Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=FEBRUARY 11, 2003

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=JOSEPH CIRINCIONE

NUMBER=3-530

BYLINE=TOM CROSBY

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=

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HOST: The U-S State Department says it has "grave concerns" that Iran's nuclear program is actually a pretext for pursuing nuclear weapons. Spokesman Richard Boucher says Iran's admission to mining its own uranium raises serious questions whether its nuclear program is peaceful. Sunday, Iran's President Mohammed Khatami said his country is extracting uranium from a newly discovered mine and is building two plants to convert it into fuel for nuclear power.

Joseph Cirincione (sir-inn-see-oh-nee) is among those who find this to be a very troubling development and a further indicator the United States may find itself confronting several nuclear crises in the months ahead. He is with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He tells VOA's Tom Crosby the Iranian claim to have discovered uranium worries him:

MR. CIRINCIONE: Absolutely. This fits in with recent disclosures that Iran was planning to build or is in the process of building two previously unknown facilities connected with its nuclear complex -- one a uranium enrichment facility, what you need to take uranium and enrich it to the point that it can become either nuclear fuel or nuclear bomb material; and the second is a reprocessing facility apparently, what you need to take the uranium rods that have gone through a reactor and extract the plutonium from them, which then could be used in a bomb.

Now, all of this is technically legal. They're allowed to do this under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, as part of a peaceful civilian nuclear program, a power program. But what it means is that Iran will quickly -- that is, over the next five years or so -- develop both the expertise and the technology necessary for the construction of nuclear weapons.

MR. CROSBY: Is this to say then that we have two neighbors in the Middle East, Iran and Iraq, both with nuclear ambitions?

MR. CIRINCIONE: There is no question that Iran has nuclear ambitions. They have not pursued a dedicated nuclear weapons program the way Iraq had or Israel had or Pakistan had, but they are definitely acquiring the expertise and the technology. And that could be turned towards a nuclear weapons program in the future.

The good news is that none of this is going to happen quickly. It's not like you can order an Acme uranium enrichment plant and have it delivered to your door and have it set up in operation. This still takes years of construction, years of development, and will require the importation of technology from other countries. So, there are still levers that the United States and other countries can use to try to slow down this program or convince Iran to keep it solely for peaceful purposes.

MR. CROSBY: Is this to say then you don't see the Bush administration trying to look in three directions at once when it comes to armament programs, Iraq, North Korea and now Iran?

MR. CIRINCIONE: It points to how complex these problems are and that there aren't necessarily military solutions to them. It's unthinkable that you would use a military strike against Iran the way we're thinking about for Iraq. It points out that, for the administration, they have to be doing multiple things at once. It isn't sufficient to focus just on Iraq. You've got to be paying attention to North Korea and Iran at the same time, lest those programs develop too far and become too entrenched for us to stop them.

MR. CROSBY: Is there a possibility, when we look at Iran and Iraq -- again, as we said earlier, both countries with nuclear ambitions -- that we could see old enemies forming an alliance?

MR. CIRINCIONE: Well, Iran does not have an alliance with Iraq, and it's almost inconceivable that they would. They are historic adversaries. Iran and North Korea, however, have a trade in missiles, could develop a trade in nuclear technology, and there might even be a bank shot with Pakistan on this. Iran doesn't deal directly with Pakistan, but North Korea does.

There is a whole network of expertise and technology that involves some people we think of as allies and some people we don't. You can't just be picking the good guys and the bad guys out here. You've got to address this underlying problem of nuclear proliferation, the spread of these technologies, and the political and regional dynamics that encourage people to seek these weapons out.

HOST: Joseph Cirincione (sir-inn-see-oh-nee), a nuclear non-proliferation specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

VNN/TC/RS