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THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL: DOES IT FURTHER

U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

DECEMBER 10, 2013

Serial No. 113–108

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

TREY RADEL, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESS 

The Honorable John F. Kerry, Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State ... 5

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 48

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 49

The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress from the 

Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement .............................................. 51

Questions submitted for the record to the Honorable John F. Kerry by: 

The Honorable William Keating, a Representative in Congress from the 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts ................................................................... 52

The Honorable Joe Wilson, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of South Carolina .............................................................................................. 54

The Honorable Paul Cook, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California ...................................................................................................... 56

The Honorable Scott Perry, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ............................................................................. 57

(1)

THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL: DOES IT FURTHER 

U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY? 

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2013

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:05 p.m., in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed Royce (chairman of 

the committee) presiding. 

Chairman ROYCE. This hearing will come to order. 

Today the committee will discuss the interim nuclear agreement 

which the United States and five other Nations have reached with 

Iran last month. 

And we welcome our Secretary of State, the Honorable John 

Kerry, to address the questions of the committee members here regarding the administration’s plan. 

And Mr. Secretary, we very much appreciate you coming before 

the committee today. And while we will debate how best to derail 

Iran’s nuclear weapons program, I know that you and all of us appreciate that it poses a threat to our national security here in the 

United States. 

Congress has played a key role in U.S. policy toward Iran, mainly by driving sanctions against the regime. And I will remind the 

members of this committee that the legislation which we passed 

here passed out unanimously, legislation that—the Royce-Engel 

bill, which passed the House of Representatives last summer, 

passed by a vote of 400 to 20. So we look forward to a constructive 

discussion today. These are high-stake issues. But I am confident 

that the spirit of bipartisanship will prevail, as it typically does on 

this committee. And we welcome our Secretary of State here today. 

The key issue is whether a final agreement would allow Iran to 

manufacture nuclear fuel. Unfortunately, the interim agreement 

raises some questions about this. My concern is that we have bargained—we may have bargained away our fundamental position, 

which is enshrined in six U.N. Security Council resolutions. And 

that fundamental agreement is that Iran should not be enriching 

and reprocessing. And we may bargain that away for a false confidence that we can effectively block Iran’s misuse of these key nuclear bomb making technologies. 

Just within the last few days, Iran has announced plans to press 

on and improve its centrifuge technology in order to enrich uranium. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, we had the comment from the 

Foreign Minister of Iran stating that Iran was going to continue 

2

construction at the plutonium reactor at Arak, which will be capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium once it is operational. 

And we had another comment from those in the regime that they 

may produce, that they will set up more of these plutonium reactors. That tells us something about Iran’s intentions. And that is 

why we are concerned about how this agreement will be enforced. 

Yes, we agree, you know, on the concept of verification, that we 

have to have good verification. One of the things we remember, as 

we deal with this government in Iran, is that it is one that aggressively supports terrorism, supports the most radical groups. In 

2006, I was in Haifa when it was being shelled, and it was being 

shelled specifically with Iranian missiles and missiles provided, 

rockets provided by Syria. This is a regime which, as we were reminded not too long ago, Mr. Ted Deutch reminded me, that when 

we heard the rally and the slogan ‘‘Death to America,’’ it was not 

just the Basiji that were marching; it was members of the government as well that were shouting ‘‘Death to America.’’ It is a regime 

which brutally, brutally represses its own people. And oftentimes 

the way a country treats its own citizens tells you how it might 

treat others. And it threatens our ally with extinction, saying that 

Israel is a country which could be destroyed with just one bomb. 

It is that kind of commentary out of the regime that gives us 

pause. 

And this is the important point to many of us. It has a history 

of deceiving the international community about its nuclear program. The director of the IAEA raised that concern with me. It has 

that history, and it is pursuing a ballistic missile program in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions as well. So Iran is not just 

another country. It simply can’t be trusted with enrichment technology because verification efforts can never be foolproof with respect to their ability to get undetectable nuclear breakout. That is 

one of the concerns we have. An agreement in which Iran purchases and returns spent nuclear fuel for energy generation is one 

thing. That is something that we were willing to get an agreement 

on. But allowing enrichment, I feel, is too high, going beyond the 

lines of realistic international control. 

There has been a lot of talk about whether Iran has the right to 

enrich technology. This committee has held several hearings on the 

Nonproliferation Treaty over the years. It is clear that Iran has no 

such right under that treaty. And while I have heard the administration say that Iran has no right, it is a moot point in an agreement permits enrichment, giving Iran a de facto right. 

The proposed sanctions relief is another concern. The sanctions 

pressure that drove Iran to the negotiating table took years to 

build. While the interim agreement relief is limited, governments 

throughout the world will not be easily convinced to reverse course 

and ratchet up sanctions pressure if Iran is only buying time with 

this agreement. Moreover, companies have stayed away from Iran 

as much due to the atmosphere of international isolation as to the 

letter of U.S. sanctions law. I am concerned that that may now be 

lost because foreign-based oil companies have jumped to start discussions with Iran. 

3

This is the headline from the Wall Street Journal, ‘‘Iran Deal 

Opens Door for Businesses.’’ We have got to counter that impression. 

Lastly, a point I want to make is that sanctions have worked 

elsewhere. International sanctions pressure brought down the immoral apartheid regime in South Africa. That led to South Africa 

not only releasing Nelson Mandela from prison, but also abandoning its nuclear arsenal, giving up its atomic bomb. A bipartisan 

coalition, from Newt Gingrich to John Kerry, supported those tough 

sanctions, even overriding a Presidential veto. Negotiations, quiet 

diplomacy was tried first. But at the end of the day, there was the 

intent that if we did not achieve the result that the overbearing, 

the overwhelming sanctions would be imposed. And indeed they 

were, and indeed they worked. 

We are facing an immoral and very dangerous regime in Iran, 

one nearing a nuclear weapon. I am hard pressed to understand 

why we would be letting up sanctions pressure at the very time its 

economy is on the ropes without getting an agreement which stops 

its centrifuges from spinning. I think all of us expected that the 

sanctions would be used to get an agreement that stopped the centrifuge program, to stop those from spinning. And that is my basic 

concern here. 

I now turn to Ranking Member Engel for his opening statement. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Kerry, thank you for appearing before the committee 

today, and for your tireless efforts to enhance the security and 

prosperity of the United States. 

Thank you, Chairman Royce, for calling this hearing on an issue 

that obviously is of paramount importance to American national security. 

Upon taking office nearly 5 years ago, President Obama inherited an almost nonexistent strategy to deal with the looming threat 

of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapons capability. The President initially focused on the diplomatic track. But the limitations of that 

one-dimensional approach soon became apparent when Iran walked 

away from the P5+1 negotiations in October 2009. After that, the 

administration shifted to a two-track strategy, which coupled engagement with increasing economic pressure through sanctions, 

while making it clear that all options remain on the table. This is 

the policy I favored. And the President, together with Secretary 

Clinton, succeeded beyond expectations in uniting the international 

community against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. 

The U.N. Security Council and the European Union, acting in 

parallel with our efforts, imposed tough new sanctions on Iran. 

