will be able to use all of its advanced technologies, clearly cameras but also a whole

variety of sensors, communications devices attached to seals so that if there is any tampering, for example, that would be in essentially real time

-- a real-time signal to be explored.

So there -- it's really a very extensive set of measures.

AMANPOUR: The framework says that U.S., E.U. and U.N. Security Council will suspend sanctions pending Iranian compliance. Exact steps

required for suspension are vague as is the timing.

Can you please tell us when do these sanctions get lifted?

MONIZ: Well, first of all, I should emphasize that of course Secretary Kerry is our lead negotiator and was particularly engaged in

that. But basically as a general statement what I'd say is that the core nuclear provisions must be satisfied, the provisions that give us our

confidence in at least a one-year time period to any possible breakout before the sanctions start to gradually come off, a lot still needs to be

worked out in terms of the exact timing and the triggers for various stages of the sanctions relief.

AMANPOUR: Well, can I just ask you because are you talking about, I don't know, two months, 18 months? These things that you're saying have to

be done, how long does it take to do those?

MONIZ: Well, of course, that will be to a large extent in the hands of the Iranians. There will be a number of steps to be taken such as the

one of reducing a stockpile, such as reducing to the number of centrifuges that will be operating, which is about just over 5,000. I would give a

rough rule of thumb of perhaps six months, but could be a bit shorter, could be a bit longer. Again, it will depend upon their ability to execute

those moves.

AMANPOUR: And do you think that's going to be acceptable since they say, you know, once they've signed it immediate or do you have agreement on

a six-month implementation period?

MONIZ: Well, no, again, it's not a fixed six months. It's whatever time it takes them to do it. I'm just giving you a ballpark that I would

guess. As I said, I mean, there's quite a bit of work to do, you know, the 10,000, 10 tons of material and significant reduction in centrifuges, they

will have to be taking out centrifuges, putting them into IAEA monitored storage.

But they will also have to take out the infrastructure to support those centrifuges. They have to do that at Natanz. They have to do that

at Fordo. They have a lot of work to do. And that's why I think six months is probably a realistic guesstimate of the time required.

AMANPOUR: And they got that, did they? They knew that?

MONIZ: Oh, yes, for sure.

AMANPOUR: And can I ask you, you know, you were brought in by Secretary Kerry, by President Obama, to really hammer out the nuclear

physics of it, the technical expertise of it.

What was it like being around the table with the Iranian nuclear negotiator, Salahi? You were both at MIT during the '70s. You didn't know

each other there.

But how did the dynamic change and evolve?

MONIZ: Well, of course, I wasn't there prior to our being involved but I'm told the dynamic did shift. And we had many meetings with

Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Zarif, who, of course, were the leaders of the two delegations, if you like. Always on our side, by the

way, with an E.U. person there as well.

What I would say is -- and certainly in my direct negotiations with Dr. Salahi, that they were, first of all, extremely professional. And I

think we really established a very good personal relationship, which helped us to get into a problem-solving mode as opposed to a posturing mode.

And I think that is what allowed us to work through 20-plus issues and to do so with considerable specificity which encourages me for being able

to reach the 90-day agreement certainly on the issues with technical dimensions.

AMANPOUR: And politically, how do you read and are you encouraged by the fact that so far all the major power centers in Iran, whether it's the

head of the army, the head of the Revolutionary Guard, the speaker of the parliament, all have lined up behind this deal?

MONIZ: Well, yes, obviously that's quite encouraging. And of course I -- we all assume that this could not go forward without a pretty direct

endorsement of the Supreme Leader in Iran.

But I have to say personally what gives me the most encouragement is the support, the public support of the young people in Iran. I think that

hopeful augurs well for the future relationship after a period in which hopefully trust and confidence can be built up in the international

community about the peaceful nuclear motives, at least, in Iran.

AMANPOUR: And on this issue, do you think the President of the United States will have a successful job wrangling support where it matters in

Congress?

MONIZ: Well, I'm certainly optimistic because I think we have a very good case. And in fact the president, by the way, has evidence in some of

the photographs that appeared, the president was very, very directly coupled with us. He is deeply knowledgeable about the agreement and was so

during the negotiations.

So he has a very, very deep knowledge of this and, again, I think he has a good case, a very good case to make. So I'm very hopeful that we'll

be able to move forward with this and, again, provide over 10, 20 years the opportunity for Iran to again regain the trust and confidence of the

international community in their nuclear ambitions.

