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Jerry Corsi's remarks on "Atomic Iran" at the Heritage Foundation (transcript)
Iran Freedom Foundation ^ | April 6, 2005 | Dr. Jerome Corsi

Posted on 04/06/2005 8:40:27 AM PDT by Interesting Times

Dr. Jerome Corsi: Thank you. It’s a great honor to be at the Heritage Foundation today, and I look forward to this, really the first speech I’ve given introducing the book “Atomic Iran.” And Rebecca, you're exactly right. I have a nine-year-old daughter and she says to me, “Daddy, the cover scares me.” And I say, “Well that's okay Alexis, it scared Daddy to write the book.”

I wrote this book because Iran with its current leadership, this Islamic republic; the theocracy, the clerics that are ruling Iran today are really terrorists. And in the very early part of my career I had done an enormous amount of work on anti-terrorism. I had worked as Rebecca mentioned with a Top Secret clearance to help the government understand even these Iranian terrorists and what they were capable of doing.

I want to make a distinction -- two distinctions -- these clerics have hijacked Islam and they’ve hijacked Iran. The Iranian people, by and large, between 70 to 90% of the people of Iran want this theocracy done away with. It is not a popular government. Nor does it have anything to do with the true principles of Islam, which I strongly support in the book. Islam is a religion believed by nearly a billion people; it's a fully legitimate religion, and the principles that these mad mullahs represent do not represent anything to do with Islam as a legitimate religion.

Now I want to make a few points very clear: the Islamic Republic in Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons -- we should make no qualms about that. Iran is sitting on approximately one-fourth of the world's proven reserves of natural gas and oil. Nuclear energy is a more expensive form of energy; one that the country does not need to go into the development of. There are nearly 300 sites in Iran dedicated to nuclear technologies, and even the International Agency for Atomic Energy in the United Nations has openly admitted that for 25 years Iran has been lying about its nuclear technologies capability.

We find out new things every week. Last week it came up that the Iranian Republic had purchased cruise missiles from the Ukraine, secretly. Those muscles were capable of holding nuclear warheads. We've had new discoveries saying that they've tested their Shahab-3 missile, which can fly 1700 km fast and accurately -- more than enough to reach Tel Aviv. They have constantly been lying about their enrichment of uranium. They have got one of the largest abilities to enrich uranium in the Middle East including a heavy water plant whose main purpose is to produce plutonium.

What I learned in studying terrorism -- and I was trained by many psychiatrists, watched hundreds of hours of interviews with terrorists, various forms of bad guys, serial killers, etc. -- what I can tell you is they don't think like normal people. Terrorists will sit there and lie to you because they don't share your same attachment to the truth. In fact, they think your attachment to the truth limits you in that it's a vulnerability that they don't share. They’re in a value system beyond; a value system that they think justifies their killing and murdering hundreds of thousands of people. These mullahs in an eight-year war with Iraq sent their own children, wave after wave of children into battlefields and minefields, many times with no weapons, saying, “Well, there will be troops ahead of you who will be dead; pick up the weapons if you get there.” …and with little keys around their necks reminding the children that today they were going to be in heaven because they were about to be martyred. That's not sane thinking to have your own children to go into that kind of a suicidal action.

For 25 years, the mullahs in Iran have been supporting Hezbollah, which they created: the terrorist organization in Lebanon. That terrorist organization has been actively sending suicide bombers to Israel. In fact, the mullahs invented suicide bombing. They invented the whole technique and have argued for martyrs all around the Middle East to attack Israel and the United States. We can see in the television produced by Hezbollah, which is called “Suicide TV” around the world. We banned it in the United States – it’s even banned in France. Hour after hour of television programming, which shows and makes heroes out of the suicide bombers. It shows their mothers talking about how they prepare these children for sacrifice.

The mullahs have said that they will take 200 million casualties in the world if a nuclear conflagration ended up also eliminating the State of Israel, because they have pledged death to Israel and death to the United States. And they mean it. Their rabid anti-Semitic Jewish hatred is almost identical to what we saw from Hitler, and with Hitler we had a holocaust that killed 6 million Jews and a World War that killed at least another 60 million. To get rid of this evil, we could be looking at the possibility that if they have a nuclear weapon, they’ll launch one on Tel Aviv, or bring an improvised nuclear device into the United States and explode it in a major US city through Hezbollah sleeper cells that are probably already here, and that city will most likely be New York.

The danger is intense, especially when you realize that the mullahs have been repressing their own people. Women, for minor offenses, are stoned or hanged. They invented hanging with hydraulic cranes. Regularly, 200 to 300 people disappear every week in Iran, because they’ve spoken out against the government.