This committee took the lead on a bipartisan basis to pass biting 

sanctions legislation, the Royce-Engel bill, designed to cripple the 

Iranian economy, giving the administration the tools it needed to 

change the calculus of the Iranian regime. That was a bill that 

passed unanimously out of this committee. I was very, very proud 

of it, to work on such a bipartisan basis with Chairman Royce. And 

then passed the floor, as the chairman has pointed out, by a vote 

of 400 to 20. It was, I think, one of the finer days of the United 

States House of Representatives. Over the last 3 years, President 

4

Obama has signed four major Iran sanctions bills into law. Taken 

together with international sanctions, this has made it exceedingly 

difficult for Iran to sell its oil on the global markets, cut off Tehran 

from the international financial system, and severely limited Iran’s 

access to hard currency. Several weeks ago, thanks to sustained efforts by Congress and the administration, the Iranians finally admitted that the sanctions are hurting them badly. And for the first 

time, they started talking about the specifics of a negotiated settlement to curtail their nuclear program. As all of us know, the P5+1 

reached an interim agreement with Iran at the end of November. 

And Secretary Kerry, I want to commend you for your incredible 

personal efforts to secure this deal. It makes me tired just watching all of your travel back and forth across the Atlantic and around 

the world. But having said that, I want to make it clear that I have 

some serious reservations about the agreement. 

First and foremost, it seems to me at a minimum, it should have 

required Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, as demanded by six 

separate U.N. Security Council resolutions. I don’t think it is asking too much of Iran to say that at least while we are talking, you 

stop enriching. For the 6-month period while we are talking Iran, 

in my estimation, should not be enriching. And if they refuse to do 

that, again going counter to six separate U.N. Security Council resolutions, it makes me wonder how serious they are and how sincere 

they are in terms of really wanting to negotiate in good faith. 

Mr. Secretary, you and other administration officials have sought 

to make the case that the interim agreement will place significant 

restraints on the Iranian nuclear program, and not allow it to advance while we negotiate a long-term settlement to eliminate the 

threat of an Iranian nuclear weapons capability once and for all. 

You have also said that the sanctions relief we are providing is 

very limited and reversible. I hope you are right. And I am sure 

you will agree with me that the interim agreement must be fully 

implemented and completely verified. I can assure you that Congress will act immediately to ratchet up the pressure with the first 

sign of cheating or backtracking by Iran. 

Mr. Secretary, I hope you can confirm for the committee today 

that the administration will continue to enforce all sanctions that 

remain in place during the implementation of the interim agreement and that you will not hesitate to designate additional entities 

for sanctions over the next 6 months as circumstances warrant. 

In addition, I hope you will send a clear message to businesses 

all over the world that now is not the time to make plans to reenter Iran. And again, the chairman showed that headline in the 

Wall Street Journal. 

In order for me to support a comprehensive agreement, restraints 

must be put in place to assure us that Iran cannot continue down 

the path of a nuclear weapon. 

In that context, Secretary Kerry, I hope you will address the following questions in our discussion today. First, if Iran retains any 

enrichment capacity, how can we be sure that they will not forever 

remain on the brink of a breakout capacity? Second, why do many 

of our closest regional allies feel the interim deal caught them by 

surprise? And what are you going to make certain—what are you 

doing to make certain that they are included as negotiations conVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:19 Mar 05, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\121013\86003 HFA PsN: SHIRL
5

tinue on a final deal? Three, allies of the United States that look 

at Iran as an existential threat to them—Saudi Arabia, Israel, 

United Arab Emirates—all oppose the deal. They are the ones closest to it. Why is that the case? Why does the administration 

strongly oppose congressional action on Iran sanctions legislation 

which makes clear new sanctions will not be imposed unless Iran 

violated the terms of the interim deal? So now that we have an interim deal we must focus with laser-like intensity on ensuring that 

any long-term agreement dismantles all Iranian nuclear infrastructure that could lead to a breakout capacity. Any deal which does 

not achieve that goal will be a devastating failure. 

Mr. Secretary, it is critical that you and the President consult 

very closely with Congress as you implement the interim agreement and negotiate a final deal. Waivers in existing sanctions legislation will only get you so far, and it is likely that Congress 

would have to pass legislation to implement any comprehensive 

deal. But it will be impossible to take that step unless this committee and the full House are fully informed and absolutely convinced that Iran has agreed to verifiably abandon its efforts to develop a nuclear weapons capability. 

And finally, Mr. Secretary, as you continue to engage with the 

Iranians, and I know you know this, but I really need to mention 

it, I would urge you to remain cognizant of the fact that Iran remains the top state sponsor of terrorism in the world, continues to 

support Hezbollah, and the brutal Assad regime in Syria, continues 

to engage in systematic violations of human rights, continues its efforts to destabilize a number of Persian Gulf states, and continues 

to imprison innocent Americans, all of this under the so-called 

moderate Rouhani government. So, again, Mr. Secretary, thank you 

for appearing today, and I look forward to hearing your testimony. 

Chairman ROYCE. Members of the House, this afternoon, we are 

pleased to be joined by John Kerry, our country’s 68th Secretary 

of State. 

Prior to his appointment, Secretary Kerry served as a United 

States Senator from Massachusetts for 28 years, chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the last 4 years of his tenure. The Secretary was in the Middle East just last week. He will 

be returning there tomorrow before heading to Southeast Asia to, 

among other things, assess relief efforts in the Philippines. It is a 

demanding schedule. 

Without objection, Mr. Secretary, your prepared statement will 

be made part of the record. The committee members here will have 

5 days to submit statements and questions for the record. 

And Mr. Secretary, we would like to again welcome you before 

this committee today. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN F. KERRY, 

SECRETARY OF STATE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Secretary KERRY. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you very, very 

much. 

Ranking Member Engel, members of the committee, thanks very 

much for welcoming me back. And I am happy to be back here. 

There is no more important issue in American foreign policy than 

the question of the one we are focused on here today. And obviVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:19 Mar 05, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\121013\86003 HFA PsN: SHIRL
6

ously, from the chairman’s introduction, you know that I come here 

with an enormous amount of respect for your prerogatives on the 

House Foreign Affairs Committee, as we did in the Senate. And it 

is entirely appropriate that we are here to satisfy your questions, 

hopefully allay your concerns and fears, because I believe the 

agreement that we have ought to do that. And I think the path 

that we are on should do that. And as I describe it to you, I hope 

you will leave here today with a sense of confidence that we know 

what we are doing, our eyes are open, we have no illusions. It is 

a tough road. I don’t come here with any guarantees whatsoever. 

And I think none of what we have done in this agreement begs 

that notion. In other words, everything is either verifiable or clear, 

and there are a set of requirements ahead of us which will even 

grow more so in the course of that comprehensive agreement. And 

we can talk about that; I am sure we will in the course of the day. 

Let me just begin by saying that President Obama and I have 

both been very clear, as every member of this committee has been, 

that Iran must not acquire a nuclear weapon. And it is the President’s centerpiece of his foreign policy Iran will not acquire a nuclear weapon. This imperative is at the top of our national security 

agenda. And I know it is at the top of yours as well. 

So I really do welcome the opportunity to have a discussion, not 

only about what the first step agreement does but also to clarify, 

I hope significantly, what it doesn’t do. Because there is a certain, 

as there is in any of these kinds of things, a certain mythology that 

sometimes grows up around them. The title of today’s hearing is, 

‘‘The Iran Nuclear Deal: Does It Further U.S. National Security?’’ 

And I would state to you unequivocally, the answer is yes. The national security of the United States is stronger under this first step 

agreement than it was before. Israel’s national security is stronger 

than it was the day before we entered into this agreement. And the 

Gulf and Middle East interests are more secure than they were the 

day before we entered this agreement. 

