07/23/14 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show

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All right you guys, welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton, went a little over time with Grant Smith.
You'll be able to find it in the archives there at scotthorton.org later on.
That was cool.
I said, what's the Israel lobby?
He talked for 10 minutes about all the different organizations just dedicated to towing the Likud party line in DC.
My God, that was really something else, wasn't it?
Oh man.
All right.
Anyway, next up is our good friend Gareth Porter.
He's an independent historian and journalist from IPSnews.net, primarily, also writes for Truthout.
Won the Gellhorn Award for his work on Petraeus and McChrystal's death squads in Afghanistan there for truthout.org.
And he's the author of the book, Manufactured Crisis, the truth behind the Iran nuclear scare.
Welcome back to the show, Gareth.
How are you doing?
I'm fine.
Thanks.
Good.
Very happy to have you here.
And I'm doing fine.
You started to ask, so I know that you're very concerned.
So anyway, hey, listen, last time we talked, you had turned optimist on the Iran nuclear deal.
Yes.
Gordon, I think actually they might just do this.
You said, I'm roughly paraphrasing.
And so now we're back.
They've got the extension and well, you know, I want to know everything you got to say about what's going on.
Yeah, the extension that was agreed to, I think, reflects the underlying reality that they both know that they are going to get an agreement.
They have identified the basic outlines of it.
They've narrowed the differences to the point where they know it can be negotiated.
I mean, they're reasonably confident, I would say very confident that they can do that.
If you look at the remarks again, I think this was already in my story last time we talked.
But the remarks by both John Kerry and Mohammed Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, after their two days of talks, really gave away the nature of the present situation and negotiating situation, which is that they both knew that they had arrived at close to a deal.
What John Kerry said, which we didn't discuss when we talked about it last time, was I think quite revealing.
He said that we have not yet identified, not a direct quote, but a very close paraphrase, we have not yet identified the formula to be used to cover the problem of centrifuge or enrichment capability.
And that's significant because he meant that they really have narrowed it down to a set of solutions.
It's not just one problem.
It's not just reducing the number of centrifuges.
It's a combination of a reduction in centrifuges plus a way of, or possibly more than one way of reducing the stockpile of low-emiss uranium, which I talked about last time, as clearly a necessary part of the deal.
And so the use of this concept of a formula, meaning that it's a more complex solution to the problem than simply Iran agreeing to a reduction, a big reduction in its number of centrifuges, that's a big clue that they were now in the space where it's possible to finish the negotiations.
And of course, the four-month extension takes them into November.
That's theoretically, the end of the four months would be after the congressional elections of the United States.
So this is just another reason for feeling confident, my confidence, that they are going to finish this within a reasonably short time.
They're not going to reconvene, interestingly, the negotiations until September.
They're going to take the month of August plus the rest of July off.
They obviously will somehow communicate with one another during that period, but the negotiators won't sit down formally together until September, and I think they expect to be able to finish it that month.
I'm reasonably confident that's the case.
That's great.
And hey, it just came out the other day that they had finished part of their agreement, I guess a major, for some reason, a major part of their interim agreement, which was that they would go ahead and oxidize all of their 20% enriched uranium-235.
Well, I'm glad you've asked about that, Scott, because, of course, I've been very confused about precisely what was being said by the unnamed senior U.S. official who gave the briefing on the 19th about the agreement to extend the talks.
There was this long paragraph which related to supposedly 2% enriched uranium.
Now no one's ever heard of 2% enriched uranium.
I sent an email to three different people who've been following the Iranian nuclear program very closely.
I said, what's this about?
They said, I've never heard of 2% enriched uranium.
I mean, there is a, you know, if you go to the Wikipedia article on 2% enriched uranium, there is such a thing as called Slightly Enriched Uranium, S-E-U, but nobody's ever heard of it before.
It's never been mentioned by the IAEA, it's never been mentioned by the news media.
Well, guess what?
It turns out that there is an agreement that relates to 2% enriched uranium.
Really?
Yeah, yeah.
And in fact, Iran has committed itself during this four-month period to take, apparently, three metric tons of Slightly Enriched Uranium, 2% enriched uranium, and combine it with depleted uranium, which will produce natural uranium.
And this is the result, one of the results of those talks in the final days to extend the negotiations.
So now precisely the significance of that remains to be explained.
But my guess is that from what I've picked up so far, apparently Iran has a process for enriching the 3.5% or enriching uranium to 3.5% or thereabouts.
