Press Briefing with Stephen Hadley on the Iranian Nuclear Program (Excerpts)

November 15, 2006

Weapon Program: 

  • Nuclear

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Q: Have you gotten any sense that Russian opposition to a harder-hitting U.N. Security Council resolution has weakened at all, or are they still fairly opposed to the U.S. draft?

MR. HADLEY: Well, I, on the margins of this meeting, talked to Igor Ivanoff, by counterpart, as some of you saw me come in to do. We had a good discussion about that. I think basically the strategy that all of the countries who are working together on this have come up with is sound. I think the Russians think it's sound. We have to have a Security Council resolution to show that there are consequences for the Iranians not responding and not meeting the requirements of the international community, as reflected in the Security Council prior resolutions and as reflected in the resolutions of the IAEA board of governors. And that's why we're working on a resolution.

The issue is just what should be in the resolution, how much do you do in this resolution, how much do you save for a second resolution if you need one down the road? These are largely tactical considerations. But the strategy, I think, there is agreement on: We need a resolution; we need to show that there's some consequences; we also need to keep the door open to negotiations if the Iranians are willing to come and suspend and be willing to talk about the very, I think, forward-leaning offer that was put by the EU3 plus three, with the support of all the rest of us here months ago.

So it is common strategy, push the Security Council resolution, keep the door open for negotiations if the Iranians are willing to do that, and the rest of it is basically tactics. Look, we have these struggles on these resolutions all the time, and they result in a lot of press stories about disarray among the international community. But I would remind you that over the last two or three years, when the time has come, the international community is able to pull together -- whether it's been the IAEA board of governors, whether it's been the U.N. Security Council.

So I think this is just part of a diplomatic process, you know. It's a little bit like sausage making -- it's not pretty, and a lot of it spills out into the public. But I think the international community has held together on this issue and I think we will again. The issue is the tactics, how much do you do in this resolution now, how much do you save for a later time. And, you know, those are issues on which we'll work out.

Q: Does the IAEA finding of trace amounts of plutonium and highly enriched uranium -- does that add to the urgency of this?

MR. HADLEY: Well, it's troubling. It adds to the reason we're in this, which is suspicions by the international community that Iran -- contrary to what they say -- is not pursuing a civil nuclear program, but has something more nefarious. It's further evidence of -- the finding of plutonium is troubling, because it has weapons implications. But equally troubling is the fact that so much of this keeps spilling out, so much of it is not in a forthcoming way disclosed by Iran. If they have nothing to hide, you would think they would want to make a full disclosure. Yet, as the IAEA report indicates, the IAEA is unable to close the door on the questions they have, which raises a question about Iran's intentions and whether they might have a nuclear weapons program. And this recent discovery just adds to the concerns and to the real reservations and suspicions the international community has that something more is going on here.

Again, I want to say, as the President said so many times, a civil -- we are not opposing Iran having a truly civil nuclear program. This President is a big apostle of civil nuclear energy. That is not the problem; we are not trying to hold back Iran or hold back the Iranian people. The problem is, as the IAEA report shows, there's a lot of suspicion that what is going on here is a cover for a nuclear weapons program. And that's why we're worried so much about the enrichment, because the enrichment is the capability that is a route to weapons grade material -- and that's why --

Q: This all comes at a time when there's a lot of discussion about Iran being a potential weighing-in in Iraq, and perhaps try to lower the temperature there. Is it possible to have conversations on, sort of, two separate tracks at the same time with Iran?

MR. HADLEY: Look, I think the interesting thing is we'd have this conversation, we have a structure for dealing with Iran on the nuclear issue; we have offered, as you know, to join those discussions if they will suspend their enrichment program. There's not a trade-off between the two. Iran needs to respond to the will of the international community and find a way to resolve these suspicions about its program. Similarly, Iran ought to have an interest in having a unified and a stable Iraq, and a good relationship with the Iraqis. They ought to. It is in their interest. And the Iraqis have been talking to the Iranians very clearly about that, that it's time for Iran to stop activity that destabilizes the government and try and take steps that stabilizes the situation in Iraq. It's in Iran's interest. It is a message we send; it's a message the Iraqis send. And the Iraqis, quite frankly, think they're the ones who ought to be saying that message, because it is their country, after all.

So I think these are two separate issues. I think it's clear what Iran needs to be doing in both of them. And the issue is not really one of talking; the issue is one of decisions by Iran to change their policies. And that's what is lacking here.

Q: But in the past, you were willing to talk to Iran about Iraq. It sounds like you're not willing to do that now.

MR. HADLEY: Well, we've talked about that in the past. We had an offer to do that, in a kind of discreet discussion that would be productive. The Iranians went public with it, clearly had an objective or an agenda to do something else with it. And, therefore, it was clear that it wasn't going to serve the purposes we had in mind, so we pulled it down. There's been a lot of talk now -- some people say Iran wants to talk; we're hearing from other channels Iran doesn't want to talk. What I would say to you is, look, it's not the -- what we need is less talk and more action by Iran.

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