Now, here is how. Put simply, once implemented, and it will be 

in the next weeks, this agreement halts the progress of Iran’s nuclear program, halts the progress, and rolls it back in certain 

places for the first time in nearly 10 years. It provides unprecedented monitoring and inspections while we negotiate to see if we 

can conclude a comprehensive agreement. If we can conclude. And 

I came away from our preliminary negotiations with serious questions about whether or not they are ready and willing to make 

some of the choices that have to be made. But that is what we put 

to test over the next months. While we negotiate to see if we can 

conclude a comprehensive agreement that addresses all of our concerns, there is an important fact: Iran’s nuclear program will not 

move forward. Under this agreement, Iran will have to neutralize, 

end its entire stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium, which you 

all know is a short step away from weapons-grade uranium. So if 

you remember when Prime Minister Netanyahu held up that cartoon at the U.N. with the bomb in it in 2012, he showed the world 

a chart that highlighted the type of uranium that he was most concerned about. And he was talking about that 20 percent stockpile. 

Under this agreement, Iran will forfeit all, not part, all of that 20 

percent, that 200 kilogram stockpile. Gone. Under this agreement, 

7

Iran will also halt the enrichment above 5 percent. And it will not 

be permitted to grow its stockpile of 3.5 percent enriched uranium. 

Iran cannot increase the number of centrifuges in operation. And 

it will not install or use any next-generation centrifuges to enrich 

uranium. 

Under this agreement, we will have increased transparency of 

Iran’s nuclear program, giving us a window into their activities 

that we don’t have today. We will have access to Fordow, a secret 

facility in a mountaintop, that we have never been in. We will now 

get into it, not once or twice, every single day. We will get into 

Natanz and have the ability to know, not once or twice, but every 

single day what is happening in Natanz. And we will have access 

each month to the Arak facility, where we will have an extraordinary ability to be able to know, through inspections, whether or 

not they are complying with their requirements. 

Now, this monitoring is going to increase our visibility into Iran’s 

nuclear program, as well as our ability to react should Iran renege 

on this agreement. And taken together, these first steps will help 

prevent Iran from using the cover of negotiations to continue advancing its nuclear program in secret, a concern that everybody on 

this dais shares. Now, in addition, and this is very important, one 

of our greatest concerns has been the Arak, A-r-a-k, nuclear reactor 

facility. And this is a heavy water plutonium-capable reactor. That 

is unacceptable to us. In the first step, we have now succeeded in 

preventing them from doing any additional fuel testing, from transferring any fuel rods into the reactor and from installing any of the 

un-installed components which are critical to their ability to be 

able to advance that particular reactor. So it is frozen stone cold 

where it is in terms of its nuclear threat and capacity. Iran will not 

be able to commission the Arak reactor during the course of this 

interim first step agreement. Now, that is very important. 

Now, we have strong feelings about what will happen in a final 

comprehensive agreement. From our point of view, Arak is unacceptable. You can’t have a heavy water reactor. But we have taken 

the first step in the context of a first step. And they will have to 

halt production of fuel for this reactor and not transfer any fuel or 

heavy water to the reactor site. It cannot conduct any additional 

fuel testing for this. And Iran is required to give us design information for the site. We are actually going to have the plans for the 

site delivered to us. We have long sought this information. And it 

will provide critical insight into the reactor that has not been previously available to us through intel or any other sources. Now, 

those are the highlights of what we get in this agreement. Now, I 

know many of you have asked, well, what does Iran get in return? 

And I have seen outlandish numbers out there in some articles 

talking about $30 billion, $40 billion, $50 billion and so forth, or 

a disintegration of the sanctions. 

My friends, that is just not true. It is absolutely not true. We 

have red teamed and vetted and cross-examined and run through 

all the possible numbers through the intel community, through the 

Treasury Department, through the people in charge of sanctions. 

And our estimates are that at the end of the 6 months, if they fully 

comply, if this holds, they would have somewhere in the vicinity of 

$7 billion total. And this is something that I think you ought to 

8

take great pride in. I was here as chairman when we put this in 

place. I voted for the sanctions, like we all did in the United States 

Senate. I think we were 100 to nothing, as a matter of fact. And 

we put them in place for a purpose. The purpose was to get to this 

negotiation. The purpose was to see whether or not diplomacy and 

avoidance of war could actually deliver the same thing or better 

than you might be able to get through confrontation. 

Now, sanctions relief is limited to the very few targeted areas that are specified in this agreement, for a total of about the $7 billion that I have described. And we will continue to vigorously, 

Ranking Member Engel, we will absolutely—not only will we—I 

mean, this is going to actually result in a greater intensity of focus 

on the sanctions because I have sent a message to every single facility of the United States, anywhere in the world, that every agency is to be on alert to see any least movement by anybody toward 

an effort to try to circumvent or undo the sanctions. We don’t believe that will happen. And one of the reasons it won’t happen is 

we have a united P5+1. Russia, China, the United States, France, 

Germany, and Great Britain are all united in this assurance that 

we will not undo the sanctions and that we will stay focused on 

their enforcement. 

Now, all the sanctions on Iran, further, on its abysmal human 

rights record, over its support for terrorism, which you mentioned, 

and over its destabilizing activities in places like Syria, those sanctions will all remain in effect. They have nothing to do with the nuclear. They are there for the reasons they are there. And we are 

not taking them off. This agreement does provide Iran with a very 

limited temporary and reversible relief. And it is reversible at any 

time in the process that there is noncompliance. If Iran fails to 

meet its commitments, we can and will revoke this relief. And we 

will be the first ones to come to you, if this fails, to ask you for 

additional sanctions. The total amount of relief is somewhere between the $6 billion and $7 billion that I described. That is less 

than 1 percent of Iran’s $1 trillion economy. And it is a small fraction of the $100 billion plus of oil revenue alone that we have deprived Iran of since 2012. I want you to keep in mind this really 

pales in comparison to the amount of pressure that we are leaving 

in place. Iran will lose $30 billion over the course of this continued 

sanctions regime over the next 6 months. So compare that: They 

may get $7 billion of relief, but they are going to lose $30 billion. 

It is going to go into the frozen accounts. It will be added to the 

already $45 billion or so that is in those accounts now that they 

can’t access. 

And during the 6-month negotiating period, Iran’s crude oil sales 

cannot increase. Oil sanctions continue as they are today. There is 

no diminishment of the oil and banking sanctions that you put in 

place. We have not lifted them. We haven’t eased them. That 

means that as we negotiate, oil sanctions will continue to cost Iran 

about the $30 billion I just described and Iran will actually lose 

more money each month that we negotiate than it will gain in relief as a result of this agreement. And while we provide $4.2 billion 

in relief over the 6 months, which is direct money we will release 

from the frozen account, we are structuring this relief in a way 

that it is tied to concrete IAEA-verified steps that they have agreed 

9

to take on the nuclear program. That means that the funds will be 

transferred, not all at once, but in installments in order to ensure 

that Iran fulfills its commitments. And it means that Iran will not 

get the full measure of relief until the end of the negotiating period, when and if we verify, certify that they have complied. 

