Senator Joe Lieberman: News Release

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) addressed the Wehrkunde conference on security policy in Munich on Saturday. Below is the full text of his remarks:

“Thank you so much, Horst. It is a pleasure to be back at Wehrkunde, and an honor to share the rostrum with Foreign Minister Steinmeier, Dr. El Baradei, and Mr. Roth.

We face a daunting set of arms control challenges throughout the world today. But in my remarks this afternoon, I would like to focus on a particular threat: the nuclear ambitions of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In focusing on Iran, I do not mean to minimize the seriousness of the other arms control challenges we confront. But the fact is that the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program have galvanized the world community into joint action as few other matters have in recent years.

That is entirely appropriate because if the Islamic Republic succeeds in acquiring a nuclear weapons capability despite our best efforts, it would strike an irreparable blow to the viability of the global nonproliferation regime.

For this reason, Iran’s nuclear program is not only a threat in itself. It is also the front line of our global battle to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. If we do not work together to get Iran right, a great deal else in the world is likely to go very wrong.

Some people inside and outside the United States have seized on the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear activities to diminish or even dismiss the nuclear threat from Iran. That is a profound mistake.

Although the NIE reported that Iran’s covert work on bomb design may have been temporarily suspended in 2003, it also said—far more importantly—that Iran’s overt work on enrichment continues apace.

Indeed, it is that now-overt enrichment program, which began as a covert program carried out by Iran in violation of both its NPT obligations and its safeguards agreement with the IAEA, that will allow Iran to obtain the fissile material that remains the greatest hurdle to developing nuclear weapons. And it is that overt enrichment program that has been the focus of two United Nations Security Council resolutions.

But the fact that the Iranian government may have secretly suspended its weaponization work in 2003, and that went undetected for years, also tells us that Iran could restart this component of its program and it again could go undetected for years. The NIE itself expresses only “moderate” confidence that Iran has not already done so. And other respected national intelligence services believe that Iran already has restarted its nuclear weaponization program.

There are many people who make a habit of denigrating our intelligence services. I do not enjoy that sport; these men and women work very hard, many at great risk to themselves, to ensure the safety of America and its allies.

But neither do I make the mistake of believing in the infallibility or absolute impartiality of people in intelligence. Intelligence should be about informing decision makers; it should not be about empowering analysts and researchers to become decision makers.

The release of the NIE prompted some to speculate that international efforts to prevent Iran’s nuclearization would collapse, but thankfully they have not. I am very grateful that our coalition has proven more steadfast and more determined than many of the doubters predicted.

A great share of the credit for this is due to the governments of Great Britain, France, and Germany, and I know that I speak for members of the U.S. Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, when I say to our partners in London, Paris, and Berlin: thank you for your determined leadership on this issue. Thank you for not using the NIE as an excuse to go to sleep while Iran presses forward with its nuclear program.

In particular, I would like to thank Foreign Minister Steinmeier for his effective diplomacy on the third UN sanctions resolution, and for hosting the meeting in Berlin that produced the draft resolution that the permanent Security Council members have now agreed to.

The adoption of this resolution by the full Council, hopefully later this month, should send an unambiguous message to Tehran that, whatever false hopes may have been kindled by the misleading of the NIE, the world shares one opinion on the question of Iran’s illegal nuclear activities: they must end.

Even now as we work to ensure the adoption of a third round of Security Council sanctions, we must also look ahead to what other steps we can take together that will reduce this threat. I would suggest that we consider action in three areas.

First, we must ensure that the resolutions that the UN has imposed are actually upheld. Under the current sanctions regime, countries are responsible for monitoring and reporting on their own behavior. This is an inherently inadequate arrangement, since many governments lack the technical capacity to ensure compliance, while others—in all frankness—lack the political will to do so.

The Security Council has in the past authorized the creation of independent committees to ensure that its resolutions are being properly monitored and implemented. These committees have been composed of expert investigators who are based in the field and empowered to work with considerable autonomy to determine whether the UN’s resolutions are being observed and implemented. They have been used to monitor UN sanctions against Sudan, Somalia, Liberia, and al Qaeda, among others.

There is an urgent need now to create a similar special committee to monitor the sanctions we have adopted, and will adopt, against Iran.

