Richard Engel Quotes

I can tell you one thing, Iran is closer to developing nuclear weapons today than it was a week ago, or a month ago or a year ago. It's just moving on with its efforts.

When George W. Bush came into office, North Korea had maybe one nuclear weapon and verifiably wasn't producing any more.

What we have is North Korea still pursuing path to a nuclear weapon state. So the majority of people's trust in North Korea has gone down considerably.

Iran has every intention to build a nuclear weapon.

The red line must be drawn on Iran's nuclear enrichment program because these enrichment facilities are the only nuclear installations that we can definitely see and credibly target.

I think the Iranians are clearly determined to have a nuclear program. And we have to assume that with a nuclear program they have the capability and the will to create a nuclear weapon.

The fundamental premise is that neither the United States or the international community is going to allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

The North Koreas of the world are trying very hard to acquire the material they need to acquire nuclear weapons, as is the case with Iran.

The world should be very clear about making sure that Iran does not get nuclear weapons, period.

The Iranian government intends to use the nuclear program for peaceful purposes, but must convince international public opinion of that.

Iran is not getting rid of any of its nuclear plants. They're not getting rid of anything.

The Libyan program recently discovered was far more extensive than was assessed prior to that.

Satellite images suggest North Korea is building a light-water reactor and working on uranium enrichment. This is troubling.

President Obama has made it clear that the United States is determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

There is little doubt that Iran is on a mission to rebuild its nuclear weapons and use that capability to wreak havoc and destruction on Israel and others throughout the world.

Some day, somebody is going to have to start talking about what happens to us all a decade from now if we let these North Koreans and the Iranians go forward with their nuclear weapons program.

The case of Iran, a nuclear program that the Iranians admit was 18 years on, that we underestimated. And, in fact, we didn't discover it. It was discovered by a group of Iranian dissidents outside the country who pointed the international community at the location.

We have evidence that Iran makes a reactor to possess nuclear weapons.

It is clear that the original idea of the Iranians [to produce nuclear weapons] has been stopped by this agreement.

The JCPOA can perhaps delay Iran's nuclear weapons program for a few years. Conversely, it has virtually guaranteed that Iran will have the freedom to build an arsenal of nuclear weapons at the end of the commitment.

For decades, Iran has covertly worked to develop a nuclear weapons program and has repeatedly violated its international obligations.

I'm prepared to continue doing what we need to do to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

While the agreement provides a level of constraint on Iran's nuclear weapons program, it confers legitimacy on their nuclear threshold status, an unprecedented shift for a country with so many entanglements.

I've been covering North Korea nuclear issues since I was a young reporter in the Tokyo bureau of 'The Times' and wrote some of the first pieces about the existence of the program at Yongbyon.

Ultimately, the goal of sanctions is to ratchet up the economic pressure on the Iranians to such a level that the regime determines it is simply too great to bear, and they are forced to weigh the decision to carry on their nuclear development and their illicit quest for nuclear weapons against the ever-growing pressure from their own people.