These mullahs are living in luxury; they’re a Mafia. They have offshore contracts where they’re raking off oil profits and sharing them in many cases with their friends in Europe. They’ve bought for themselves and their families and their adult children high-rise luxury apartments in the United Arab Emirates. They have their bank accounts, private bank accounts stacked away in Syria or in Europe. At the same time the average person in Iran is living on less than a dollar a day. $200 million a day to these mullahs are going to their personal enrichment, the development of nuclear weapons, and putting money into the United States in the various ways it gets here to buy legitimacy, to have our politicians say that we can work with them, to argue that they should be given nuclear fuel because it's their right as a nation.

All of these things are lies. If they have the ability, they’ll take the same track that North Korea has outlined for them. The mullahs intend to play the world as a fool, to say they will only use nuclear power for peaceful purposes, to claim it's their right by being a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- a bizarre concept, that because they've signed this treaty they have the right now to enrich uranium: that's what they're arguing, and if they get to proceed along this track, one day they'll just announce, as did Kim Jong-il, that suddenly they have nuclear weapons.

Now, I wrote this book to sound an alarm bell; to bring this message to the American people. I know it will not be a popular message. I know we’re going to hear, “Well, there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, so what makes you think there are any problems in Iran?” Well, the world knows. The documentary evidence, which I present in great detail in the book, shows from US government reports, the United Nations reports, experts around the world, that no one doubts that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons track. The question is: how are they going to be stopped?

[complete text is here].


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: atomiciran; iran; iranfreedom; jerrycorsi; madmullahs; middleeastfreedom; nukesinny; proliferation; southwestasia; waronterror
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To: Interesting Times

Isreal won't let Iran nuke them, will they? Isreal is already hated worldwide, and I think our wimpy politicians are counting on that, so why not let Isreal take care of the problem before it becomes too late?

This whole situation is out of control. EVERYBODY knows Iran is going for nukes, and no one will do anything about it. Maybe it's time to thin out the human race, who knows?


21 posted on 04/07/2005 6:36:08 AM PDT by AmericanChef
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To: Interesting Times
The Iranian people, by and large, between 70 to 90% of the people of Iran want this theocracy done away with. It is not a popular government.

The Iranian people are cool.

22 posted on 04/07/2005 2:34:23 PM PDT by GOPJ (Liberals haven't had a new idea in 40 years.)
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To: AmericanChef
Isreal won't let Iran nuke them, will they? Isreal is already hated worldwide, and I think our wimpy politicians are counting on that, so why not let Isreal take care of the problem before it becomes too late?

There isn't any guarantee that the mullahs will decide to hit Tel Aviv first, instead of New York...

23 posted on 04/07/2005 5:54:22 PM PDT by Interesting Times (ABCNNBCBS -- yesterday's news.)
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To: DoctorZIn; Khashayar; Cyrus the Great; freedom44; sionnsar; PhiKapMom; Valin; Howlin; ...
National broadcast ping:

Dr. Corsi's speech at the Heritage Foundation will be broadcast on C-SPAN2 this Sunday night, April 10, at 7:00PM Eastern.

24 posted on 04/07/2005 8:08:49 PM PDT by Interesting Times (ABCNNBCBS -- yesterday's news.)
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To: Interesting Times

BTTT


25 posted on 04/07/2005 8:17:13 PM PDT by Seeking the truth (0cents.com - Pajama Patrol Badges are here!)
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To: Interesting Times

thanks! bump.


26 posted on 04/07/2005 8:28:42 PM PDT by calcowgirl
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To: Interesting Times

Kudos! Thanks for the ping!


27 posted on 04/07/2005 8:36:23 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl (Please donate monthly to Free Republic!)
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To: dervish

" What is the theory, that with the Mullahs gone Iran will abandon nukes?"

A friendly gov't with nukes isn't a problem.

But here's my theory.....When the regime collapses, the people will busy putting their gov't and country and lives back together and nukes won't be at the top of the list. The country's infrastructure has suffered greatly over the past 25 yrs, so there's a lot of work to do and that will take lots of money. They'll put the nukes on the back burner, so to speak.


28 posted on 04/07/2005 9:07:38 PM PDT by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR)
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To: Interesting Times

Walked into a Barnes & Noble last week and "Atomic Iran" was on the first table facing the door as you walked in. Couldn't miss it!


29 posted on 04/07/2005 9:11:29 PM PDT by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR)
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To: nuconvert
Walked into a Barnes & Noble last week and "Atomic Iran" was on the first table facing the door as you walked in. Couldn't miss it!

That cover does kind of jump out at you.

