US Warns that if Iran's Nuke Prog. Goes Unchecked, it "Will be Too Late"
April 27, 2004
Kuwait News Agency
KUNA
U.N. -- John R. Bolton, US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, told the Preparatory Committee for the 2005 Review Conference of the parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons that Iran is actively violating its treaty obligations by gaining access to technologies and materials for its nuclear weapons programs.
"If we permit Iran's deception to go on much longer, it will be too late. Iran will have nuclear weapons," he warned.
He said the International Atomic Energy Agency will at "some point" report Iran's non-compliance to the Security Council. If the council is unable to act, it "will not only be a blow to our efforts to hold Iran accountable, but also a blow to the effectiveness of the Council itself and to the credibility of the entire NPT regime".
He accused Iran of concealing a large-scale covert nuclear weapons program for over eighteen years. "It is clear that Iran draws from many of the same networks that supplied Libya with nuclear technology, components, and materials, including the A.Q. Khan network, as Khan himself has confessed".
He said Iran's recent failures to disclose work on uranium enrichment centrifuges of an advanced design and on Polonium-210, and to explain the presence of highly enriched uranium, are clear indicators that Iran continues its quest for nuclear weapons.
Iran has expressed interest in the purchase of up to six additional nuclear power plants, and has told the IAEA that it is pursuing a heavy - water research reactor at Arak - a type of reactor that might be well suited for plutonium production. "This ambitious reactor program is a remarkable venture for a country whose oil and gas reserves will last several hundred years." He argued.
North Korea, he added, also violated its NPT obligations while a party, and then proved its strategic decision to seek nuclear weapons by withdrawing from the Treaty entirely.
Iraq and Libya, he noted, had also violated the NPT, adding that Libya took the "important decision" to disclose and eliminate its weapons of mass destruction programs, a "paradigm that other nations now seeking nuclear weapons should emulate".
"There is a crisis of NPT noncompliance," Bolton stated, "and the challenge before us is to devise ways to ensure full compliance with the Treaty's nonproliferation objectives. Without such compliance by all members, confidence in the security benefits derived from the NPT will erode".
President Bush, he said, is determined to stop rogue states from gaining nuclear weapons under cover of supposed peaceful nuclear technology.
"We must resolve to deal firmly and swiftly with countries whose nuclear programs pose a serious threat to the NPT. We must resolve to send a signal to potential Treaty violators that their actions will not be tolerated. We must resolve to take action now or more and more states could be emboldened to follow the lead of Iran and North Korea, and could hide behind the cover of NPT legitimacy while pursuing nuclear weapons technology," he warned.
"The time for business as usual is over...What will eventually result is a world with an ever-growing number of states possessing nuclear weapons, where terrorists and rogue states would have expanded access to nuclear technology and expertise. In such a world, the risk of catastrophic attacks against civilized nations would be far greater," he concluded.
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