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QUESTION: Do you have anything on the P-5+1 meeting yet? Can we make an announcement yet?

MR. MCCORMACK: No, I don't. I'm not in a position at this point to make an announcement. We are working on a ministerial level meeting. We don't have anything to announce at this point. There's been a lot of discussion in the press about, you know, the possible meeting venue in Berlin. I'll let the host of such a potential meeting speak about it before I do. But we have been working on a ministerial level meeting. Nick Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, has been talking to his political director counterparts about the elements of a resolution about -- as well as about language of a resolution. If ministers were to get together, I would expect that they would talk about it -- a resolution as well as mapping out a strategy for the road ahead after passage of a third Security Council resolution.

QUESTION: Nick Burns spoke with his colleagues during a conference call or --

MR. MCCORMACK: Individually.

Yes.

QUESTION: What might this road ahead be? I mean, what would you like this road ahead to be? I mean, do you know if there's been incremental sanctions? I mean, what's your --

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, the basic strategy has been to gradually increase pressure upon Iran to try to get it to change its behavior to come into compliance with the demands of the Security Council which, by the way, have the force of international law. I don't expect there will be any deviation from that overall general strategy, but they will talk about how exactly they might proceed afterwards. I'm not going to try to prefigure what the conversation might entail. We haven't even announced a meeting yet, so I'm not going to start talking about what they might discuss in a meeting that has not yet been announced.

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QUESTION: Could you discuss the impact that the NIE assessment has had on this entire process? I know Chancellor Merkel suggested that it is at the very least loaded. What's your assessment?

MR. MCCORMACK: I haven't really had a chance to talk to our folks about their assessment of whether or not it has slowed the process. A couple of reactions. One, it was a change in the assessment by the intelligence community. And I think that, of course, that gets attention around the globe. But as the President has said, it does not say that Iran is not a threat in the past and will not be a threat if it continues to develop a nuclear weapon. That is our assessment that they have been a threat, remain a threat, and will be an even greater threat if in fact they continue along the pathway to uranium enrichment and maintain the possibility of developing a nuclear weapon. The NIE says that it halted the military portion of their program.

The other part to the international reaction that I have been able to glean in discussing with people around the Department, but what they've heard from people overseas has been shock that Iran, in fact, did have a military program aimed at militarizing their nuclear technology so that they could build a bomb and that they had made some degree of progress toward that goal up until 2003. Now, they did respond, according to the NIE, to international pressure. And again, an important point to remember as we're having this discussion in the international community. Apparently, it is possible to get Iran to change its behavior in the assessment of our intelligence community.

So those were a few of the lessons that I have heard people take away from this process. One, they had a military program. Iran needs to answer those questions. Two, they can -- they are susceptible to international pressure in terms of changing their policy course.

QUESTION: Sean, why would that be a shock that Iran had some kind of military program and that they were seeking to weaponize?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well --

QUESTION: I mean, you haven't been, you know, exactly 100 percent clear all along, but you've been talking in terms of that you believe that they do. So why all of a sudden now that your suspicions have come true is this a shock?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, not a shock to us, but in the international community -- a shock, surprise; perhaps shock is too strong a word.

QUESTION: But why would it be a surprise if this is what you were suspecting all along?

MR. MCCORMACK: I suppose it's just a matter of reading it in black and white. You can talk to others in the international system, other states about their reaction to it. I can only give you a general characterization of a few of them. You know, shock might be too strong a word; perhaps surprise and alarm -- mixed with some alarm about the fact that they had a military program and that they were making progress toward that goal and also a desire to get answers from Tehran about what was the nature of that program and how far did they go.

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