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Iranian Nukes: Here We Go Again?

Aired June 19, 2003 - 14:25   ET

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

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


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the Bush administration is publicly pleased with the U.N. agency's public rebuke of Iran. The subject is nukes and Washington's claims that Tehran is secretly working on bombs. Iranians say they want to generate power, not controvert. But the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran failed to report some key activities and kept important sites under wraps. It also says Iran is taking steps to cooperate and it sets out no ultimatum weapons -- or no weapons allegation, rather. U.N. inspectors, the so-called "axis of evil," as the president's referred to it as.
The Iran debate already generates at least as much heat as light. So LIVE FROM turns to the cooler head of Jim Walsh. Of course, Dr. Walsh directs the Managing the Atom Project at the Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Jim, nice to see you.

JIM WALSH, MANAGING THE ATOM PROJECT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Nice to see you again, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. It's a pleasure.

All right. Let's lay this out. President Bush now -- I mean the subject keeps coming to light, back and forth, back and forth. We hear about it, we don't hear about it. Now the president is coming forward is saying -- Look, Iran, plain and simple, will be dangerous if indeed it has nuclear weapons. Let's just lay out the dangers and let's talk about why we care about this.

WALSH: Well, I think you're right to point to that part of the president's speech, Kyra, because I think we've reached a line that we haven't reached before with regards to Iran policy. He said the U.S. will not tolerate Iran developing a nuclear weapon. That's the starkest statement he's made so far on the topic.

The concern is that Iran will get nuclear weapons at some point. And we don't want any more countries to get nuclear weapons than already have them. Nuclear weapons, I think, are inherently dangerous regardless of who owns them. And that's a dangerous region. Remember, of course, Israel already has nuclear weapons and is in that region. Iran's neighbor to the north, Pakistan, has nuclear weapons. So it's a dangerous neighborhood and we need fewer, not more nuclear weapons in the area. PHILLIPS: Now over the past six months, the IAEA has said it has discovered sophisticated facilities. Iran says that is not true, we're reporting everything. What is the truth, Jim?

WALSH: Well, I think there is reason for concern, but not reason for panic.

The reason for concern is that Iran clearly does have a more sophisticated program than we thought even a year ago. They are engaging in an enrichment program, and an enrichment program is crucial here because there are only two ways to build a nuclear weapon: you either have to have highly enriched uranium, or you have to have plutonium. And the plant that they are currently building right now is an enrichment plant and they're hope is that over time they will be able to enrich uranium, they say for civilian purposes. Others worry it will be used for military purposes. So that's the concern.

But I hasten to add, Kyra -- and I think we really have to keep this in mind. We have to keep this in context. There's reason for concern, but not panic. As we look through the Nuclear Age, 30 different countries were interested in nuclear weapon, had some sort of nuclear weapons program. We didn't go and attack all of them. We didn't go and destabilize all of them. There are countries now that have nuclear weapons, Pakistan and India, and we didn't attack them. So just because a country's interested doesn't mean automatically we have to attack them. We have to use the full range of diplomatic and other sorts of tools we have to try to prevent that from happening.

PHILLIPS: Well, Jim, make sense of this to me. An oil rich nation, why would it want to spend so much money on nuclear power to produce energy?

WALSH: Well, that's a great question and I wish I had a great answer for it. Yes, Iran is one of the world's leading suppliers of oil, but more importantly it's the No. 2 holder of natural gas.

They claim that they don't want to be dependent on their oil supplies for the development of their economy. They want to -- that they will need more energy in the future and they want to use that oil for the production of petrochemicals which they can sell and then make more money from it. But I think there are reasons to be skeptical about this.

If you look back in the history of Nuclear Age, there are other countries in the Middle East who have made that same claim or other countries that were interested in nuclear technology simply because they thought it would provide them a technological edge or they wanted technical autonomy. Whatever the reason, I think there's no good reason to have enrichment facilities. And that's the real key here, is enrichment and reprocessing.

And what we want is a dialogue, a negotiation, a way to come to an agreement so that Iran does not develop enrichment or reprocessing.

PHILLIPS: Negotiation versus war, and Jim, I know you're coming out with a new book. The title? When will we see it?

WALSH: Well, that's a great question. I haven't even -- I'm so busy with it I haven't come up with a new title. But those people at CNN , hey should e-mail me at james_walsh@harvard.edu for a title suggestion for a book on nuclear weapons in Iran. I'll take all suggestions.

PHILLIPS: There you go. We'll solicit e-mails for you. Jim Walsh, always a pleasure. Thank you so much.

