City man featured on '60 Minutes'

SANDUSKY — As the U.S. conflict with Iran rages on, so do concerns and negotiations over the country's nuclear capabilities. A Sandusky resident knows firsthand what it takes to secure weapons-grade uranium from a foreign nation. Andy Weber moved to Sandusky from Arlington, Virginia, in 2020, and lives in the city with his wife, Christine Parthemore, and their daughter, Snowy. Weber previously served in the U.S. Foreign Service and was assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense Programs in the administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama. In light of the ongoing conflict and negotiations surrounding nuclear weapons in Iran, Weber recounted his experience in post-Soviet-era Kazakhstan in a recent interview on the "60 Minutes" CBS News program. Project Sapphire In 1994, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States executed "Project Sapphire," a covert operation in partnership with the government of Kazakhstan — a former Soviet republic — to remove a large stockpile of 600 kilograms, or about 1,322 pounds, of highly enriched uranium from the region before it could fall into the hands of countries like Iran and North Korea. Highly enriched uranium can be used to create nuclear weapons. Detailed in his interview with "60 Minutes," it took relationship-building with a nuclear plant's manager — including a moose-hunting expedition — to set the groundwork for an agreement between the U.S. and Kazakh governments to have a team led by Weber transport the material back to the United States. Even with the deal in place, the operation was fraught with danger. "It was all done in utmost secrecy," Weber told "60 Minutes" correspondent Cecilia Vega. "We didn't want the Iranians or organized criminal groups to know that the material was being transported." The night the uranium was being transported, Weber said roads were covered in black ice and the trucks carrying the material were sliding around. Ultimately, the uranium made it safely to a plane that transported it back to a Tennessee complex. What could happen in Iran? Speaking to the Register on Wednesday, Weber said the story of Project Sapphire has been thrust back into public discussion amid the current Iranian conflict. He said he's been fielding interviews from news organizations like CNN, he recently penned an op-ed for the New York Times and he was interviewed for an episode of the Netflix documentary series "Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War." Weber said he spent about 30 years working for the federal government, including nearly 20 years at the Department of Defense in the Pentagon. Following his work at the Department of Defense, Weber joined the Council on Strategic Risks in 2017 as a senior fellow at its Janne E. Nolan Center on Strategic Weapons, a nonprofit, nonpartisan security policy institute focused on preventing catastrophic risks. So could what Weber accomplished in 1994 Kazakhstan be replicated today in Iran? "I think it's not only possible, I think it's essential," he said. Weber estimates that Iran currently possesses more than 400 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium — a level that's not quite capable of making nuclear weapons. Weber said that once Iran completes the process of enriching the uranium to weapon-grade, around 90 percent, it would have enough to make 10 or 11 nuclear weapons. In order to safely remove the uranium, Weber said that the United States would likely have to establish an agreement with Iran to transport it to a third country, such as neighboring Kazakhstan, and to blend the uranium down to a lower grade so it's no longer strong enough to make weapons. The other route — a boots-on-the-ground military initiative — would require thousands of troops and would be difficult to achieve, Weber said. "What I view as too risky would be to do a military operation to recover the material in a combat situation," he said. "It would expose our troops to extreme risks." Weber also pointed to Obama's 2015 nuclear deal with Iran as a precedent for the possibility of striking a deal with Iran as a condition of ending the current war.