30 posted on 04/07/2005 9:16:34 PM PDT by Interesting Times (ABCNNBCBS -- yesterday's news.)
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To: Interesting Times


THANKS FOR THE PING

31 posted on 04/07/2005 9:46:23 PM PDT by Smartass (Si vis pacem, para bellum - Por el dedo de Dios se escribió)
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To: Interesting Times
Dr. Corsi's speech at the Heritage Foundation will be broadcast on C-SPAN2 this Sunday night, April 10, at 7:00PM Eastern.

Thanks for the ping.

32 posted on 04/07/2005 9:55:06 PM PDT by zot (GWB -- four more years!)
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To: nuconvert

The US would have to gamble that the new government will be friendly, stable, and not have Islamic wild cards. The number of 70% against the Mullahs bodes well for regime change. The 30% Islamist does not bode well for nukes in "friendly" hands. I think the "friendly" prediction is wildly optimistic, and nukes are not a good subject to view with rose colored glasses.

The polls I have seen show popular support for nukes. There is a window here. Once they have a nuke we will be in the same position as we are with NK. And that is dire.


33 posted on 04/07/2005 10:12:14 PM PDT by dervish (Let Europe pay for NATO)
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To: GOPJ

How wonderful would it be to wake up one morning soon, turn on your television and see they've ousted the mullahs and changed the name of the country back to Persia?


34 posted on 04/07/2005 11:26:00 PM PDT by Uncle Vlad
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To: Interesting Times

BTTT!!!!!!


35 posted on 04/08/2005 3:01:56 AM PDT by E.G.C.
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To: Interesting Times; Mo1; Howlin; Peach; BeforeISleep; kimmie7; 4integrity; BigSkyFreeper; ...

National broadcast ping:

Dr. Corsi's speech at the Heritage Foundation will be broadcast on C-SPAN2 this Sunday night, April 10, at 7:00PM Eastern.


ping....


36 posted on 04/08/2005 3:59:45 AM PDT by OXENinFLA
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To: dervish

But the 70% would be running the country, not the 30%. And I don't think the "friendly" prediction is "widly optimistic". The 70% are friendly now.

I don't think the polls can be trusted, and as I said, I don't think the issue is really on the minds of average Iranians. They have so many other problems there. From what I've read, most have said that they don't trust nukes in the hands of the mullahs, and I don't think most of the polls we've seen have really differentiated between nuclear power, and nuclear weapons. The regime has people convinced that they need nuclear power because the oil will run out. They'll find out the truth. And with Saddam gone, I don't think most Iranians feel the threat to necessitate nuclear weapons. (It's the mullahs who view Israel as a problem, not the average person.) That's why I think it will be pushed to the side, and more immediate issues will be put on the front burners.
Time has stood still in Iran since 1979. (with a few exceptions) And the people know they have a lot a catching-up to do to get their country on the road to modernization, again.

Getting rid of the regime now, before the mullahs get closer to having a bomb, is the answer to this situation.


37 posted on 04/08/2005 4:17:04 AM PDT by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR)
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To: Interesting Times
Legacy of Abraham:

These mullahs in an eight-year war with Iraq sent their own children, wave after wave of children into battlefields and minefields, many times with no weapons, saying, “Well, there will be troops ahead of you who will be dead; pick up the weapons if you get there.” …and with little keys around their necks reminding the children that today they were going to be in heaven because they were about to be martyred. That's not sane thinking to have your own children to go into that kind of a suicidal action.

38 posted on 04/08/2005 4:25:29 AM PDT by GOPJ (Liberals haven't had a new idea in 40 years.)
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To: nuconvert

"It's the mullahs who view Israel as a problem, not the average person."

I think this is wholly untrue. Whether it is slowly reversible if and when the indocritinized demonization of Israel, and Jews, ends, remains to be seen. But that is a lengthy process. Iraq has a similar problem.


39 posted on 04/08/2005 5:11:53 AM PDT by dervish (Let Europe pay for NATO)
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To: Interesting Times

Thanks for the ping, IT.

I have to say, I do agree with some of the sceptics here that the situation in Iran is a little more complex than just "bad mullahs, friendly populace", especially when it comes to the country's stance on nuclear power and weapons. Yes, the majority of the people are sick of the mullahs and want democratic freedoms, but they are also patriotic Iranians who are proud of their country's nuclear programme and see it as a symbol of Iran's technological advancement and burgeoning modernity. The problem with airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities is that instead of being seen as a blow against the mullahs' grip on power, it could have the opposite effect of driving moderates into the arms of the mullahs against a 'common enemy' - the US and Israel.

Any thoughts?


40 posted on 04/08/2005 5:19:59 AM PDT by Bombay Bloke
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