Our Publications
Policy Briefs
December 3, 2007
The declassified summary of a new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, released on December 3, 2007, concludes with "high confidence" that Iran's efforts to build a nuclear weapon were suspended in 2003, a reversal of previous intelligence estimates that Iran was actively pursuing such weapons. If Iran were to restart its nuclear...
Policy Briefs
November 1, 2007
The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) proposed to create a multinational consortium to provide enriched uranium to Iran and to other users of the material in the Middle East. Under the plan, first reported on the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) web site in November 2007, a uranium enrichment plant would be established in a neutral...
Speeches and Testimony
July 25, 2007
First, I should say that our best opportunity to stop, or at least slow down Iran's nuclear progress was in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan was supplying the foundation for Iran's present centrifuge program. Khan was a known nuclear smuggler, having stolen designs from Europe for a uranium enrichment plant in...
Articles and Reports
May 31, 2007
Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported once again that Iran had defied U.N. Security Council demands to stop enriching uranium. And in response, the United States once again demanded that international sanctions against Iran be made more severe.
This call for sanctions-which has become routine by now-would be a lot more...
Articles and Reports
February 13, 2007
International inspectors confirmed this month that Iran is equipping its uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, a step that brings it closer to building an atomic bomb and brashly defies a United Nations resolution passed in December. So it might seem like good news that the foreign ministers of 27 European Union nations announced yesterday that, in...
Interviews and Podcasts
January 18, 2007
On January 18, 2007, the Wisconsin Project's IranWatch.org web site spoke with William H. Tobey, Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of Energy. Mr. Tobey described U.S. efforts to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1737, and the impact that this...
Interviews and Podcasts
November 7, 2006
On November 7, 2006, the Wisconsin Project's IranWatch.org web site spoke with John C. Rood, Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation. Mr. Rood described international efforts to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear weapon capability, including Europe's past diplomatic initiative, current...
Interviews and Podcasts
October 3, 2006
On October 3, 2006, the Wisconsin Project's IranWatch.org web site spoke with Dr. Skip Fischer, a professional staff member on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Dr. Fischer described the measures that now exist in the United States for sanctioning Iran and the prospect of expanding those sanctions internationally with...
Roundtables
September 19, 2006
Most commentary on sanctions holds that because the United States has severed diplomatic and almost all economic ties with Iran, it has no ability to punish Iran unilaterally. However, the United States has never fully enforced its existing arsenal of domestic sanctions vis-a-vis Iran. So, while pursuing Security Council action, could the United...
Articles and Reports
June 13, 2006
In 1974, when India conducted its first nuclear weapon test, no country was more surprised than the United States. The only nuclear explosive material India had on hand was plutonium, and the plutonium had been made in a Canadian-supplied reactor that India was running with sensitive "heavy water" imported from the United States. India had...