The United States’ former CIA and NSA Director, Gen. Michael Hayden, said Sunday that the deal made with Iran at Geneva means that Iran will be allowed to enrich uranium and be a nuclear threshold state.
“It says in the agreement that we will come to an agreement with regard to their right to enrich, which is very different from the UN Security Council resolutions to date, which say that they do not have a right to enrich.”
“At the end of the day, Iran’s going to be a nuclear threshold state,” he told host Chris Wallace. “What we have to do is push that threshold back as far as possible. That would…define whether this was a good idea or a bad idea.”
“Right now, the Iranians are far too close to a nuclear weapon,” he said. “We have hit the pause button. Now we’ve got to negotiate hitting the delete button with them.”
The interim deal with Iran, which was negotiated in secrecy by the US and Tehran before being sealed at Geneva, stipulates that a future comprehensive agreement will allow Iran to enrich uranium. Previous U.N. resolutions have called for a complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program and that all materials be shipped out of the country.
Hayden was Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) from 1999 to 2005 and the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence in 2005-2006. He was CIA Director from 2006 to 2009.
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