Jerry Corsi's remarks on "Atomic Iran" at the Heritage Foundation (transcript)

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?

IT, I'd be interested to know your thoughts on the timetable for regime change in Iran. I've heard guesses from various pundits that the summer will the crunch time for the diplomatic process. Do you think that is correct? Do you think that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Bolton et al have much faith in a diplomatic solution? Is it when, not if, we resort to the military option? Will it be sub-contracted to Israel or will it be a US show? Is the US public ready for it? What are the scenarios for how the region will look after a successful airstrike? What will happen in Iran?

Any informed opinion on this stuff greatly appreciated.
Thanks
BB

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.

The situation is hardly simple, of course, but the difference between the "Death to America" mullahs and the generally pro-America populace is nevertheless striking, and presents a real opportunity. The problem with Iran's nuclear program is that it is clandestine, and that it's in the hands of murderous fanatics. That's a far different proposition than a transparent, inspected program used for peaceful energy generation. I agree that airstrikes on the nuclear facilities, either by Israel or the US, would almost certainly solidify public support for the regime.

Taken together, these points seem to indicate that supporting reform within Iran is the best path.

I suspect that, regardless of the Administration's views, Israel isn't going to sit on its hands once its intelligence community is convinced that a nuclear Iran is imminent. If that doesn't happen, I'd expect the Administration to continue on the diplomatic track at least until after the June 17 elections.

My understanding is that although there are some 300 nuclear facilities in Iran, only a dozen or so are critical. Since these are mostly buried, hardened facilities, it seems likely that US bunker-busting technology would be required to do the job right. I'd expect such a strike to be quick, intense, and immediately followed by disclaimers that any further action is contemplated.

What would the Iranian regime do in response? That's difficult to say...

Leaving aside whether Dhimmi status in and of itself is anti-Jewish (and anti-Christian) and leaving aside the historical anti-Semitism in Iran pre-Khomeini, especially outside the cities, the point remains that since the 1979 Islamic revolution there has been a carefully nurtured and provoked demonization of Israel and Jews. That is 26 years of propaganda to overcome. Not to mention that anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment is ubiquitous all aver the Muslim world. Their presses rant with it even in the most moderate Muslim countries. But Iran will be the solo exception embracing Israel immediately upon overthrowing the Mullahs? I think not.

Further you say that the President of Israel is Persian. No he is a Persian Jew and an Israeli. Israel is full of Persian Jews, and that irrelevance is clear by how Persian Jews are viewed right now in Iran despite the fact that they are not Israeli. German Jews were Germans too and that made little difference to the Nazis.

I agree with Bombay Bloke’s points on Iranian nationalism widely supporting nukes. Further BB nailed the bind the US is in – they correctly think a military solution to Iranian nuclear ambition is necessary but they realize that will result in alienating many reform minded people who they believe are so pro-US. Thus I consider it likely that Israel will be used to take out the nukes while the US will try to maintain deniability. Whether Iranian populace will buy it is not a bet I would take.

Nevertheless to leave the nuclear program extant in hopes that a popular revolution will solve it is suicidally irresponsible. Have we learned nothing from Clinton’s NK delusions?

One would hope that a reform minded Iranian government which came into existence with US support, who you claim would oppose nukes and be US and Israel friendly, would forgive the elimination of such a program to which they were not really attached. In fact it is arguable that if the Iranian majority is opposed to the nuclear program and feels the Mullahs have ill-used them in that respect, their destruction may be one more impetus for change.

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