AMANPOUR: Secretary Moniz, thank you very much indeed for joining me from the White House there.

MONIZ: Thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Driving the news here in America this week, the brutal shooting in the back of yet another unarmed black man by yet another white cop. It

happened in the state of South Carolina. Police say 50-year-old Walter Scott, a Coast Guard veteran and a father of four, had been pulled over for

a broken tail light.

The officer, Michael Slager, is now in jail and charged with murder. He's also been fired from his job. But only after this horrifying cell

phone video surfaced.

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AMANPOUR: The man who filmed this footage, Feidin Santana, told NBC News that it was clear police had Walter Scott under control before he was

shot.

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FEIDIN SANTANA, AMATEUR VIDEOGRAPHER: I remember the police had control the situation. He had control of the -- of Scott and Scott was

trying just to get away from the Taser, was Tasing -- you know, you can hear the sound of the Taser.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had been Tased at that point?

SANTANA: Yes, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You heard the sound?

SANTANA: Yes, we're hearing the sound before I started recording.

And I believe he was just trying to get away of the Taser.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Now the video showed that eight bullets were fired, five hit Scott. Now Santana that he turned over his video to make sure truth

and justice would prevail. And it has sparked a robust debate. The town has ordered body cams for all its police officers. And I asked Richard

Aborn, a former prosecutor and long-time adviser on criminal justice issues whether that might change a national crisis in which police are very rarely

held accountable in these cases.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program.

RICHARD ABORN, PRESIDENT, CITIZENS CRIME COMMISSION OF NYC: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: And you could imagine for an American audience but also for an international audience, this does seem sort of de rigueur here in this

country.

First and foremost, do you think that the swiftness with which the officer was dealt with would have happened if there hadn't been this

incriminating video?

ABORN: No, I don't think it would have happened. In fact, the original statement coming from the police and from the defense lawyers was

that this was a justifiable act in response to a man either resisting arrest or trying to wrestle with the officer over the Taser and thereby

threatening the officer. Clearly the video shows a much different story and shows the power of these videos.

AMANPOUR: Now there was, as I said, quite a rowdy press conference. The mayor and the police chief tried to answer the questions. But one of

the things that they didn't answer was -- and the video shows this -- you know, this is a man who's down for the count.

And yet the first thing the pursuing officer, Slager, shouted to him was, "Down on the ground. Put your hands behind your back," he cuffed him.

ABORN: So that is unfortunately standard police procedure. Whenever they have a person on the ground, I don't think the officer realized that

the man had been shot and killed at that point, so he was following standard procedure. But this is a terrible case from beginning to end. It

is frankly a bit difficult to understand what the defense is going to be in this case.

This happens to be one of the more clear-cut cases that we see. Very often there are many more questions around police shootings. They're not

as clear-cut as this one seems to be.

AMANPOUR: Well, there were eight bullets fired and they hit him. Now the mayor said today and announced that they are ordering more police body

cams. They already have some and he basically assured the public today that every single officer on the street would wear a police cam.

Is that a good thing?

ABORN: Yes, that's a very good thing. We've been advising police departments throughout the country, we're even advising corrections

departments now because they have a terrible problem in our jails that officers wear body cams. And ironically, officers, when they first hear

about this will resist it. They don't want the invasion of privacy. But they find more often than not that the body cams actually help them because

they can explain what sometimes seems inexplicable and they can sometimes stop themselves from being falsely accused of police brutality.

So the cam is sort of this objective view or this objective witness that can help us understand what happened.

But understand a single body cam, a single shot doesn't always tell you the whole picture because actions happen 360 degrees; body cams give

you one view.

AMANPOUR: So it won't be the magic solution, so to speak.

ABORN: But it's very, very helpful, very helpful.

AMANPOUR: Now again, we saw in Ferguson, we saw in New York, the killings of these individuals -- black -- by white police men who weren't

even indicted. So now the mayor of this town in South Carolina came out pretty quickly. And this is what he said when he first had seen the video.

Let's listen.

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KEITH SUMMEY, NORTH CHARLESTON MAYOR: I can tell you that as the result of that video and the bad decision made by our officer, he will be

charged with murder. When you're wrong, you're wrong. And if you make a bad decision -- don't care if you're behind the shield or just a citizen on

the street -- you have to live by that decision.

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AMANPOUR: Well, that's what he said and it was pretty open and pretty frank. And there was a tweet by a very prominent musician who said, "Can

you imagine the amount of murders that went down before the age and development of cellphone videos? This didn't start this year."

