[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 110 (Wednesday, September 15, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H7217-H7218]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         THE GREATEST DANGER: IRAN'S PURSUIT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, last month, Iran successfully tested the 
latest version of its Shahab-3 intermediate-range ballistic missile. 
According to Iran's Defense Ministry, the flight was the culmination of 
Tehran's efforts to improve the range and accuracy of the Shahab-3, 
which Western experts believe can strike targets anywhere within Israel 
and also threatens U.S. forces arrayed in neighboring Iraq and around 
the Persian Gulf.
  Tehran's ballistic missile program is worrisome in its own right, but 
coupled with the increasingly alarming details of Iran's nuclear 
program, the danger is magnified.
  For the past year, the United States and our European allies have 
been working through the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, 
to prevent Iran from continuing its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The 
IAEA is considering a draft resolution authored by Britain, France, and 
Germany that will give Tehran until November to reveal in detail its 
nuclear program.
  Our Government has advocated a tougher approach by pressing the IAEA 
to set specific benchmarks for Iran and by asking the agency to refer 
the matter to the U.N. Security Council which has the power to take 
punitive action, including the imposition of sanctions.
  Until Tehran sees that its continued nuclear activities have economic 
and diplomatic costs, they are unlikely to begin serious negotiations 
that might lead to the shutdown of their nuclear program. 
Unfortunately, there does not appear to be sufficient support in the 
IAEA for a tougher line with Iran.
  Over the past 2 years, IAEA inspectors have discovered a number of 
undeclared nuclear activities in Iran that clearly point to a nuclear 
weapons development program, despite assertions by Iranian officials 
that one of the world's leading oil exporters was building nuclear 
reactors to produce energy.
  Inspectors have found evidence of unreported uranium imports from 
China, in 1991, as well as uranium enrichment programs using both 
centrifuges and lasers. The IAEA also uncovered Iranian efforts to 
reprocess plutonium and evidence of efforts to produce polonium 210, an 
isotope that can trigger a nuclear explosion.
  In November of last year, the European Union secured an Iranian 
declaration that it would suspend all enrichment and reprocessing 
activities. Tehran also agreed to sign an additional protocol that 
would allow inspectors to provide more tough and unannounced 
inspections. But Iran reneged, and when challenged for its failures, it 
bridled, warning that it was likely to resume enrichment in the future.
  In addition, there is evidence of continued centrifuge-related 
activities by private workshops, calling further into question its 
pledges to the EU.

[[Page H7218]]

  Finally, Iran recently announced that it was prepared to convert 
approximately 40 tons of yellowcake into uranium hexaflouride gas, 
which is the raw material for centrifuge equipment. This is a 
sufficient quantity to produce nuclear weapons.
  There is no doubt that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, along with 
the ongoing standoff with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program, 
constitute the gravest threat to American national security today. How 
we deal with this threat will shape our global security environment for 
decades. When coupled with the desire by terrorists to acquire and use 
these weapons against the U.S., the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran 
and North Korea is petrifying.
  In his new book, Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable 
Catastrophe, Graham Allison, founding dean of Harvard's JFK School of 
Government, states that if a terrorist were to acquire a nuclear 
weapon, its delivery to an American target may be almost impossible to 
stop.
  Since coming to the Congress, I have advocated strengthening the 
Cooperative Threat Reduction Program that seems to secure enormous 
amounts of fissile material in the former Soviet Union and to expand 
that effort worldwide.
  While securing this material is one element of preventing the 
production of nuclear weapons, we also have to make structural changes 
in the global regime that controls the manufacture, transfer and use of 
fissile material for peaceful use by governments. Chief among these 
structures is the ``grand bargain'' of the Nuclear Nonproliferation 
Treaty, the NPT, first articulated by President Eisenhower's ``Atoms 
for Peace'' proposal.
  In exchange for the commitment to forgo the acquisition of nuclear 
weapons and to agree to IAEA safeguards and inspections, the NPT 
guarantees non-nuclear weapons states who are parties to the Treaty 
assistance in developing nuclear energy. The problem with this bargain 
is that it allows nations like Iran and North Korea to access fissile 
material and technological know-how that are necessary precursers to a 
nuclear program. When the state feels confident it is ready to proceed 
with a weapons program, it simply opts out of the NPT. Unfortunately, 
the path of least resistance, the acquisition of a nuclear bomb, may 
run right through the NPT, not around it.
  In February, the President gave a speech in which he proposed a 
series of tough steps. He asked, among other things, for the 40-nation 
Nuclear Suppliers Group not to sell uranium enrichment equipment and 
reprocessing equipment to countries that are not already in possession 
of those technologies. Months have passed. We have done little as a 
Nation in this area, and time, Mr. Speaker, is running out.

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