So now we have committed, along were our P5+1 partners, to not 

impose any new nuclear-related sanctions for the period of the 6 

months. Now, I am sure there are questions about this. I know I 

have seen—and there are some in Congress who have suggested 

they ought do it. I am happy to answer them. I will tell you that 

in my 29 years, just about shy of the full 29, I have served in the 

Senate, I was always the leading proponent of the sanctions 

against Iran. I am proud of what we did here. But it was undeniable that the pressure we put on Iran through these sanctions is 

exactly what has brought Iran to the table today. And I think Congress deserves an enormous amount of credit for that. But I don’t 

think that any of us thought we were just imposing these sanctions 

for the sake of imposing them. We did it because we knew that it 

would hopefully help Iran dismantle its nuclear program. That was 

the whole point of the regime. 

Now, has Iran changed its nuclear calculus? I honestly don’t 

think we can say for sure yet. And we certainly don’t just take 

words at face value. Believe me, this is not about trust. 

And given the history—and Mr. Chairman, you mentioned the 

question of deception—given the history, we are all rightly skeptical about whether or not people are ready to make the hard 

choices necessary to live up to this. But we now have the best 

chance we have ever had to rigorously test this proposition, without 

losing anything. At least twice in this agreement it is mentioned 

that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. And that is specific as to the final agreement. In addition, where it does talk about 

the potential of enrichment in the future, it says ‘‘mutually agreed 

upon’’ at least four times—three or four times—in that paragraph. 

Has to be agreed. We don’t agree, it doesn’t happen. Every one of 

us remembers Ronald Reagan’s maxim when he was negotiating 

with the Soviet Union, ‘‘Trust but verify.’’ But we have a new one, 

‘‘Test but verify.’’ Test but verify. And that is exactly what we intend do in the course of this process. 

Now, we have all been through tough decisions, those of you on 

the top dais have been around here a long time, and you have seen, 

we all know the kinds of tough, you know, decisions we have to 

make. But we are asking you to give our negotiators and our experts the time and the space to do their jobs. And that includes 

asking you, while we negotiate, that you hold off imposing new 

sanctions. Now, I am not saying never. I just told you a few minutes ago, if this doesn’t work, we are coming back and asking you 

for more. I am just saying not right now. 

Let me be very clear. This is a very delicate diplomatic moment. 

And we have a chance to address peacefully one of the most pressing national security concerns that the world faces today, with gigantic implications of the potential of conflict. We are at a crossroads. We are at one of those really hinge points in history. One 

path could lead to an enduring resolution in international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. The other path could 

10

lead to continued hostility, and potentially to conflict. And I don’t 

have to tell you that these are high stakes. We have an obligation 

to give these negotiations an opportunity to succeed. 

And we can’t ask the rest of the P5+1 and our partners around 

the world to hold up their ends of the bargain if the United States 

isn’t going to uphold its end of the bargain. If we appear to be 

going off on our own tangent and do whatever we want, we will potentially lose their support for the sanctions themselves, because 

we don’t just enforce them by ourselves; we need their help. And 

I don’t want to threaten the unity that we currently have with respect to this approach, particularly when it doesn’t cost us a thing 

to go through this process, knowing that we could put sanctions in 

place, additionally, in a week, and we would be there with you 

seeking to do it. 

I don’t want to give the Iranians a public excuse to flout the 

agreement. It could lead our international partners to think that 

we are not an honest broker and that we didn’t mean it when we 

said that sanctions were not an end in and of themselves but a tool 

to pressure the Iranians into a diplomatic solution. Well, we are in 

that. And 6 months will fly by so fast, my friends, that before you 

know it, we are either going to know which end of this we are at 

or not. It is possible also that it could even end up decreasing the 

pressure on Iran by leading to the fraying of the sanctions regime. 

I will tell you that there were several P5+1 partners at the table 

ready to accept an agreement significantly less than what we 

fought for and got in the end. 

Mr. Chairman, you want me to wrap? 

Chairman ROYCE. If you could, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary KERRY. Okay. Let me just say to you that the Iranians 

know that this threat is on the table. I do want to say one quick 

world about Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu. I speak to the 

Prime Minister usually a couple times a week or several times. 

Talked to him yesterday morning, and I am leaving tomorrow, and 

I will be seeing him Thursday night. We are totally agreed that we 

need to focus on this final comprehensive agreement. And Yossi 

Cohen, the national security adviser to the Prime Minister, is here 

in Washington this week working with our experts. And we will 

work hand in hand closely, not just with Israel but with our friends 

in the Gulf and others around the world to understand everybody’s 

assessment of what constitutes the best comprehensive agreement 

that absolutely guarantees that the program, whatever it is to be, 

is peaceful and that we have expanded by an enormous amount the 

breakout time. 

This first step agreement, Mr. Chairman, actually does expand 

the breakout time. Because of the destruction of the 20 percent, because of the lack of capacity to move forward on all those other facilities, we are expanding the amount of time that it would take 

them to break out. And clearly, in a final agreement, we intend to 

make this failsafe that we can guarantee that they will not have 

access to nuclear weapons. So I just simply put the rest of my testimony in the record, Mr. Chairman. 

I look forward to your questions. 

Chairman ROYCE. Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

[Secretary Kerry did not submit a prepared statement.] 

11

Chairman ROYCE. And I think we all agree with you; the purpose 

of the sanctions imposed on Iran was to get Iran to the negotiating 

table. 

But I think it is also important to remember the perspective that 

we had about what we would get in those agreements at the negotiating table. If you recall, the early suggestion was that Iran could 

basically keep the right to import nuclear fuel, but that would then 

allow the dismantling of their nuclear weapons capability. 

And here is the problem, Mr. Secretary, as I said in my statement: We have heard the administration say that Iran has no right 

to enrich. But the Iranians this week say they do. And the Joint 

Action Plan indicates that the U.S. would accept an Iranian enrichment program. 

Iran, from our standpoint, does not need this technology to generate electricity. Clearly, we are prepared to allow them to import 

nuclear fuel. But if they have this technology, it is exactly what 

they do need to make a nuclear weapon. 

So am I reading this right? Is the administration’s position that 

while it may not recognize Iran’s right to enrich, Iran will in practice retain an enrichment program as part of the final agreement? 

That is the question. 

Secretary KERRY. It depends, Mr. Chairman, on the final agreement. It is not locked in, no. If you go to the agreement, I will read 

to you from the agreement, the last paragraph says that it would 

involve a mutually defined enrichment program, with mutually 

agreement parameters, consistent with practical needs. That is a 

very important concept. It has to relate to whatever it is practically 

that they might have a reason for arguing they need it for, like 

medical research or whatever it is. But that would be very limited. 

It then says with agreed limits on scope and level of enrichment 

activities and capacity and where it is carried out and stocks of enriched uranium for a period to be agreed upon. So I have got one, 

two, three, four mutually agreed or agreed-upons. Now, those are 

going to have to be agreed upon. And if they can’t be, no, they 

won’t have one. 

If it is so limited and so verifiable and so transparent and so accountable, and you have all of the attributes of cradle-to-grave documentation—one of the things I didn’t mention to you we got in the 

first step is access to their mining facilities so we can trace how 

much they are mining. We have access to their milling so we can 

trace the transition. We have access to the centrifuge workshops. 

We have access to the centrifuge storage facilities. So we are building the capacity here to know exactly what is happening in an unprecedented fashion. And I will say, as I said to Foreign Minister 

Zarif in our negotiations, there is no right to enrich in the NPT. 

But neither is it denied. The NPT is silent on the issue. 

