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American Morning
U.N. Inspectors Find Link Between Iran's Nuclear Program, Military
Aired February 19, 2004 - 08:17 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: U.N. inspectors have found a direct link, they say, between Iran's nuclear program and its military. CNN learning that the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency uncovered centrifuge equipment at an Iranian air force base. The parts, it is reported, would not work at the nuclear sites Iran has declared.
Joseph Cirincione from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is with us now to talk more about it.
Good morning.
Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: My pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
HEMMER: Put this in English for us.
What does this mean?
CIRINCIONE: Sure. What we know about Iran we've learned in the past year, the past 14 months, has been mostly around the facility at Natanz. That's the facility you see in these overhead satellite photographs. And there they've had a first generation centrifuge, something called the P1.
What they've just discovered is parts for a more advanced, super efficient centrifuge, often known as the P2. It's a Pakistan copy of an advanced German design. And this can produce more highly enriched uranium more quickly.
Apparently Iran has not declared this equipment to the IAEA. So we may have a secret program within a secret program. And it may cause a lot of trouble for the IAEA -- for the Iranians at the U.N. Security Council.
HEMMER: Does this surprise you?
CIRINCIONE: Well, yes, I'd have to say it does. The IAEA has been in there now for about seven, eight months, searching. Iran has claimed to have been completely open about this. But what we're learning is that the Iranian program might be like those Russian dolls where you open one and there's always another one inside. They may have already planned that the Natanz facility would eventually become known and they have this other program hidden away at what appears to be an air force base in Iran. And the concern is that they may have been intending to keep this one secret forever.
The Iranian officials, by the way, are declaring that no, no, this wasn't secret, they declared these already and it's just a misunderstanding.
HEMMER: This air force base, take it one step further here, what is that military link, if proven? What does that mean?
CIRINCIONE: Well, what it meant -- it basically means is what you have is a -- it's easier to hide a program there. There's already large structures that you can hide a facility in without suspicion. There's, of course, intense security. And it's not that the Iranians are close to building a bomb or anything like that. They are still years, maybe a decade away from that kind of capability. But they may be intending to have a program that they could have kept secret for several more years to produce a quantity of uranium that inspectors couldn't find.
HEMMER: The bottom line it sounds, listening to you, that this stuff is not too difficult to conceal or keep private, despite the number of inspections going on.
Answer that. And, also, what does the U.S. do at this point?
CIRINCIONE: Well, as it turns out, it is difficult to conceal. They couldn't. The inspectors found it. I mean that's the good news here, that whenever you...
HEMMER: But you're saying this was a program that may have lasted over a period of 10 years. It seems significant.
CIRINCIONE: Yes. The overall effort seems to have been going on for 10 years, at least. But what happens is when you get to this sort of industrial size that you have to have in order to actually start producing the material, these kinds of programs are very difficult to hide. You have overhead surveillance that can spot them. In this case, we had Iranian dissidents who came forward. And once you let inspectors in the country who can go anywhere, it is very hard to keep these things secret.
I think the jig may be up for the Iranians here.
HEMMER: Very interesting.
Joseph Cirincione, thanks.
Come back.
We'll talk more about it.
Appreciate it.
CIRINCIONE: My pleasure.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Military>
Aired February 19, 2004 - 08:17 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: U.N. inspectors have found a direct link, they say, between Iran's nuclear program and its military. CNN learning that the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency uncovered centrifuge equipment at an Iranian air force base. The parts, it is reported, would not work at the nuclear sites Iran has declared.
Joseph Cirincione from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is with us now to talk more about it.
Good morning.
Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: My pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
HEMMER: Put this in English for us.
What does this mean?
CIRINCIONE: Sure. What we know about Iran we've learned in the past year, the past 14 months, has been mostly around the facility at Natanz. That's the facility you see in these overhead satellite photographs. And there they've had a first generation centrifuge, something called the P1.
What they've just discovered is parts for a more advanced, super efficient centrifuge, often known as the P2. It's a Pakistan copy of an advanced German design. And this can produce more highly enriched uranium more quickly.
Apparently Iran has not declared this equipment to the IAEA. So we may have a secret program within a secret program. And it may cause a lot of trouble for the IAEA -- for the Iranians at the U.N. Security Council.
HEMMER: Does this surprise you?
CIRINCIONE: Well, yes, I'd have to say it does. The IAEA has been in there now for about seven, eight months, searching. Iran has claimed to have been completely open about this. But what we're learning is that the Iranian program might be like those Russian dolls where you open one and there's always another one inside. They may have already planned that the Natanz facility would eventually become known and they have this other program hidden away at what appears to be an air force base in Iran. And the concern is that they may have been intending to keep this one secret forever.
The Iranian officials, by the way, are declaring that no, no, this wasn't secret, they declared these already and it's just a misunderstanding.
HEMMER: This air force base, take it one step further here, what is that military link, if proven? What does that mean?
CIRINCIONE: Well, what it meant -- it basically means is what you have is a -- it's easier to hide a program there. There's already large structures that you can hide a facility in without suspicion. There's, of course, intense security. And it's not that the Iranians are close to building a bomb or anything like that. They are still years, maybe a decade away from that kind of capability. But they may be intending to have a program that they could have kept secret for several more years to produce a quantity of uranium that inspectors couldn't find.
HEMMER: The bottom line it sounds, listening to you, that this stuff is not too difficult to conceal or keep private, despite the number of inspections going on.
Answer that. And, also, what does the U.S. do at this point?
CIRINCIONE: Well, as it turns out, it is difficult to conceal. They couldn't. The inspectors found it. I mean that's the good news here, that whenever you...
HEMMER: But you're saying this was a program that may have lasted over a period of 10 years. It seems significant.
CIRINCIONE: Yes. The overall effort seems to have been going on for 10 years, at least. But what happens is when you get to this sort of industrial size that you have to have in order to actually start producing the material, these kinds of programs are very difficult to hide. You have overhead surveillance that can spot them. In this case, we had Iranian dissidents who came forward. And once you let inspectors in the country who can go anywhere, it is very hard to keep these things secret.
I think the jig may be up for the Iranians here.
HEMMER: Very interesting.
Joseph Cirincione, thanks.
Come back.
We'll talk more about it.
Appreciate it.
CIRINCIONE: My pleasure.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Military>