Second, all of our nations have a responsibility to abide by not only the letter, but the spirit, of the Security Council resolutions, and to do everything in our power to ensure that they succeed in their purpose—which is convincing Iran to suspend its enrichment activities.

For this reason, the French and British governments have recently proposed that the European Union should expand its own set of targeted sanctions against Iran, above and beyond those which have been authorized by the Security Council. It would be very effective and significant for the EU to do this—and for other responsible stakeholders in the international system, including our allies in East Asia and the Middle East, to follow Europe’s lead.

Some nations are unfortunately using the sanctions regime as an opportunity to expand business ties to Iran and reap profits, at the expense of the rest of the world. For example, it is outrageous when Germany makes the principled decision to curtail its exports to Iran, only to watch as the People’s Republic of China moves in and exploits that decision for its own commercial advantage.

This is more than just self-serving behavior. It ensures that the sanctions regime is less likely to persuade Iran to suspend its illicit nuclear activities—and that, in turn, increases the likelihood of military confrontation.

The power to prevent war with Iran lies disproportionately with those who have the greatest economic leverage over Iran. They have a responsibility to use it, and soon.

Third, even as we continue to strengthen the ad hoc sanctions regime specifically designed to pressure Iran, we must also develop country-neutral rules that would spell out, in advance, the punitive steps to be taken against any country that abuses its obligations under the NPT as the Iranians have done—a kind of universal criminal code for nuclear proliferators.

If a government is caught abusing the privileges of the NPT or exploiting safeguards loopholes, it should be made to forfeit at least temporarily some of the rights enjoyed by other NPT signatories that have respected the terms of the treaty. At a minimum, any such country should be required to dismantle or surrender all nuclear materials and equipment that it acquired covertly. We might also consider a country-neutral rule that would require any such violator to submit to intrusive, wide-area inspections for at least a decade and prohibit it from enrichment, reprocessing, or nuclear related exports during this time.

Of course, as a matter of international law, all signatories to the NPT bear the same burdens and obligations. But as a matter of common sense, the track record of a regime matters enormously in evaluating its nuclear intentions and its nuclear activities. Put more bluntly, a track record of deception and denying information to the IAEA and the UN is not one the world can afford to ignore.

In this sense, the problem with Iran goes far beyond the regime’s continued refusal to adequately answer a particular set of questions about its past activities. The Iranian regime set up a covert enrichment program in violation of its safeguards obligations and acknowledged it only after it was caught in its deception. Iran’s enrichment program makes no economic sense, as they still don’t have even one operating nuclear power reactor—and the one they are building has at least a 12-year guaranteed fuel supply from Russia. No other country has built an enrichment capability before it had the reactors in place to burn the fuel that was to be produced.

In light of this and Iran’s many other deceptions reaching back over the past several decades, the international community is justified in doubting Iran’s professed peaceful intentions in the nuclear area. Until Iran restores international confidence that its program is peaceful, the international community is justified in demanding that Iran suspend its activities. Restoring confidence will take more than answering questions. It will require a sustained pattern of conduct that reassures other countries that Iran is not secretly embarked on a nuclear weapons program.

That is why I think Chancellor Merkel got it exactly right when she said last year, “The world does not have to prove to Iran that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. Iran must convince the world that it does not want the bomb.”

Finally, let’s recognize that the international community is also concerned about Iran’s nuclear activities and intentions because of the way the Iranian regime conducts itself, in both its repressive treatment of its own people and its rogue behavior on the world stage.

It is time to consider ways to reform the rules of our global nonproliferation system so that they can both reinforce, and be reinforced by, other international norms that we have a vital collective interest in—such as the promotion of human rights and the protection of the rule of law, and the prevention of genocide and terrorism.

Given the uniquely terrible destructive power of nuclear weapons, we should take uniquely powerful precautions to prevent their acquisition by any regime whose leaders have openly called for the destruction of another sovereign state, or that has a long-established and well-documented track record of arming and supporting terrorist groups, or of brutally suppressing the human rights of its citizens—all of which the current regime in Iran has done.

Distinguished delegates, the dangers of a nuclear Iran cannot be denied, diminished, or dismissed. There is no room for complacency, and no excuse for inaction, about this threat.

The question now is NOT whether we recognize the nature of the danger, but whether we, who are privileged to lead the international community, will summon the insight, determination, and courage, to address this danger before it is too late.

Lieberman Presses Europeans for New Iran Sanctions