Political Quotes

“I am very pleased to recommend that the United States Senate give its advice and consent to ratification of the Additional Safeguards Protocol between the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA. Ratification of the Additional Protocol will make a real contribution to U.S. nuclear non-proliferation efforts, and it will do so without putting at risk any sensitive national security information. As my colleagues surely know, the Additional Protocol is an outgrowth of the world's discovery in 1991 that Iraq had come perilously close to developing a nuclear weapon, without the IAEA realizing it. One reason for Iraq's near-success was that the IAEA was allowed to inspect only those facilities that Iraq declared to it. If a uranium enrichment facility was across the hall from a declared facility--and in some cases it was about that bad--the IAEA had no mandate to inspect it. We, the world, and the IAEA itself realized that a revised safeguards regime was needed.”