Congressman Jeff Fortenberry

Omaha World-Herald: Iran could ignite Mideast nuke race, ex-U.N. inspector says

August 15, 2012

Iran poses a nuclear weapons threat that is more dangerous than the Cold War standoff between the United States and Soviet Union, a former United Nations chief weapons inspector said Tuesday in Omaha.

An Iran with nuclear weapons could cascade into a Middle Eastern arms race, said David Kay, who worked with the CIA and the U.S. military after the Iraq War began in 2003 to determine whether Saddam Hussein's regime had weapons of mass destruction.

"I worry about North Korea," he said. "I worry a lot more about the Iranians. We've drawn so many red lines in the sand ... we ought to call it the Red Desert. They've crossed them all and drawn another.''

Kay said the U.S. military has been shut out of Iran since the 1979 revolution deposed the Shah.

"We know very little about a regime that is hard to know a lot about," he said. "We don't know their intentions.''

Kay addressed about 70 people at a public Nuclear Security Forum organized by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., at the Salvation Army Kroc Center in South Omaha.

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