Chairman ROYCE. Well, it is, of course, the most important concession that they wanted. And from our standpoint, as you know, 

the goal was, since, as I explained, you are right, if they can enrich 

to 20 percent, they are 80 percent there in terms of a bomb. But 

if they can enrich to 5 percent, because of the way technology 

works, once you master it, if you can enrich to 5 percent, you are 

still 70 percent of the way there toward getting a bomb. So the 

question going forward that we have is focused on precisely how we 

12

dismantle their nuclear weapons program. And that is why we 

really appreciate this dialogue with you today. 

There was an additional discussion that I wanted to have on this 

‘‘managed access.’’ I talked to the director of the IAEA. And the inspectors on the International Atomic Energy Agency will have certain abilities, managed access as we say, with respect to the locations in which the centrifuges, as you said, are assembled or where 

they are produced. But does this include access to the military base 

in Parchin, the military base where the IAEA alleged to me that 

testing for weapons designs takes place? And I would just ask you 

also about another point which they have made, which is that Iran 

is out of compliance with respect to their ICBM program, their 

three-stage ICBMs that they are developing. And so what type of 

access at the end of the day are the IAEA really going to possess 

here? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, Mr. Chairman, let me answer a couple of 

things there, if I can, because it is very important to this process. 

In any negotiation, and you all know this because you negotiate 

around here every day, you can have a wish list, and you approach 

it from a U.N. Security Council resolution point of view and say, 

well, this is where we would like to be. But then there is the question of where you can really be. Now, without what we have 

achieved here, Iran would be progressing toward its nuclear weapon now. The window would be narrowing in terms of its breakout 

time. Israel would be more at risk if we weren’t where we are 

today. That is where we were heading. 

And from Iran’s point of view, as they look at it, they say to 

themselves, Well, wait a minute now, there are about 17 countries 

in the world that have nuclear weapons that are peaceful, and 

about four or five of them enrich. And why can’t we? Well, obviously, the answer from all of us is because you are out of synch 

with the IAEA standards, with the NPT, and et cetera. But if they 

came into compliance, what is it that says that they then couldn’t 

be able to do it? That is their question to us. Now they say to us, 

Okay, you guys say we ought to completely end enrichment, and 

yet you are not willing to give us sanctions relief. To them, the balance in the negotiation is if we give up the very thing we are fighting to be able to do, then you ought to give up the thing that you 

are using to get us to do it. So their equivalency was we stop enrichment, you stop sanctions altogether. 

Now, there isn’t anybody here who would have stopped sanctions 

altogether at that point, because we have to build a process. So 

what we did was we got, I thought, a remarkable amount. We 

stopped their program, and we have eliminated the 20 percent and 

rolled back their breakout time, enlarged it, while we move toward 

the final negotiation. Now, the final negotiation is going to be in 

conjunction with all of our partners. And whatever we do, it has 

got to make Israel safer. It has got to make the world safer. It can’t 

threaten the Emirates. It can’t threaten Saudi Arabia. It can’t 

threaten the region. We all understand this. It has to be a peaceful 

program. We have to know this to a certainty. And it isn’t hard to 

prove a program is peaceful if it really is. So we are now in the 

main game. And what we are saying to you is, respectfully, that 

you should give us an opportunity, working with you, we will brief 

13

you, we will be keeping everybody informed, working with our 

friends to make sure we are all on the same page as we go through 

this process of proof. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, you are absolutely correct, there are dimensions of the ballistic missiles that are of great concern. And we are 

well aware of that. And there is the Parchin military development 

facility that is of great concern. The fact is that we believe this 

agreement also opens the door for our ability to deal with some of 

that. And the language specifically is the plan says that Iran will 

work with the IAEA to facilitate resolution of past and present 

issues of concern. Past and present issues of concern is formula 

language for the IAEA and Iran in addressing possible military dimensions, including Parchin. It also says that in the final step, 

they have to have a resolution of our concerns, which is understood 

to include the military dimensions of the program, which are on 

the table. In addition, the plan says there will be some interim 

steps, additional steps in between the initial measure and the final 

step, including addressing the U.N. Security Council resolutions, 

with a view toward bringing to satisfactory conclusion the U.N. Security Council’s consideration in this matter. The U.N. Security 

Council, you will remember, Mr. Chairman, sought suspension, not 

prohibition. And in effect, we now believe that in this plan that we 

have laid out, Iran is required to address the U.N. Security Council 

resolutions regarding its nuclear program before a comprehensive 

agreement can be reached. And the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929, which is contained in that, specifically addresses ballistic 

missiles. So the answer is, it is on the table; it is part of the discussion. 

Chairman ROYCE. Well, my time has expired. I want to thank 

you. As you know, I am very concerned about this Iranian regime 

being allowed enrichment capability at the end of the day. I don’t 

think—since neighboring countries don’t have it, I think it is a 

problem that might set off something of an arms race among its 

neighbors. 

But I want to go now to Mr. Eliot Engel of New York for his 

questions. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

I want to just follow up on the enriching. And I said this in my 

opening remarks, Mr. Secretary. I understand that you said that 

if we force them to stop enriching, they would want us to remove 

the sanctions right away. I want to talk about both of those. First, 

the enriching. I just think if there are six Security Council resolutions calling on Iran to stop enriching, the least they could do is 

stop enriching while we are negotiating with them. And I don’t 

really think that that is too much to ask. And that is one of the 

things that bothers me greatly. 

Secondly, you mentioned Israel. We have all heard from the governments of Israel, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, they all 

regard Iran as an existential threat to them, all three governments. 

And they don’t like the deal. So why are the countries that seem 

to be most affected by it, that are closest in geography to Iran, that 

feel an existential threat, why don’t they like the deal? 

14

Secretary KERRY. Well, actually, the Emirates put out a statement of support for it. I have been to the Emirates recently, and 

they believe that, cautiously, they are concerned, but I think they 

are completely understanding where we are heading with this and 

supportive of it. I stood up with the Foreign Minister of the Emirates in Abu Dhabi, and he said, I support the agreement and what 

they are trying to do. I was in Saudi Arabia shortly thereafter. I 

met with Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, I met with the King and 

explained to them where we are. And they have issued a statement 

supportive of the direction we are going in. 

Now, Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel obviously had a difference tactically. The Prime Minister thought we should ratchet 

up the sanctions and keep the pressure on, and somehow they 

would collapse. We didn’t read it the same way. We also felt that 

by just trying to go into the negotiation for the final status comprehensive agreement, you would be allowing them to continue to 

grow their program while you were negotiating. And that is more 

like the North Korean model. You know, you sort of get into this 

long, prolonged negotiation, but they are progressing while you are 

doing it. We wanted to make sure we could try to stop the program 

where it is and have an assurance then while we negotiate that it 

can’t progress. We also thought it was important to show the world 

whether or not, in a first step, they were willing to show good faith 

in moving forward. They have done so. They are stopping. They are 

doing it. Now, they haven’t done it yet. We have to implement. Our 

negotiators are right now in Vienna and The Hague, working on 

this. And we hope in the next days that will happen. And we have 

plans to resume the negotiations in short order thereafter. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. 

Let’s talk about sanctions. You agree with us that it was sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table. I believe that we 

need to keep the sanctions pressure on Iran and that the pressure 

track will actually strengthen your hand. 