ABORN: Well, therein lies the problem. So this mayor clearly learned one of the lessons of Ferguson, one of the big problems in Ferguson was the

city government and the police department did not get information out to the public in a timely way. This mayor's learned that lesson and is doing

that.

We've got to keep the public apprised as to what's going on and be open and transparent about that.

Now speaking of transparency, your viewers may not know that in the United States there is no national reporting requirement that police

shooting is to be reported at some central database, the FBI or wherever. That's wrong. We need to change that. We also need to research what

happens in these shootings because officers are in incredibly dangerous jobs. It is the most dangerous job we have in society. But sometimes they

go wrong but also sometimes they have to use their guns and they kill people and it's the correct thing to do.

So we need to understand what happens in each case.

AMANPOUR: You mentioned that and this is an aspect of quite a lot of controversy right now, the fact that there is no central database and just

to talk about that in terms of statistics, between 2007 and 2011, there were at least 2,715 -- well, the FBI calls justifiable police homicides but

a study by the Bowling Green State University said that only 41 on-duty police officers were charged with murder and manslaughter.

That seems a very out-of-whack proportion. And isn't that the problem, that the police officers almost never get held accountable?

So if you listen to the data site from the FBI, they say there were 2,100, whatever the number was, justifiable homicides --

(CROSSTALK)

ABORN: -- justifiable homicide, there's not going to be indictment. And that's the problem with murders.

AMANPOUR: But is it justifiable homicide because that also raises the question about the bar. Some people say that whenever an officer,

quote-unquote "feels threatened," even if somebody's running away from them -- as was in this case -- that goes into this statistic. That's what --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: -- justifiable.

ABORN: No, that is not what the FBI calls justifiable. There are very clear rules around what constitutes a justifiable homicide. I was a

homicide prosecutor for years. And one of the first things you learn is that you've got to make sure you have all of the facts because the first

story you hear from the police is very often not the real story or the full story.

And then you have to decide not only what happened but whether or not there's any justification for it. It's not like a robbery. Either I

robbed you or I didn't. There's no justification for robbing. But I can be involved in a shooting and it can be self-defense. That's a fully

justifiable act. I can improperly perceive a threat to me. That could be a manslaughter. I could act in a way that's reckless but not intentional.

That's a criminally negligent homicide.

So homicide's a very difficult thing to identify without understanding everything that's going on. And that's why I say all the time we need to

be much more transparent with the public about these cases.

We have to open up the grand jury proceeding much more, make sure the public is reassured that the case has been fully prosecuted, prosecuted

meaning presented to the grand jury. If the grand jury declines to indict, and prosecutors should explain why they think that happened.

We have to reassure the public. Transparency is critical to highly functioning governments.

AMANPOUR: Really interesting, really important, Richard Aborn, thank you very much for joining me --

ABORN: My pleasure.

AMANPOUR: -- thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: This attack has, of course, been covered by America's most trusted voices these days, the late-night satirists. And after a break, we

turn to their Zimbabwean counterparts. Imagine a world of satire in a nation that most definitely does not laugh at itself and where opposition

is brutally struck down -- that's next.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, today the Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe made a state visit to South Africa. The talks with the South

African president, Jacob Zuma, were about economic ties. But what's been making waves online is this new picture, which makes Mugabe look like he's

wearing earrings and sporting a new hairdo.

Now it's easy to laugh when you're outside the country. Inside Zimbabwe, hundreds of his critics have been arrested for less.

But imagine a world where a motley crew of comedians defiantly make fun of the government and the state media from inside the belly of the

beast. That's "Zambezi News."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We bring you the news reliable, like an authoritarian yet loving and fatherly ruler.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Made up of a group of comedians, including two former hip-hop artists and distributed by DVDs, YouTube and elsewhere on

social media, it's been on for three years now and it has 6 million followers who do enjoy the rare spectacle of roasting their government.

And these tongue-in-cheek commercials.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you a high-powered ruler? Do you think it stings from pesky genetics? Do you get marks from dirty opposition

parties? Do you find foreign government in your underwear? You need sovereignty (ph).

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Now mindful of how many activists have been jailed or worse, they know the risk of speaking truth to power. They are

even banned from state media and they are harassed by the police during their live shows.

But they say, "That means that state security must be watching 'Zambezi News,' too. And so I guess that means they're getting the

message. And that's half of our job done."

And that's our job done. That's it for our program tonight. Remember you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on

Facebook and Twitter. Thank you for watching and goodbye from New York.

END