Fox: Carter Helped Iran with Statement About Israel's Nukes

On Fox and Friends on Tuesday, the "Friends" pretty much raked Carter over the coals over his comments a news conference at Wales's Hay literary festival on Sunday about Israel's possession of "150 or more" nuclear weapons. Their TV banner read: "Carter Outs Israel, Confirms country's nuke secrets."

Israel's nukes have never been a secret, at least since evidence leaked in 1986 by Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu. Estimates have put the number of Israeli nuclear weapons at between 100 and 200.

Gretchen: Remember last month when we told that you that former president Jimmy Carter was going to meet with Hamas and that created quite a firestorm amongst many people around the world actually that a sitting, er, former president would meet with the leader of a terrorist organization. Well, now it appears that he is giving out secret information about Israel and how many nuclear weapons they may have. According to most people, this information has never been made public before. At least the U.S. has not made it public.

Brian: And no one has done it. They haven't done it. So why not leave it to a former president, a one-term president like Jimmy Carter. he was in Wales and he was taking some questions about the Iranians' potential nuclear arsenal.

And he said, well, Israel's got an arsenal, about 150. Excuse me, we never heard that confirmed before. We've had rumors about that. Russia 12,000 nukes. We got 12,000, too. France and the U.K, a few hundred. Well, thanks a lot. Meanwhile, he goes I don't think iIan could ever. -- and he should know this though, because he's a nuclear scientist. -- I don't think Iran could ever put together any type of formidable nuclear arsenal.

Steve: We have a quote of what Jimmy Carter did say. It is extraordinary. He said, quote, the U.S. has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union has about the same, Great Britain and France have several hundred, Israel has 150 (or) more.

Now, the extraordinary thing is a lot of people throughout the Mid East have assumed for a very long time that Israel had it, but nobody has ever said officially that they have it. and so, here you got this guy who was once upon a time the president of the United States doing just that. And now what is going to happen is since he is making the argument well, they've got 'em. he's just helped Iran. Because now Iran could say, look, we should arm ourselves because Israel has got 150 of them, according to their former president.

Gretchen: And the former Israeli military intelligence chief just used one word to sum it up: irrepsonsible - about Carter's comments.

Steve: loose lips, Jimmy, loose lips.

Gretchen: I guess so.

To be honest, this was an "open" secret. Why make such a big deal out of it? Well, it just adds to the ammunition that the Bush Administration can use to push for another war.

And although the numeric portion of Carter's statement may have been new information, the fact that Israel has nukes was confirmed by none other than Defense Secretary Robert Gates in 2006.

So let's not say that Carter was the first high-ranking official to give out this "secret." As far as the numbers go, that too was an open secret. One example of such an estimate is given by the Federation of American Scientists.

Watch the video, from Fox & Friends, broadcast on May 27th.