Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/negroponte-assesses-iraqi-progress-intel-on-irans-nukes Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte just returned from a trip to the Middle East where he urged Iraqi lawmakers to push through newly-crafted legislation. In an interview with Jim Lehrer, Negroponte discusses his trip to Iraq and a new intelligence report detailing the limits of Iran's nuclear weapons program. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: And to our Newsmaker interview with the deputy secretary of state, John Negroponte.Mr. Secretary, welcome.JOHN NEGROPONTE, Deputy Secretary of State: Thank you. JIM LEHRER: On Iran, President Bush said today Iran needs to come clean on its nuclear program. What is there left to know? JOHN NEGROPONTE: Well, it isn't only what there's left to know; it's the fact that they still deny that they had a nuclear weapons program. So I think that's the real point of departure.They've got to acknowledge that they had such a program, and then they've got to get in discussions with the international community and the International Atomic Energy Agency about the components of that program, what it consisted of, and finally bring — if they're going to have some kind of nuclear activity, that's got to be brought under full safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Agency. JIM LEHRER: So to know that it's not working to acquire or develop a nuclear weapon is not enough? JOHN NEGROPONTE: Well, this is an intelligence assessment. This is, if you will, perhaps just the beginning of knowledge.The other point I would make in that regard is that the suspension or the halting of the construction of a nuclear device was only one component of what would constitute a nuclear program. There's also the delivery mechanisms, and that activity continues.And, of course, most importantly, enrichment activity continues. And that, again, in defiance of the international community and in defiance of outstanding U.N. Security Council resolutions, so it's quite a complex picture. JIM LEHRER: Of course, before you took this job as the number-two man in the U.S. Department of State, you were the director of national intelligence. JOHN NEGROPONTE: Correct. JIM LEHRER: What is your reading of why it took four years to determine, the U.S. intelligence to determine that the uranium program had been halted? JOHN NEGROPONTE: My reading is that it's new information. There certainly wasn't anything at the time that we issued that assessment in the spring of 2005 that would suggest that they had halted their work on a — the design or the construction of a nuclear weapon, nor did I see anything during my close to two years' tenure there that would have altered that judgment.In fact, I left my position as director of national intelligence convinced that Iraq — that Iran, excuse me, was determined to acquire a nuclear weapon.