Iran's Nuclear Secret Revealed; Interview with Bill Clinton
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, breaking news on the census worker found dead in Kentucky. Confirmation the word "Fed" was written on his body; a coroner confirms that. And the AP now reporting when he was found he was naked and bound with duct tape according to an eye witness. They're gathering details. We'll have that story shortly. Plus, tonight's big "360 Interview" with former President Bill Clinton on not sending more troops to Afghanistan and why he now says he was wrong about gay marriage and today's showdown with Iran. And that's where we begin. A dramatic day and a showdown that at this hour is unresolved. President Obama and the leaders of France and Britain today accused Iran of building a secret underground nuclear plant and put Iran's leaders on notice, giving them two months to comply with inspections or face tougher sanctions. Strong words but Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted his country has done nothing wrong; that the plant at the second uranium- enrichment facility was not a secret. Iranian officials did notify the IAEA about the facility in a letter this week but only apparently after learning that it had been discovered. U.S. and French intelligence officials have reportedly been tracking activity at the site for several months. Today, President Obama did not rule out a military response.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: With respect to the military, I've always said that we do not rule out any options when it comes to U.S. security interests. But I will also re-emphasize that my preferred course of action is to resolve this in a diplomatic fashion. It's up to the Iranians to respond.</s>COOPER: Well, we've been down this road before. This is not the first time Iran has defied international weapons inspections. I talked about the showdown with former President Bill Clinton.</s>COOPER: President Obama today announced that Iran has a secret nuclear facility, one that they've been hiding from inspectors for years now. Does this change the situation? Does it change the way we should deal with Iran?</s>BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, that's a decision he's going to have to make. But I think that he and Prime Minister Brown and President Sarkozy did exactly the right thing to bring it out in the daylight. And so Iran's got some explaining to do. Meanwhile, the United States and our allies will have to decide whether it makes sense to go forward with the plans to talk with them. It may be all the more urgent now that they have done this.</s>COOPER: They say this is the second or third time that they've been caught cheating though on nuclear issues.</s>CLINTON: Yes.</s>COOPER: Can they be negotiated with?</s>CLINTON: Well, that depends on what the terms of the negotiations are. I think what they may want to do is talk to them one time anyway just to see now that they know what we know, it's just like Saddam Hussein when he was there. That you can negotiate with anybody if you can verify. What was that line President Reagan used to have, trust but verify? Is if you -- if can you verify, you can make a deal with anybody. But what it means is there's basically no room for trust. There you can't believe what Ahmadinejad said.</s>COOPER: And just as all this was getting to break this morning, a group of "Time" magazine editors were sitting down to interview Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "Time" senior editor Bobby Ghosh was in the room. He joins me now along with Peter Brooks, senior fellow for National Security Affairs at the Heritage Foundation. Ahmadinejad seemed surprised when you brought this up during the interview. I just want to show the kind of the look on his face. It looked like some of his people started to scramble a little bit. It was very quick but you can kind of see this smirk when Richard Stengel asked him the question. Do you think he caught him off guard with this?</s>BOBBY GHOSH, SENIOR EDITOR, TIME MAGAZINE: I think we certainly caught him off guard. He -- until that point, he was completely confident. He was giving answers that he's practiced many times over. But this one caught him completely off guard. He didn't know exactly how to -- he bobbed and weaved a little bit. He got aggressive and he said it's not our business to tell the American administration about every facility we have and he got a little defensive. He said we have been cooperating with the IAEA and we've been doing everything by the book. So he was not absolutely certain about how exactly to deal with this information.</s>COOPER: Peter, Iran says look, this nuclear facility is for peaceful civilian purposes. According to the U.S. government a document obtained by AP, intelligence officials believe it's on a military base, controlled by ...</s>PETER BROOKS, SENIOR FELLOW, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Right.</s>COOPER: ... Iran's Revolutionary Guard and if that's true that complicates this already tense situation.</s>BROOKS: Yes. I mean it's very hard to say that this nuclear program doesn't have a military dimension which most security analysts say means nuclear weapons, if it's found on a military base. I mean this is a tremendous concern. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has a very strong hand in Iran's nuclear program and in their missile program so if it is indeed on a military base, it -- despite the fact they may be trying to keep it secret, it really muddies the waters in terms of their real purposes here.</s>COOPER: We're going to have more with our panelists just after a quick break. Let us know what you think about Iran's secret nuclear plant. Are you surprised? Join the live chat happening now at AC360.com. We're still gathering information on this breaking news. Disturbing details in the death of this Kentucky census worker found tied to a tree with a rope around his neck. The word "Fed" written on his body; that's now confirmed by the coroner. Now new questions after a witness tells the AP he saw the victim was naked, bound with duct tape. Details ahead. And later, the big "360 Interview:" President Bill Clinton on Afghanistan, politics, and his 180 on gay marriage. For the first time explaining why he has changed his mind.</s>CLINTON: I have all these gay friends and I have all these gay couple friends. And I was hung up about it. And I decided I was wrong.