WALSH: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired June 19, 2003 - 14:25   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the Bush administration is publicly pleased with the U.N. agency's public rebuke of Iran. The subject is nukes and Washington's claims that Tehran is secretly working on bombs. Iranians say they want to generate power, not controvert. But the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran failed to report some key activities and kept important sites under wraps. It also says Iran is taking steps to cooperate and it sets out no ultimatum weapons -- or no weapons allegation, rather. U.N. inspectors, the so-called "axis of evil," as the president's referred to it as.
The Iran debate already generates at least as much heat as light. So LIVE FROM turns to the cooler head of Jim Walsh. Of course, Dr. Walsh directs the Managing the Atom Project at the Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Jim, nice to see you.

JIM WALSH, MANAGING THE ATOM PROJECT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Nice to see you again, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. It's a pleasure.

All right. Let's lay this out. President Bush now -- I mean the subject keeps coming to light, back and forth, back and forth. We hear about it, we don't hear about it. Now the president is coming forward is saying -- Look, Iran, plain and simple, will be dangerous if indeed it has nuclear weapons. Let's just lay out the dangers and let's talk about why we care about this.

WALSH: Well, I think you're right to point to that part of the president's speech, Kyra, because I think we've reached a line that we haven't reached before with regards to Iran policy. He said the U.S. will not tolerate Iran developing a nuclear weapon. That's the starkest statement he's made so far on the topic.

The concern is that Iran will get nuclear weapons at some point. And we don't want any more countries to get nuclear weapons than already have them. Nuclear weapons, I think, are inherently dangerous regardless of who owns them. And that's a dangerous region. Remember, of course, Israel already has nuclear weapons and is in that region. Iran's neighbor to the north, Pakistan, has nuclear weapons. So it's a dangerous neighborhood and we need fewer, not more nuclear weapons in the area. PHILLIPS: Now over the past six months, the IAEA has said it has discovered sophisticated facilities. Iran says that is not true, we're reporting everything. What is the truth, Jim?

WALSH: Well, I think there is reason for concern, but not reason for panic.

The reason for concern is that Iran clearly does have a more sophisticated program than we thought even a year ago. They are engaging in an enrichment program, and an enrichment program is crucial here because there are only two ways to build a nuclear weapon: you either have to have highly enriched uranium, or you have to have plutonium. And the plant that they are currently building right now is an enrichment plant and they're hope is that over time they will be able to enrich uranium, they say for civilian purposes. Others worry it will be used for military purposes. So that's the concern.

But I hasten to add, Kyra -- and I think we really have to keep this in mind. We have to keep this in context. There's reason for concern, but not panic. As we look through the Nuclear Age, 30 different countries were interested in nuclear weapon, had some sort of nuclear weapons program. We didn't go and attack all of them. We didn't go and destabilize all of them. There are countries now that have nuclear weapons, Pakistan and India, and we didn't attack them. So just because a country's interested doesn't mean automatically we have to attack them. We have to use the full range of diplomatic and other sorts of tools we have to try to prevent that from happening.

PHILLIPS: Well, Jim, make sense of this to me. An oil rich nation, why would it want to spend so much money on nuclear power to produce energy?

WALSH: Well, that's a great question and I wish I had a great answer for it. Yes, Iran is one of the world's leading suppliers of oil, but more importantly it's the No. 2 holder of natural gas.

They claim that they don't want to be dependent on their oil supplies for the development of their economy. They want to -- that they will need more energy in the future and they want to use that oil for the production of petrochemicals which they can sell and then make more money from it. But I think there are reasons to be skeptical about this.

If you look back in the history of Nuclear Age, there are other countries in the Middle East who have made that same claim or other countries that were interested in nuclear technology simply because they thought it would provide them a technological edge or they wanted technical autonomy. Whatever the reason, I think there's no good reason to have enrichment facilities. And that's the real key here, is enrichment and reprocessing.

And what we want is a dialogue, a negotiation, a way to come to an agreement so that Iran does not develop enrichment or reprocessing.

PHILLIPS: Negotiation versus war, and Jim, I know you're coming out with a new book. The title? When will we see it?

WALSH: Well, that's a great question. I haven't even -- I'm so busy with it I haven't come up with a new title. But those people at CNN , hey should e-mail me at james_walsh@harvard.edu for a title suggestion for a book on nuclear weapons in Iran. I'll take all suggestions.

PHILLIPS: There you go. We'll solicit e-mails for you. Jim Walsh, always a pleasure. Thank you so much.

WALSH: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com