David Albright Quotations

There is no plea bargain policy. I think there were people here in the bureaucracy that didn't want to make a deal. He was trapped.

What we did see is that when we compared this information on the high explosives, to the Internet, that these are much more polished, ... That they really did work with these formulas, tested these formulas, and developed a procedure of making these high explosives that led to effective high explosives in a safe manner.

The program appears to have existed a long time and that is one of the things that has to give you pause is that they have been thinking about this for a long time.

It could be that there is covert activity going on there. They design their buildings and design their activities knowing that they're being observed.

I think the people would unite behind their leadership - even those critical of the leadership now. They would be willing to live under all kinds of hardship to battle an invader.

I think what happened unfortunately is there is no policy in the U.S. government to allow these scientists to come to the U.S.. ... There is no plea-bargain policy.

I think the administration is making a mistake by focusing on the aluminum tubes, because they're not a clear indicator of a nuclear weapons effort in Iraq.

You are actually talking to Obeidi? ... Where is he? What did he say?

The problem isn't that the INC was dishonest, per se. What it is, is that they were willing to believe anything bad about Saddam Hussein that could help their cause of regime change,

when you go to a company in Germany you are going to tell them it is for the centrifuge program, which India knows as soon as they say that, unless the company is asleep, it's going to say no.

We've been struggling to try to understand India's gas centrifuge program and one of the surprises there was that it's a program that really does depend on foreign procurement.

This new tunnel entrance is indicative of a new underground facility or the further expansion of the existing one.

Brazil doesn't cheat on the Nonproliferation Treaty and it does not exist in an area of high tension.

Russia is looking after its economic interests. They have a lot at stake, ... China is so ideologically opposed that the most you can get out of them is an abstention.

North Korea has a strong feeling to defend itself.

Any weapons of mass destruction or the equipment to make them is unprotected, and given the looting, you have to assume that some of it has been taken away.

And that's one of the things that has to give you pause, is that they have been thinking about this a long time, ... And so the question is, when did they start in earnest to learn how to make a nuclear explosive?

That's what we think is new, that you could go buy some centrifuge design information through the Indian procurement system.

There may be less (to the deal) than meets the eye.

It's a little like a sophisticated engine in a race car. If you develop it, you don't go out and race the next day. You have to test it. They have to do a bunch of work to demonstrate that it will work reliably.

It's going up in front of our eyes.

That somehow they can't shut up -- that they're dangerous, ... That somehow you get them in a room and they are just going to start spouting classified information to somebody who is an enemy of the United States.

sticking his tongue out at the world in essence.

They are not going to steal explosives from a military base, ... They are going out and then going to a grocery store, a pharmacy, a medical supply store, and buying chemicals and then making them themselves. So it was a group that was being taught to be self-reliant.

it's not at all like kind of the level of Pakistan by any means, but it's a concern that they are going around buying things illegally and the government can kind of say, 'Well, we are not really responsible because we sold this offer to a company that then goes out and does it and (the company) that is responsible.

I mean, if you think of Iraq, and the (Indian) company NEC, we know they were providing missile technology to Iraq in violation of the sanctions, and NEC is associated with the Indian military. It's not just a renegade company.

In the 1980s, the Indians were getting a lot of equipment for the gas centrifuge program from the same companies that were providing the same equipment to the Pakistanis. And some of the same people who have turned out to figure very prominently in the Khan network were involved in some of these sales to India,

can't be achieved without verified assurances that North Korea is free of nuclear weapons.

I don't think any of the available intelligence represents a smoking gun.

You could go buy some centrifuge design information through the Indian procurement system. It's a very irresponsible way to handle sensitive information.

The trouble is that when they say they'll give it serious study, it doesn't mean they'll accept it.

The IAEA... won't know where these thousands of centrifuge components are. If you move them out from where inspectors can go, you can much more easily build a centrifuge plant in secret.

The IAEA ... won't know where these thousands of centrifuge components are. If you move them out from where inspectors can go, you can much more easily build a centrifuge plant in secret.

You worry that somehow this can become part of a chemical weapons program.

And I think the Pentagon, particularly the hard-liners, suspended their analytical judgment in order to adopt some of these points of view and information.