August 10, 2015
To the Letters Editor,
NY Times
Re Scientists praise nuclear deal (Aug. 8)
Informed debate about the merits of the nuclear agreement would be greatly enhanced if the eminent scientists would express their opinions on the following troubling aspects
1. Are they aware of all relevant facts including side deals, the contents of which are not known even to Secretary Kerry?
2. They refer to 24 day notice before inspection of suspect sites as advantageous though it contradicts President Obama’s promised 24/7 surveillance. Experts including President of the Institute for Science and International Security, David Albright say 24 days could enable escaping detection adding that the Iranians are practiced at cheating.
3. Iranian negotiator Zarif has declared that sanctions are already destroyed, adding that they cannot be quickly re-imposed as this would need years while Tehran’s return to nuclear activities can be done in a shorter time.
4. Our impotence against Iranian violations is already obvious. Despite Kerry’s declaration that that the travel ban on terrorist leader Qassem Soleimani will never be relieved, Soleimani traveled to Moscow on July 24 to discuss with Putin the purchase of armaments with the money to be made available by this nuclear deal,.
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The above letter was sent to NY Times in response to an August 8 article titled “29 U.S. Scientists Praise Iran Nuclear Deal in Letter to Obama”.
As space limitations did not allow for quoting my sources in my letter to the NY Times I offer the following for your information
Re side deals and Secretary Kerry see https://youtu.be/95BNlWr1do4
“Verification Process in Iran Deal Is Questioned by Some Experts” see NY Times July 22
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif underlined that the regime of international sanctions against Iran has collapsed and may not be retrieved anymore. Click here FARS news agency
Re Soleimani please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sNZuh44ffU
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Copy of the letter from the 29 scientists to President Obama
August 8, 2015
The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
As scientists and engineers with understanding of the physics and technology of nuclear power and of nuclear weapons, we congratulate you and your team on the successful completion of the negotiations in Vienna. We consider that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) the United States and its partners negotiated with Iran will advance the cause of peace and security in the Middle East and can serve as a guidepost for future non-proliferation agreements.
This is an innovative agreement, with much more stringent constraints than any previously negotiated non-proliferation framework. It limits the level of enrichment of the uranium that Iran can produce, the amount of enriched uranium it can stockpile, and the number and kinds of centrifuges it can develop and operate. The agreement bans reconversion and reprocessing of reactor fuel, it requires Iran to redesign its Arak research reactor to produce far less plutonium than the original design, and specifies that spent fuel must be shipped out of the country without the plutonium being separated and before any significant quantity can be accumulated.
A key result of these restrictions is that it would take Iran many months to enrich uranium for a weapon. We contrast this with the situation before the interim agreement was negotiated in Lausanne: at that time Iran had accumulated enough 20 percent enriched uranium that the required additional enrichment time for weapons use was only a few weeks.
The JCPOA also provides for innovative approaches to verification, including monitoring of uranium mining, milling, and conversion to hexafluoride. Centrifuge manufacturing and R&D will be monitored as well. For 15 years the Natanz facility will be the only location where uranium enrichment is allowed to take place and it will be outfitted with real-time monitoring to assure rapid notice of any violation. The authority is provided for real-time monitoring of spent fuel as well.
Concerns about clandestine activities in Iran are greatly mitigated by the dispute resolution mechanism built into the agreement. The 24-day cap on any delay to access is unprecedented, and will allow effective challenge inspection for the suspected activities of greatest concern: clandestine enrichment, construction of reprocessing or reconversion facilities, and implosion tests using uranium. The approach to resolving “Possible Military Dimensions” is innovative as well: the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) must be satisfied that it is fully
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informed about any previous activities, in order to guide its future verification plans, but Iran need not be publicly shamed. This agreement, also for the first time, explicitly bans nuclear weapons R&D, rather than only their manufacture as specified in the text of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Some have expressed concern that the deal will free Iran to develop nuclear weapons without constraint after ten years. In contrast we find that the deal includes important long-term verification procedures that last until 2040, and others that last indefinitely under the NPT and its Additional Protocol. On the other hand, we do believe that it would be valuable to strengthen these durable international institutions. We recommend that your team work with the IAEA to gain agreement to implement some of the key innovations included in the JCPOA into existing safeguards agreements. This will reduce the proliferation risks associated with national fuel cycle facilities worldwide. Thus in the future, when Iran is treated the same as all non-nuclear weapons states with nuclear energy programs, all such programs will be more stringently constrained and verified.
As you have stated, this deal does not take any options off the table for you or any future president. Indeed it will make it much easier for you or a future president to know if and when Iran heads for a bomb, and the detection of a significant violation of this agreement will provide strong, internationally supported justification for intervention.
In conclusion, we congratulate you and your team on negotiating a technically sound, stringent and innovative deal that will provide the necessary assurance in the coming decade and more that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, and provides a basis for further initiatives to raise the barriers to nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and around the globe.
Sincerely,
Richard L. Garwin, IBM Fellow Emeritus
Robert J. Goldston, Princeton University
R. Scott Kemp, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Rush Holt, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Frank von Hippel, Princeton University
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Also signed by:
John F. Ahearne
Director, Ethics Program at Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
Philip W. Anderson
Professor Emeritus, Princeton University
Christopher Chyba
Princeton University
Leon N. Cooper
Brown University
Pierce S. Corden
Former Director, Office of International Security Negotiations, Bureau of Arms Control: Department of State
John M. Cornwall
Professor of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA
Sidney D. Drell
Stanford University
Freeman Dyson
Professor Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University
Harold A. Feiveson
Princeton University
Michael E. Fisher
Professor Emeritus, Cornell University and University of Maryland
Howard Georgi
Harvard University
Sheldon L. Glashow
Boston University
Lisbeth Gronlund
Union of Concerned Scientists
David Gross
Professor of Theoretical Physics, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, UCSB
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Sigfried S. Hecker
Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University
Martin E. Hellman
Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
Ernest Henley
University of Washington
Gregory Loew
Emeritus Deputy Director and Professor, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
C. Kumar N. Patel
Professor Emeritus of Experimental Condensed Matter, UCLA
Burton Richter
Stanford University
Myriam Sarachik
City College of New York, CUNY
Roy F. Schwitters
The University of Texas at Austin
Frank Wilczek
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
David Wright
Union of Concerned Scientists
(Affiliations for identification only)
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