NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sunday, March 22, 2015, 1:48 PM
CIA Director John Brennan said that if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon if talks failed, they would ‘do so at their peril.’
Iran faces “tremendous costs and consequences” if Tehran moves forward with developing a nuclear weapon if no deal on the regime’s nuclear program is reached, CIA Director John Brennan warned Sunday.
"There are a number of things that the United States has available to it to prevent Iran from getting a bomb,” Brennan said on “Fox News Sunday.” “President Obama has made it very clear that we are going to prevent Iran from having that type of nuclear weapon that they maybe were going on the track to obtain.
“So, if they decide to go down that route, they know that they will do so at their peril,” he added.
The cautionary remarks signal that the Obama administration would, in fact, be prepared to take necessary action to prevent the regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon, even as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry continues to pursue a deal with Tehran over its program.
Brennan, however, also suggested the intelligence community was in a position to “verify” any agreement Iran would commit to under a potential deal and that the U.S. was aware of the country’s existing nuclear capabilities — despite reports that Iran had built a secret nuclear facility.
"I think we have confidence that we are aware of the facilities that Iran has right now,” Brennan said. "And there's going to be a lot of speculation and rumors about other facilities.
"I am confident that right now, we have a good appreciation of what the Iranian nuclear program consists of,” he said, adding that the nuclear program is just “one issue” the administration is “hoping to be able to halt.”
“But also we see that Iran is still a state sponsor of terrorism. So what we have to do, whether there's a deal or not, is to continue to keep pressure on Iran and to make sure that it is not able to continue to destabilize a number of countries in the region,” he said.
Brennan’s comments come as Kerry and his team of U.S. negotiators approach the final weeks of talks with Iran over its nuclear program.
President Obama has said he would not allow his negotiators to reach a bad deal with Iran, but that hasn’t stopped Republicans from trying to thwart any potential agreement.
The nations have until the end of the month to reach an agreement on the framework of an eventual pact — a looming deadline that has increased efforts by Republicans in Washington who would rather see no deal than a bad deal.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who has suggested he’s ambivalent over a deal, expressed Sunday “concern that this administration cares more about making a deal versus the right deal.”
“The concern has been from day one that we keep moving from our initial position toward Iran’s position,” ,” Corker said on CBS’s “Face the Nation."
Corker, who refused to sign a notorious open letter earlier this month from Senate Republicans to the Iranian regime saying that any deal must go through Congress, has nevertheless supported a bipartisan Senate bill that would allow Congress to vote on any deal the Obama administration reaches with Iran.
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