We have been told by the administration and also in your testimony here today that if Congress passes sanctions now, even if 

those sanctions don’t go into effect for 6 months or would only go 

into effect if there was a strong breach by Iran, that we would 

cause irreversible damage to our diplomatic process with Iran. If 

that is true then, how can the United States send a message to 

Iran that there will be dire consequences if the interim deal does 

not come to fruition? And secondly, why hasn’t the administration 

issued any sanctions designations which involve sanctions that are 

already in place since the election of Rouhani? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, Mr. Chairman, I can assure you the Iranians are listening to this hearing today. And I can assure you they 

have listened to us in every conversation that we have had and in 

every conversation that our friends have had with them. They 

know we are serious. They know the President is serious. They 

know we are serious about diplomacy, because we prefer to resolve 

this through diplomacy and to reach a reasonable accord and to 

test whether or not President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif 

and the supreme leader want to try to move in a different direction. If they do, you should welcome that. We would welcome that. 

15

But we are not naive. We are not sitting here believing that because somebody says it to you it is true. You have got to work 

through this process. You have to build trust. You know, when 

Nixon opened China and Kissinger went over and sat with Mao 

Tse-Tung, it wasn’t based on trust. They set up a process, and they 

began to build a different relationship. Same thing with Gorbachev 

and Reagan and the Soviet Union. It wasn’t based on trust; it was 

based on a process that was put in place. So we are approaching 

this I think realistically, with an understanding that these sanctions make a difference. Now, they know, they know that if this 

fails, sanctions will be increased. We have said it a hundred times, 

and you all have said it a hundred times. And they know you are 

yearning to go do it. But you don’t need to do it. It is actually gratuitous in the context of this situation, because you can do it in a 

week if you need to, when we say this ain’t working, we need your 

help. And believe me, we will be prepared to do that. 

And you will be partners in this as we go along, because we will 

be sharing, you know, a sense of where we are and what is going 

on. 

So I would simply say to you we also have partners in this, Congressman. You know that. I mean, if our partners in Europe and 

China and Russia see us go off and we are hammering in a way 

that, you know, runs contra to the agreements we have made, it 

really is very difficult for us to hold the thing whole. And I think—

I just think it is not the wisest approach. 

Mr. ENGEL. Well, I think it could potentially strengthen your 

hand with a good cop/bad cop scenario. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, I appreciate you thinking that. I am respectfully suggesting to you that we think our hand is very, very 

strong, and nothing is undone in the sanctions regime. They are 

going to lose $30 billion over the course of the next—they normally 

have—they normally sell 2.5 million barrels per day of oil. They are 

down to a million. Their economy is careening. And they know 

what they need to do. And their people’s hopes and aspirations 

have been raised. You saw what happened. They came back, and 

people were excited and anticipating the possibility they might 

have different lives. Those aspirations can’t suddenly be put back 

in a can. So I think there is a lot that is moving in the right direction here. And I think we just ought to try to respect the process. 

If you couldn’t put them in place in a week, if it was impossible 

to design them—we will work with you, you can design them. We 

can sit here and be ready to go. We are just saying to you, please, 

give us the opportunity to negotiate along the contours of what we 

have agreed upon. 

Mr. ENGEL. What about the sanctions designations that are already in place? 

Secretary KERRY. They stay in place. 

Mr. ENGEL. But there haven’t been any sanctions designations 

issued since Rouhani’s election. 

Secretary KERRY. With respect to what? 

Mr. ENGEL. With respect to the sanctions that are in place if 

there have been any violations. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, I am not sure there have been. I am not 

aware of one that begged us to put an additional sanction in place. 

16

Mr. ENGEL. And I know my time is up, Mr. Chairman, but let 

me just ask one final question. You mentioned, Mr. Secretary, that 

$6 billion to $7 billion or $7 billion to $8 billion in sanctions relief 

is being provided to Iran as a result; that it is minimal. The rial, 

we are told, is up about 30 percent since the signing of this interim 

agreement. Has that been taken into account when we look at the 

amount of pressure that we are taking, we are moving from Iran? 

Secretary KERRY. Yes, it has been. And we also take into account, obviously, the variations in the price of oil, sometimes the 

production. In some times they have had 800,000 barrels in a 

month, sometimes they have more, it is about the million. There 

are variations. We have taken the entire curve of variations into 

effect. By the way, the day after this agreement was made, the 

stock market in Israel was the highest it has been. 

Chairman ROYCE. We are going to go now to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen 

of Florida. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. 

Mr. Secretary, you stated on ‘‘60 Minutes’’ that, on a nuclear deal 

with Iran, a bad deal is worse than no deal. Well, this deal is a 

bad deal. I believe that the concessions offered to Iran will be the 

death knell on the sanctions program as we know it. This threatens 

our allies. It threatens our closest ally, the democratic Jewish state 

of Israel. 

Isn’t it true that the fissile material is just one aspect, but there 

is also the weaponization to consider and also ballistic missiles? 

This Iran deal does not address these, and Iran has announced a 

significant advancement on its ballistic missile program. Why was 

it decided to leave these aspects of Iran’s nuclear weapons program 

unaddressed in the agreement? 

I oppose the administration’s acceptance of Iran’s illegitimate 

claim to a right to enrich uranium. Iran says that this deal does 

give it that right. I expect the Iranian regime to welcome in the 

entire international community to show that it has not violated the 

terms of the deal, and both the administration and the media will 

be effusive in their praise of Iran’s fulfillment of the deal. Well, we 

set the bar so low that Iran will probably comply. And we must not 

be fooled by that approach, as Iran can start up the centrifuges. It 

will be too late to stop them. How long would it take for Iran to 

enrich uranium from 3.5 to 90 percent with its current nuclear infrastructure with advanced centrifuges? 

I have worked, as you know, over the years to help create the 

Iran sanctions program that we have in place now. I was the author of several Iran sanctions bills that have become law, including 

the toughest set of sanctions currently on the books. And it is discouraging that many countries are now eager to do business with 

Iran, to get Iranian gas. And we will not be able to stop this cash 

infusion and get sanctions back to their current levels. 

Now, Jay Carney suggested that if pursuing a diplomatic resolution in Iran is disallowed or ruled out, then we would be faced with 

no other option than war to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear 

weapon. This is a false binary choice. It is not one or the other. We 

have been increasing sanctions on the Iranian regime for a decade. 

Do you agree with this characterization, and do you believe that 

those of us in Congress who oppose this deal and seek an increase 

17

in sanctions to force Iran to give up its enrichment program, it is 

not to force Iran to negotiate, it is to force Iran to give up its enrichment program, that we are warmongers? 

And lastly, two issues. Regarding Camp Ashraf, are the Ashraf 

7 being held in Iran or are they in Iraq? And, Mr. Secretary, sometimes a handshake is just a handshake, but when the leader of the 

free world shakes the bloody hand of a ruthless dictator like Raul 

Castro it becomes a propaganda coup for the tyrant. Raul Castro 

uses that hand to sign the orders to repress and jail democracy advocates. In fact, right now, as we speak, Cuban opposition leaders 

are being detained and they are being beaten while trying to commemorate today, which is International Human Rights Day. They 

will feel disheartened when they see these photos. 

Could you please tell the Cuban people living under that repressive regime that, a handshake notwithstanding, the U.S. policy toward the cruel and sadistic Cuban dictatorship has not weakened? 

Thank you. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. Let me begin, first of all, by making clear, my staff slipped 

me a piece of piper that informs me that on September 6, the 

Treasury Department—I see Congressman Engel is not here—but 

the Treasury Department identified a network of six individuals 

and four businesses subject to the Iran Sanctions Act, and they did 

sanction them. So Treasury has done at least one instance of sanctioning since then. 