I mean, it's never precisely 3.5%, it varies with each batch slightly.
And along the way, they produce, apparently, 2% enriched uranium.
You know, it's in the stream of the enrichment process that comes out at the end of the pipe with roughly 3.5% enriched uranium.
So now Iran has pledged to take the 2% enriched uranium, a stockpile apparently of three metric tons, which is a whole lot of it, which again no one has ever heard of outside the very narrow confines of those people who are most closely associated with this issue.
They've pledged to turn that into natural uranium.
And presumably what this means is that this is part of the process of assuring the P5 plus one that there will not be a stockpile of low enriched uranium that could conceivably be used to be enriched at weapons grade for so-called breakout.
Now, you know, I interpret that to mean that further down the line in the negotiations, they will be discussing doing the same thing for the 3.5% enriched uranium.
In other words, that is going to be at least a major part of the solution to this conundrum of how do you get agreement on the level of enrichment capability for Iran under the agreement.
I did talk to Scott Kemp at MIT and I asked him point blank, is there any reason why this process of blending down would not be used for the 3.5%?
He said, no, it would be fine and the Iranians probably wouldn't have any problem with that.
Huh.
All right.
Well, hold it right there.
And I got a couple of follow-ups for you at least here.
It's the great Gareth Porter, everybody, at Interpress Service.
We're talking about the Iran nuclear deal.
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All right, you guys.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Gareth Porter.
And he's got a new one coming out here real soon on another one on the Iran nuclear program here and the talks about it.
They've got their extension.
And I was happy to hear you say there, Gareth, they're taking a couple of months off before they get back to it.
Good.
That's less time for them to screw it up.
Final details at the end.
How many centrifuges over what amount of time and all the little details to try to work it out.
But as you say, both sides, you know, carry the American side and the Iranian speaking pretty positively about it and all that.
But now, so to get back to what we're just talking about, about the 2%, that's the first I ever heard of it, too.
Obviously, my most likely source if I ever was to hear about it would have been from you.
But I read those IAEA reports on Iran from time to time, especially when it's a real controversial one or something.
I never heard anything about any 2%.
Yeah, it's never been mentioned.
I can tell you there's no there's no such mention in anywhere in an IAEA report.
So this is really quite remarkable.
And I still want to try to get to the bottom of what it means.
It must be safeguarded material, though, right?
Or not?
Well, of course.
Yeah, it is.
I mean, there's no question about that.
This was something that, you know, I presume was was proposed by the Iranians as part of the process of demonstrating their good faith in terms of assuring the P5 plus one that there is no intention to have a capability for breakout.
And again, I would just have to believe that this is related to the the idea that would be logical to to apply it to the 3.5 percent stockpile of low-energy uranium.
Don't they need that for their reactors, the 3.5 or 3.6 percent low-energy?
Well, I mean, here's the thing.
You know, they they have the the contract with Russia to provide the fuel fuel rods for Bush Air until 2021.
Now, the Iranian position, of course, is that they want to and they will be they claim they will be in a position technologically to be able to take over that function by the time the contract comes to an end.
So there I mean, that's been the basis for their claiming that they need to ultimately have the the enrichment capability to be able to support the Bush Air reactor by providing the reactor fuel.
But, you know, I mean, that's that's not going to happen.
In other words, if I make sure I understand you, you're telling me that right now the 3.6 percent, the stockpile of 3.6 percent enriched uranium that they have can be simply a massive bargaining chip to go ahead and give up.
They don't even necessarily really need that at this point.
So they they don't they certainly don't need all of that, you know, for or that they don't need very much of it for the Bush.
They don't even have to be a share reactor for several years at the very least.
And that's part of, you know, the negotiations are going on around, you know, how long it's going to be for for this limitation on their number of centrifuges and their total enrichment capability, meaning the number plus the the quality, the the the degree of of capability for each for each of the centrifuges for the for the duration of this of this agreement.
In other words, how many years are they going to be limited to either the present level of enrichment or something below that?
And so so the Iranians have been, you know, part of their negotiating ploy was to make it look like this is earlier now, not not at present, but at an earlier stage, they were officially staying in negotiations.
Look, we have to have enough capability to be able to provide nuclear fuel for Bushehr, because we're not going to continue this this contract with the Russians.
But the U.S. retort to that was, well, that's not going to happen for quite a few years.
And in any case, we're not going to allow you to have 19 times more enrichment capability than you have right now or that you are using in operation.
