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(AP Photo/Fars News Agency, Ali Shaigan)
Iranian state media today said the military has successfully test-fired Shahab and Sejil missiles, which are capable of reaching much of the Middle East, including Israel and American bases in the Gulf. The move comes just days after revelations of a secret nuclear enrichment program, and just days before multi-party talks on Iran’s nuclear program that will involve the United States. Anchor Jeb Sharp speaks with Charles Duelfer, a former US intelligence officer and weapons inspector. Download MP3
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JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp, and this is the World. The United States, Britain and France today condemned the latest missile tests that Iran has conducted. Iran shot off ballistic missiles that have sufficient range to hit Israel and US bases in the Middle East. The move comes just days after revelations of a secret nuclear enrichment facility in Iran. And it comes just days before the US is to sit down with Iran in multiparty talks on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Charles Duelfer headed up the Iraq Survey Group, which searched for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Duelfer says the newly revealed facility in Iran shows that the country could make a nuclear weapon faster than we thought.
CHARLES DUELFER: It indicates a certain level of planning and expertise on the part of Iran to build in place a way of making a very short timeline between when they would do something that would be observable to the outside world and when they would actually have a nuclear weapon. This is to say they could use their declared nuclear facility to make uranium of a certain level of enrichment, then shift to the new site for more highly enriched uranium. The net effect is to shorten the warning time that the outside world would have before they achieve their weapon. It could be as low as a month or two.
SHARP: So, would it be fair to say the United States and its allies want this facility inspected in part because they need to see if it changes their calculations about how close Iran may or may not be to an actual bomb?
DUELFER: That’s correct. It would be much more difficult for Iran to deny they’ve got a weaponization program and just a civilian program. They’ve been stating categorically they have only a program for civilian purposes. It’s very difficult to explain its new facility under these terms. This is going to be a point of enormous friction with Tehran, because they’re going to have a very tough time explaining this.
SHARP: I’m curious to see what you think about the way this has unfolded. It seems the western powers knew about this program, but did not report it to their publics or the IAEA, and it’s being reported now that Barack Obama was briefed on it before his inauguration. So help us understand the advantage of sitting on the intelligence for so long.
DUELFER: Well, I don’t know what President Obama was thinking. It may be a part of a considered strategy of how to approach Iran on this. They just recently had elections, obviously. And I think there was a decision by the White House not to do anything to disturb the process of the Iranian elections. It may also be that the information about that facility was not 100 percent certain. It in fact was Iran which acknowledged it first. Somehow they got wind of the fact that the IAEA and others were being briefed on this facility, and they came forth almost preemptively. It’s interesting to note, I think, that Tehran has probably learned a great deal from the Iraq experience. Their behavior appears from the outside to be carefully calculated to minimize the lead time and the information that would be available to the outside world that would incontrovertibly point to a weapons program, not just a civilian program on their part. They are pursuing long-range ballistic missiles as you said in your introduction. That is a long lead item. But it is not something which is definitely connected to a weapons program. They are producing enriched uranium which they argue is for a civilian program. That again is a very long lead item. The shortest lead items are those things which are associated only with a weapon. A nuclear bomb. And it would appear from the outside that they have learned a lesson from Iraq in terms of how to proceed in a fashion that provides the least amount of evidence to the outside world about their intentions.
SHARP: Charles Duelfer, thanks very much.
DUELFER: Thank you very much.
SHARP: Charles Duelfer headed up the Iraq Study Group searching for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction after the US-led invasion. He’s also author a new book, “Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq.”
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