{"id":3957,"date":"2015-08-13T10:30:57","date_gmt":"2015-08-13T16:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/?p=3957"},"modified":"2015-08-13T10:30:57","modified_gmt":"2015-08-13T16:30:57","slug":"29-u-s-scientists-praise-iran-nuclear-deal-in-letter-to-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/29-u-s-scientists-praise-iran-nuclear-deal-in-letter-to-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"29 U.S. Scientists Praise Iran Nuclear Deal in Letter to Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0<\/span>WILLIAM J. BROAD<\/a><\/header>\n
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Twenty-nine of the nation\u2019s top scientists \u2014 including Nobel laureates, veteran makers of nuclear arms and former White House science advisers \u2014 wrote to\u00a0President Obama<\/a>\u00a0on Saturday to praise the\u00a0Iran<\/a>\u00a0deal, calling it innovative and stringent.<\/p>\n

The letter, from some of the world\u2019s most knowledgeable experts in the fields of\u00a0nuclear weapons<\/a>\u00a0and arms control, arrives as Mr. Obama is lobbying Congress, the American public and the nation\u2019s allies to supportthe agreement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0two-page letter<\/a>\u00a0may give the White House arguments a boost after the blow Mr. Obama suffered on Thursday when Senator\u00a0Chuck Schumer<\/a>\u00a0of New York, a Democrat and among the most influential Jewish voices in Congress,\u00a0announced he would oppose the deal<\/a>, which calls for\u00a0Iran<\/a>\u00a0to curb its\u00a0nuclear program<\/a>\u00a0and allow inspections in return for an end to international oil and financial sanctions.<\/p>\n

The first signature on the letter is from Richard L. Garwin, a physicist who helped design the world\u2019s first hydrogen bomb and has long advised Washington on\u00a0nuclear weapons<\/a>\u00a0and arms control. He is among the last living physicists who helped usher in the nuclear age.<\/p>\n

Photo<\/p>\n
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President Obama and Michelle Obama arriving on Martha\u2019s Vineyard, Mass., on Friday.CreditSusan Walsh\/Associated Press<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Also signing is Siegfried S. Hecker, a Stanford professor who, from 1986 to 1997, directed the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico, the birthplace of the bomb. The facility produced designs for most of the arms now in the nation\u2019s nuclear arsenal.<\/p>\n

Other prominent signatories include Freeman Dyson of Princeton, Sidney Drell of Stanford and Rush D. Holt, a physicist and former member of Congress who now leads the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world\u2019s largest general scientific society.<\/p>\n

Most of the 29 who signed the letter are physicists, and many of them have held what the government calls Q clearances \u2014 granting access to a special category of secret information that bears on the design of nuclear arms and is considered equivalent to the military\u2019s top secret security clearance.<\/p>\n

Many of them have advised Congress, the White House or federal agencies over the decades. For instance, Frank von Hippel, a Princeton physicist, served as assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Clinton administration.<\/p>\n

The six Nobel laureates who signed are Philip W. Anderson of Princeton University; Leon N. Cooper of Brown University; Sheldon L. Glashow of Boston University; David Gross of the University of California, Santa Barbara; Burton Richter of Stanford University; and Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n

The letter uses the words \u201cinnovative\u201d and \u201cstringent\u201d more than a half-dozen times, saying, for instance, that the Iran accord has \u201cmore stringent constraints than any previously negotiated nonproliferation framework.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe congratulate you and your team,\u201d the letter says in its opening to Mr. Obama, adding that the Iran deal \u201cwill advance the cause of peace and security in the Middle East and can serve as a guidepost for future nonproliferation agreements.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a technical judgment that seemed more ominous than some other assessments of Tehran\u2019s nuclear capability, the letter says that Iran, before curbing its\u00a0nuclear program<\/a>\u00a0during the long negotiations, was \u201conly a few weeks\u201d away from having fuel for nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

Dr. Garwin and Dr. Holt were the main organizers behind the group that wrote and signed the letter, according to two of the letter\u2019s signatories. The letter comes amid a flurry of organized efforts by supporters and opponents of the agreement to shape the public debate ahead of congressional action on the deal.<\/p>\n

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The body of the letter praises the technical features of the Iran accord and offers tacit rebuttals to recent criticisms on such issues as verification and provisions for investigating what specialists see as evidence of Iran\u2019s past research on nuclear arms.<\/p>\n

It also focuses on whether Iran could use the accord as diplomatic cover to pursue nuclear weapons in secret.<\/p>\n

The deal\u2019s plan for resolving disputes, the letter says, greatly mitigates \u201cconcerns about clandestine activities.\u201d It hails the 24-day cap on Iranian delays to site investigations as \u201cunprecedented,\u201d adding that the agreement \u201cwill allow effective challenge inspection for the suspected activities of greatest concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also welcomes as without precedent the deal\u2019s explicit banning of research on nuclear weapons \u201crather than only their manufacture,\u201d as established in the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, the top arms-control agreement of the nuclear age.<\/p>\n

The letter notes criticism that the Iran accord, after 10 years, will let Tehran potentially develop nuclear arms without constraint. \u201cIn contrast,\u201d it says, \u201cwe find that the deal includes important long-term verification procedures that last until 2040, and others that last indefinitely.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Correction: August 12, 2015<\/div>\n
An\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0on Sunday about a letter of support for President Obama\u2019s proposed Iran nuclear deal written by experts in nuclear weapons and arms control omitted a Nobel laureate from a listing of those who signed the letter. He is Philip W. Anderson of Princeton University.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n