John Kerry: 'Nuclear deal works,' White House: 'Iran lied'
While the Trump administration expresses its support of Netanyahu's Iran presentation, former US secretary of state John Kerry, who negotiated the deal, argues that 'Everything PM Netanyahu laid out was exactly why we needed this agreement.'
While the Trump White House expressed support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Iran presentation, former US secretary of state John Kerry claimed Tuesday that the nuclear deal works.
"Everything PM Netanyahu laid out was exactly why we needed this agreement," Kerry, who led the negotiations on behalf of the United States, said on Twitter.
"Every detail PM Netanyahu presented yesterday was every reason the world came together to apply years of sanctions and negotiate the Iran nuclear agreement—because the threat was real and had to be stopped. It's working! That’s why Israeli security experts are speaking out," he asserted.
He noted that "It’s worth remembering that the early 2000's—when his evidence comes from—was the period where the world had no visibility into Iran’s program. More and more centrifuges were spinning each month and the world wasn’t united like it is now. There was no negotiation—and all of that changed with JCPOA. Blow up the deal and you're back there tomorrow!"
The White House, meanwhile, said it "certainly supported (Netanyahu's) announcements and supported (Israel's) efforts."
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a press briefing on Tuesday that "the problem is that the deal was made on a completely false pretense. Iran lied on the front end. They were dishonest actors, and so the deal that was made was made on things that weren’t accurate. And we have a big problem with that."
She went on to explain that "the fact that Iran’s nuclear capability were far more advanced and far further along than they ever indicated," was particularly problematic because "if this nuclear deal maintains as it is right now, when the sunset provision hits in seven years, they will be much further along in the process and able to make a nuclear weapon much quicker than they’ve ever indicated before. And that’s a big problem."
Sanders also confirmed Israel had notified the US ahead of making its announcement.
During a speech at the Kirya IDF headquarters on Monday evening, Netanyahu revealed that Mossad agents were able to smuggle 100,000 documents out of Iran concerning Project Amad—Tehran's secret nuclear program between 1999-2003.
"This is an original Iranian presentation from these files, and here’s the mission statement: Design, produce and test five warheads, each with ten kiloton TNT yield for integration on a missile," the prime minister said. "That’s like five Hiroshima bombs to be put on ballistic missiles."
Later, Netanyahu presented a spreadsheet from the project that includes plans for centrifuge enrichment and designs for nuclear payloads on missiles.
The prime talked about the pressure Iran was under to stop its project, saying Tehran "was forced to shelve Project Amad. But it didn’t shelve its nuclear ambitions."
Netanyahu's main assertion was that Iran has and continues to lie about its nuclear program, and so the nuclear agreement signed with it should be nixed.