So, I mean, in fact, the Iranians never intended, as I understand their position and and as it's played out, they never intended to insist on 190,000 separative work units as part of the immediate agreement, at least, you know, for the next X number of years.
I mean, I think that they were prepared to wait, you know, until well beyond the expiration of the of the contract with the Russians to begin to expand their capability for for enrichment.
So I don't know if that answers your question, but I mean, that's the context.
I dig it.
All right.
Now, so back to the 20 percent for a minute, because, of course, I think you were implying there that when you first saw that 2 percent, you thought it was a typo.
That's what I thought you were going to say.
And then it turned out it was a typo.
But I thought it was not a typo, but just confusion on the part of the person making, you know, doing the briefing.
Yeah.
Well, but so I have this AP story from Haaretz that says 20 percent.
And I'm wondering, did they just make that up because they thought, oh, they it must be a typo.
I think that's probably what happened.
Yes.
So this is from July the 21st.
Yep.
Yep.
I think that's what happened.
So the AP here said, well, the headline, who knows who wrote the headline?
They're highly enriched, which, you know, technically, yeah, but nothing near bomb grade.
But anyway, 20 percent made harmless is the way they call it.
But they say now tell me if this tracks the same with the weights and everything.
Iran had more than 200 kilograms, over 250 pounds of 20 percent enriched uranium.
And they have reduced it all, according to the IAEA report, which has been obtained by the Associated Press.
All 20 percent enriched uranium has now been converted or diluted.
That's right.
That's true.
But that's a separate point.
Yeah, entirely separate.
Yeah.
OK.
I wasn't sure if I just if they were misinterpreting it or it was just two different stories.
That is correct.
That that is a that is a correct statement.
And that's really important, not because 20 percent enriched uranium is important, but because it's a giant red herring fake issue within this entire giant red herring fake issue of Iran's nuclear program, that if you look at 20 percent uranium funny, it turns into a nuclear bomb, that it's just one light switch flip away from bomb grade, even though it's not.
But anyway, so for them to get rid of their 20 percent is very meaningful, at least symbolically, right?
It's it's killing the red herring.
Well, absolutely.
I mean, it's it's certainly a step in that direction.
Of course, you know, it doesn't resolve the issue from the point of view of those in the Obama administration and, of course, even more so the people who are trying to really screw up the negotiations, make sure they don't succeed because they're making the argument that even a three point five percent enriched uranium is a threat if there's enough of it that could be turned into weapons grade uranium.
So that's why this whole process now has to do with a combination of reducing centrifuges and the stockpile and ensuring that that no new stockpile begins to build up during the duration of the agreement.
So, I mean, that's why, you know, we haven't talked about this yet, but but what I am quite convinced of is that we're going to see an agreement that is roughly in the neighborhood of, you know, eight thousand centrifuges, you know, not not much different from what Iran now has operating.
The other nine to ten thousand centrifuges will be scrapped effectively.
And that's perfectly in line with, I think, what the Iranians expected all along, because, you know, they never hooked them up.
They've never used them.
They've never operated them.
Yeah.
As you said all along in this show.
Yeah, that's part of the pile of bargaining chips they're building.
Exactly.
And this is this is the most interesting, unreported, the most significant and interesting unreported fact about these negotiations all along that that the Iranians never intended to use them.
And the Obama administration is perfectly well aware of that.
I quoted an Obama administration official, not not that I talked to, but who I think was The New York Times quoted an Obama administration official two years ago saying that it's clear that that Iran's very cleverly husbanding its resources here for future negotiations, that it wasn't explicitly stated negotiations.
But that was the strong implication.
And by the way, have they worked out the locations between Natanz and Qom and where they're going to keep the remainder running?
Well, I think what we're going to see is a compromise under which the Fordo or, you know, the one near the city of Qom is is going to be used not for enrichment, but for research and development.
I think.
Yeah, I thought so.
So that's holding that they're going through with that.
So that's right.
That's another major, you know, pat on the back, so-called victory for the American side.
Another one of their straw men.
Well, I mean, look, the Americans, remember, two years ago, they were insistent that one year ago and two years ago, they were insistent that that had to close down, absolutely had to close down, could not be stayed open.
So, you know, both sides have compromised on that.
There you go.
All right.
Well, we're out of time.
You can hear the music playing.
Thanks very much, Gareth.
Appreciate it.
As always.
Thank you very much, Scott.
That's the great Gareth Porter, everybody.
IPSnews.net.
IPSnews.net.
See you tomorrow.
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