With respect to your opening comment, Madam Chairwoman, regarding the death knell of the sanctions, we just have to respectfully disagree. And in 6 months the world will know whether you 

are right or I am right or whether you are wrong or I am wrong, 

and we are going to know. I don’t agree with you. I do not believe 

it is the death knell of the sanctions, because all of our partners 

are united. 

And we have enormous tools at our disposal. We are the ones 

who control access to the financial system in the United States, 

which is, you know, sine qua non for almost any financial transaction in the world. We have huge ability to leverage and to have 

an impact on people. And as I said to you earlier, we are going to 

be all over this. So I have great confidence in our ability to go forward. 

Moreover, most companies know that the sanctions are still in 

place and that we are going to be doing this. The visibility that has 

been given creates great uncertainty for them. Very few companies 

are going to go out and try and actually cut a contract with Iran 

if they think in 5 months or 4 months that contract is going to be 

null and void because the sanctions are going to be ratcheted up 

or you might be at war. It is just not going to happen. Common 

sense tells you that. They want more certainty before they sign any 

long-term contracts, and those are long-term contract, oil contracts 

and such. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. If you could answer the Ashraf and the Cuba 

question. 

Secretary KERRY. Beg your pardon? 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. If you could answer the Ashraf and the Cuba 

question. 

18

Secretary KERRY. Sure. The question on Ashraf was, where are 

they? 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Iran or Iraq? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, they are in Iraq. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. They are in Iraq? 

Secretary KERRY. The people. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. The seven hostages——

Secretary KERRY. Oh. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN [continuing]. Taken from Camp Ashraf. We 

have not known where they are. 

Secretary KERRY. I can talk to you about that in classified session. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. And on the issue of Cuba and the U.S. policy? 

Secretary KERRY. On the issue of Cuba, ladies and gentlemen, 

today is about honoring Nelson Mandela, and the President is at 

an international funeral with leaders from all over the world. He 

didn’t choose who is there. They are there to honor Mandela. And 

we appreciate that people from all over the world and from all different beliefs and walks of life who appreciated Nelson Mandela 

and/or were friends of his came to honor him. 

And I think as the President said, I urge you to go read his 

speech, or if you didn’t see it or haven’t read it, because the President said in his speech today honoring Nelson Mandela, he said, 

we urge leaders to honor Mandela’s struggle for freedom by upholding the basic human rights of their people. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. And would you say Raul Castro is upholding 

the basic human rights. 

Secretary KERRY. No. Absolutely not. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, sir. 

Secretary KERRY. And you know my position on that. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Mr. Brad Sherman of California. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Secretary, I would like to thank you and others 

in the administration for your hard work and for actually enforcing 

the sanctions laws that we in Congress pass. 

We have got a number of Iran sanctions statutes on the book; 

some have waivers, some don’t. With regard to those that don’t 

have waivers, can you pledge now that this administration will enforce the laws on the books to the best of your ability? 

Secretary KERRY. Absolutely. I think we do. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I am concerned, because as the ranking——

Secretary KERRY. Are you talking about the waiver on the oil? 

Mr. SHERMAN. I was just talking about all of the sanction laws. 

Some have waivers, some don’t. 

I am concerned, as the ranking member points out, the first 6 

months of this year we had dozens and dozens of individual companies sanctioned because we discovered the information that indicated that they had violated U.S. sanctions laws. Since Rouhani 

was elected in the middle of this year, one, and you have identified 

it. So we have gone from dozens and dozens to one. I am hoping 

that we are not slow walking things because we are so happy with 

Rouhani. 

I want to thank the administration for recognizing the importance of the sanctions bills that Congress has passed. The sanctions 

19

that the administration lauds now, you opposed, or the administration opposed, you weren’t there at the time, every single one of 

them then, most significantly the banking sanctions——

Secretary KERRY. That is the virtue of my having voted for them. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Yes. But it is the administration, not just any one 

Cabinet officer that makes policy. And Secretary Geithner speaking 

for the administration at the time said that he strongly opposed 

those banking sanctions and that they might actually benefit the 

regime. And, in fact, all the administrations have opposed all these 

sanctions. They are the reason we didn’t pass any sanctions 2001 

to 2008. The administration is the reason we didn’t pass any in 

2009 or 2013. And now you are here saying don’t do anything now, 

because we will be with you in urging sanctions if this deal doesn’t 

go forward. 

My fear is we won’t be able to act in a week, because the only 

way we can act in a week is if the administration is with us, and 

every administration has been opposed to every sanction since before I got here. 

Now, as to the importance of the sanctions relief that we have 

granted, when international companies know no sanctions in 2013, 

no sanctions in 2014, that is enough of a window for them to exploit the loopholes in the existing laws. Since the Geneva deal, instead of the Iranian economy careening, it is rebounding, a 30 percent increase in the value of the rial, Chinese oil companies, Turkish Government, Japanese banks all saying now is the time to do 

business with Iran, and the YPO group, which has members in all 

of our districts, announces an international business conference in 

Tehran. 

I was briefed by the administration on this deal, and I was impressed a little bit less after I read it, because, Mr. Secretary, you 

say it halts and rolls back the program. The fact is they have got 

9,000 centrifuges turning now, and they will turn throughout, they 

will spin throughout the term of this agreement. So the centrifuges 

are literally rolling forward. 

You have told us that they can’t increase their stockpile of enriched uranium. Yes, they can. They just have to convert it to uranium oxide. Well, that doesn’t neutralize, it creates a new stockpile 

of enriched uranium oxide, which can be turned into uranium 

hexaflourine in just a couple of weeks. And the Wisconsin Project 

on Nuclear Arms Control calculates that they will, during the term 

of this agreement, which is really 7 months, create enough enriched uranium for 1 nuclear bomb. 

Now, the one issue before Congress is whether we should adopt 

sanctions that go into effect in this summer, or instead that it is 

safe to wait. As you point out, we can pass sanctions in a week if 

you are lobbying for them, but if you are, as every administration 

has, trying to prevent them, you are asking us to be asleep and do 

nothing while 9,000 centrifuges turn and a new uranium stockpile 

is created. 

And as a practical matter this agreement, it doesn’t start, the 6 

months doesn’t start for many weeks. Six months after that is late 

July. And anyone who has looked at the congressional calendar 

knows we will not be able to pass a controversial bill opposed by 

the administration unless we take action well before July. Are we 

20

in session in August, September, or October? Yeah, a couple of 

weeks. 

It appears my time is about to expire. 

Secretary KERRY. I hope you enjoyed my answer. 

Mr. SHERMAN. The one thing I would like you to focus on is why 

are you convinced that the 1,600 kilos of uranium oxide that Iran 

will create during this agreement is not a threat? And do you disagree that it can be converted to gas very easily? 

Secretary KERRY. It can be if you have a conversion capacity, and 

Iran doesn’t have a conversion capacity and they are not allowed 

to build one. 

Mr. SHERMAN. So it takes a couple more weeks. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, no. No, no, no. Congressman, you are 

really setting up a straw man, and it is really not a hard one to 

knock down because there is just no reality to the scenario you are 

drawing. 

First of all, I was chair of the hearings on the Iran sanctions and 

I was working with the administration. The administration did not 

oppose them, they opposed the timing of it. They had a timing 

issue, because they thought they had the prerogative to be able to 

negotiate, as I am now arguing we should have. But the Senate, 

in its infinite wisdom, decided no and went ahead and passed 

them, and the timing was decided for the administration. 

