Netanyahu: Iran's 'Zero Breakout' Sooner than Later

By Tzippe Barrow

CBN News Internet Producer - Jerusalem

Thursday, April 09, 2015

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JERUSALEM, Israel -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Iran's breakout time for nuclear weapons production begins when the framework agreement is finalized, not in 13 or 14 years as President Obama said Tuesday.

"So essentially, we're purchasing 13, 14, 15 years assurances that the breakout is at least a year -- that -- that if they decided to break the deal, kick out all the inspectors, break the seals and go for a bomb, we'd have over a year to respond," the president told NPR.

"What is a more relevant fear would be that in year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that can enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero," Obama said.

In a videotaped statement aired on Israeli media, Netanyahu said he agrees with the president that breakout time will be zero when the deal expires. But that's not, he says, more than a decade away.

Netanyahu said again he's not opposed to a deal with Iran, just a bad deal -- one that allows Iran to achieve "industrial-grade capability in producing nuclear bombs."

Iran desperately wants relief from economic sanctions, which have had a profound effect on its economy. The sanctions provide the leverage to try to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons aspirations.

But Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says they won't agree to a gradual phasing out of sanctions.

"We will not sign any deal unless all sanctions are lifted on the same day," Reuters quoted Rouhani in a televised speech aired Thursday. "We want a win-win deal for all parties involved in the nuclear talks."

Meanwhile, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters the U.S. does not intend to comply with that demand.

"You can't start talking about relieving sanctions until we've reached agreements about how we're going to shut down every pathway they have to a nuclear weapon," Earnest said.

The framework agreement, however, does allow Iran to continue enriching uranium, moving it steadily toward nuclear weapons capability. Coupled with missile production, threats to Israel and state sponsorship of terrorism, producing weapons-grade uranium may be much closer than world powers care to admit.

Obama Accuses Israel of Lying About Iran Deal

Thursday, February 19, 2015 |  Ryan Jones  ISRAEL TODAY

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America

The Obama Administration on Wednesday suggested that the Israeli government was being less than honest regarding the details of negotiations between the US and Iran regarding the latter’s defiant nuclear program.

But a senior and respected Israeli politician said the White House is risking Israel’s future for the sake of its own selfish interests, and so Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must go forward with a controversial appearance before the US Congress next month.

“There’s no question that some of the things that the Israelis have said in characterizing our negotiating position have not been accurate,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest, who insisted on the importance of keeping the details of talks with Iran private.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki conveyed a similar assessment: “I think it is safe to say not everything you are hearing from the Israeli government is an accurate reflection of the details of the talks.”

Israeli leaders say the deal America is negotiating would leave the Iranian nuclear program largely intact, trusting to the word of the mullahs to not develop a nuclear weapon. Of course, if the Islamic Republic clandestinely continued on that path and ultimately tested an atomic bomb, it would be at that point too late to do anything about it.

Due to the increased and vocal Israeli opposition to the impending deal, officials in Jerusalem last week said they had largely been shut out on the issue by the Obama Administration.

Israel’s Channel 2 News reported that Jerusalem was no longer receiving full and regular briefings from Washington regarding the Iran nuclear talks. One official told The New York Times that while certain briefings are still maintained, “they are empty.”

The White House staunchly denied the report, but European officials who spoke to the Times said there was some truth to the allegation.

“European officials say that the Israeli reports, while overblown, are not entirely based on fiction,” reported America’s leading newspaper. “One recalled a recent call from Wendy Sherman, the No. 3 State Department official and lead American negotiator with Iran, saying she had cautioned against telling the Israelis too much because the details could be twisted to undermine a deal.”

But senior Likud candidate Benny Begin, son of legendary former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, said Israel is not twisting anything, and that the agreement Obama is prepared to sign with Iran is a real threat to the Jewish state.

“We are not just talking about a bad agreement, we are talking about an agreement that poses an great danger to the security of Israel,” Begin told Army Radio, explaining that with “Iran’s leadership calling for the arming of the West Bank, in a military sense, Israel now shares a border with Iran.”

Begin argued that despite all the opposition, it was important for Netanyahu to go forward with a March 3 appearance before the US Congress. “Not every American congressman knows the facts or details of this thing from Israel’s perspective,” he noted. “And learning about that could change the minds of some.”

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