Tuesday, April 7, 2015
So who do we believe?
Yesterday, energy secretary Ernest Moniz said, “I want to say this is not an agreement for 10 years or 15 years or 20 years. It is a long-term agreement with a whole set of phases...So that's the way we’re thinking about it. It's not a fixed-year agreement. It's a forever agreement in a certain sense, with different stages.”
In an interview on NPR yesterday, the president said, “What is a more relevant fear would be that in Year 13, 14, 15, they (the Iranians) have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point, the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.”
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Ah, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf has cleared up the confusion:
"I think his words were a little mixed up there, but what he was referring to was a scenario in which there was no deal. And if you go back and look at the transcript, I know it’s a little confusing. I spoke to the folks at the White House and read it a few times. It’s my understanding that he was referring to – even though it was a little muddled in the words – to a scenario in which there was no deal.:
Thank you, Marie.
OK, Marie Harf as further elucidated the president's comments:
QUESTION: So yesterday, when you were asked about the President’s comments in the NPR interview about the 13, 14 years, you said he was --
MS HARF: Yep, that he was referring to a scenario in which there was no deal.
QUESTION: Right, but the reason I’m confused is because he was asked a question about aren’t you concerned about stockpiles of enriched uranium under the deal, if a deal --
MS HARF: I’m conveying to you what he was conveying in the interview.
QUESTION: No, I – right, I understand, but – so the question was: Aren’t you worried about enriched uranium stockpiles even if there is a deal?
MS HARF: Okay, fine.
QUESTION: And what the President – what it sounds like the President said afterwards was no, not worried about that because it will be either taken out of the country or diluted or some combination of both, but what you should really worry about is the R&D with the advanced centrifuges, because after this year, whatever it is – 13, 14, or 15 – the limitations on them will be gone, and so --
MS HARF: Well, just a couple points. First, I’m happy to repeat again what we said yesterday. I’ve talked to my colleagues at the White House. They have made very clear on the record, as have I, that he was referring to a scenario in which there is no deal. That is what the truth is here. If he could have said it more clearly, that’s a different issue, and I know what the discussions are like inside the room about those years and about R&D, and obviously that doesn’t match up to that. So he was talking about a scenario in which there is no deal. I know you all wish he had been clearer when he said that, and I’m sorry if it’s not clear from the transcript. That is what he was talking about, though.
QUESTION: But why would he even mention 13, 14, or 15 if he was talking about a scenario where there is no --
MS HARF: You’ll have to ask the White House, Matt.
QUESTION: All right. Okay.
MS HARF: I can’t parse this much further for you. I’m sort of --
QUESTION: Well, I’m not the only one who is confused about this.
MS HARF: -- done all I can on this. Well, I’m happy for you guys --
QUESTION: Prime Minister Netanyahu has put out a statement, right – probably unsurprising to you – but he put out a statement that says Israel shares the view that upon the expiry of the nuclear agreement with Iran, their breakout time to achieve nuclear weapons will be zero. So is he --
MS HARF: Well, that’s just factually inaccurate. I don't know what --
QUESTION: Is he --
MS HARF: First of all, this deal doesn’t expire. There are pieces of this deal, important transparency measures, that go forever. So the notion that this deal expires and on the next day they’re at zero is just factually inaccurate because parts of it never expire. As we know, we pushed them under this deal to a year of breakout time. So I don't know how he’s – on what technical basis he is making that assertion. There isn’t one.
QUESTION: Well, I think he’s basing it on what the President himself said in the interview.
MS HARF: But the President was referring – as we’ve said publicly, Matt – I cannot be more clear about this – he was referring to a scenario in which there is no deal. It may not be clear in the transcript. I’m telling you what my colleagues at the White House have told me he was referring to.
QUESTION: Okay. I mean, but the --
MS HARF: Do you think that he was referring to something different and we’re just all saying something else?
QUESTION: I don’t --
MS HARF: I admit that it could have been clearer in the transcript, but I am conveying to you what he was attempting to convey.
I must say, this sounds like a script from SNL.
Interesting how often the words of liberals have to be explained after the fact. Not only did Marie Harf have to go through verbal contortions trying to explain what Obama meant when he talked about 13th year, but yesterday I heard a liberal commentator on Fox trying to explain away Debbie Wasserman-Shultz's plain statement that she was okay with aborting a 7 month old pre-born child. This morning I heard Hilary's spokesperson explaining what she meant when she said that all of her grandparents were immigrants. The explanation was that even though only one was an actual immigrant, she has always thought of the others as being immigrants. Why can't these people just say what they mean? Why do they express themselves so poorly that they continually need someone to explain what they meant after the fact?
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