Now, I don’t know any administration that doesn’t like to conduct its foreign policy on its terms, and I don’t know any Congress 

that doesn’t like to, you know, weigh in. 

Now, here is the deal. There is a way for us to get the best of 

both worlds. I have come here representing the President telling 

you that the President is committed, if this fails, he is going to 

want to ratchet up, because we are going to have to do what we 

have to do to make sure they don’t get a nuclear capacity. 

This is important, though, Mr. Chairman. You have got to have 

a chance to answer some of the questions here. I think it is important. 

Chairman ROYCE. Well, we have given you that chance, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, I want to just make this point, because 

it is important to how we could proceed. We are committed to asking you for additional sanctions if we fail. We will need them. And 

I am asking you, work with us. We will work with you now in support of those. Let’s frame what they might be, how they might be, 

and we could certainly be ready. I am asking you not to do it now 

because of the, you know, relationship with our P5+1 and the message that it sends. But you are wrong when you say that the administration is not going to come and ask for them. You are just 

dead wrong. We are telling you we will. 

Moreover, with respect to the facilities that exist or anything 

else, if they started to spin more centrifuges, it is clear to us they 

are not serious. That would be such a flagrant violation of this, it 

would not only invite more sanctions, it might invite——

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, they are spinning 9,000 now. 

Chairman ROYCE. Okay. 

Secretary KERRY [continuing]. If they started to spin. But they 

are not allowed to hook up the ones that are in Fordo. They have 

21

been restricted in that. They are not allowed to put additional centrifuges in place. They have 19,000. They could be hooking them 

all up. They are not going to do that. 

But let’s say they did. Let’s say that they say to hell with you, 

and our inspectors see what they are doing. We have the absolute 

capacity deployed now to deal with that, if we have to, from a military point of view, which they know we have and will not invite. 

And we could not only terminate those facilities, but we could obviously set back that program for some time. Now, it comes with a 

whole different set of costs and different calculations, but that has 

not been taken off the table.

Chairman ROYCE. We are going to go to Mr. Smith of New Jersey. And I am going to suggest, members, we are going to hold to 

5 minutes, so ask your question, we will get the response and we 

will move along. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And welcome, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. Secretary, last spring Congressman Frank Wolf chaired a 

hearing on an American, Pastor Saeed Abedini, who is unjustly 

jailed in Iran. His wife, Naghmeh, testified that the State Department had told her that there was nothing that could be done. She 

was shocked and dismayed, but we were all grateful that in response to her testimony and her appeal, you issued a much welcomed statement on behalf of her imprisoned husband. 

On Thursday Naghmeh will testify before my subcommittee and 

the subcommittee of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, joint subcommittees, and 

from her advanced testimony she will say,

‘‘He has been beaten until the pain has been so great he can’t 

stand. I fear for the worst. Even worse, I fear that our children, Rebekka, who is 7, and Jacob Cyrus, who is 5, may never 

see their daddy again.’’

Then she goes on to say,

‘‘My husband is suffering because he is a Christian, he is suffering because he is an American, yet his own Government, at 

least the executive and diplomatic representatives, has abandoned him. Don’t we owe it to him as a Nation to stand up for 

his human rights and for his freedom?’’

She goes on to say,

‘‘While I am grateful for President Obama’s willingness to express concern about my husband and the other imprisoned 

Americans, including Amir Hekmati and Robert Levinson, I 

was devastated to learn that the administration didn’t even 

ask for my husband’s release when directly seated across the 

table from the leaders of the government that holds him captive.’’

So my first question would be, is that true? Did we raise 

Abedini’s case directly with the Iranians in the negotiations on the 

nuclear issue? 

Secretary KERRY. The answer is that is not true. I personally 

raised the issue with Foreign Minister Zarif when I first met him, 

the very first time. And we have not linked it directly to the nuclear issue, because we believe that prejudices them, and it also 

22

prejudices the negotiation. We don’t want them to become the hostages or pawns of a process that then gets played against something they want with respect to the nuclear program; nor do you, 

I think. We want them returned because they are American citizens, because they have to be accountable to us for them, and because they deserve to be returned. 

Mr. SMITH. With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, wasn’t that——

Secretary KERRY. It is a fundamental humanitarian basis. Believe me, I am not at liberty to go into what is happening on it, 

and that is the difficulty in some of these situations many times, 

because there are back channels and other kinds of efforts that are 

engaged in. But we have never stopped trying to secure their release or raising that issue with our representative nations that represent us in Tehran, with the Swiss, with the Swedish, with others. 

It is a constant process and we are engaged in that effort. 

Mr. SMITH. And I do appreciate that, but it seems to me that 

there was a window of opportunity when they wanted something 

and wanted it desperately to raise the issue at that negotiating 

table. Let me ask you this before you answer. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, Congressman, Congressman Smith, let 

me just say something. This opportunity is huge and still exists, 

but we are not going to link them to the nuclear, because it prejudices them. 

Mr. SMITH. But he is at risk right now of death. He has been 

transferred to an even more ominous prison. He is in a cell with 

known murderers. He woke up with a knife next to his face just 

recently. 

Secretary KERRY. I am happy to sit with you in a classified 

venue, providing it is cleared appropriately, and I can tell you what 

we are doing. But it is an ongoing and constant effort. 

Mr. SMITH. Do you have expectations that he and the others will 

be free? 

Secretary KERRY. I have hope. I can’t speak for what they will 

do or not do. But I am constantly——

Mr. SMITH. Well, the chairman talked about how, if there is respect for human rights of their own people, it raises our sense of 

trust, even though you say trust and test. But it seems to me that 

here we have an American——

Secretary KERRY. I didn’t say trust. I said test and verify. Nothing is not based on trust yet, certainly. 

Mr. SMITH. But again, it raises even more serious questions 

about their credibility when an American is being tortured and we 

are conducting a negotiation and he is not even—I know he is part 

of it on the side, but not——

Secretary KERRY. I understand. 

Mr. SMITH. It ought to be central. 

Secretary KERRY. Obviously, we have to make some very tough 

decisions about what affects what. 

Mr. SMITH. I understand. 

Secretary KERRY. We believe it would disadvantage them. 

Mr. SMITH. Who? 

Secretary KERRY. They would become pawns to the process. And 

it could prolong it, could make it more risky or dangerous. 

23

Mr. SMITH. I am almost out of time and I have one other question. 

Secretary KERRY. Okay. 

Mr. SMITH. I apologize. It disadvantages them according to 

whom? I mean, they are the ones, they are in charge, they don’t 

care about public opinion. But there was a Times of Israel report 

that four Iranians were released, including Gholikhan, Tajik, 

Seirafi, and Atarodi. Was that in any way linked in terms of the 

nuclear negotiations——

Secretary KERRY. No. 

Mr. SMITH [continuing]. Either before or after? 

Secretary KERRY. No. 

Mr. SMITH. No direct——

Secretary KERRY. None whatsoever. 

Mr. SMITH. None whatsoever. 

Secretary KERRY. No. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Secretary KERRY. And one last thing just say to you on this. 

Look, we have a lot of problems with Iran. I mean, you know, they 

are supporting Hezbollah, Hezbollah is in Syria, they are supporting Syria, Assad. They are purveyors of terrorism, as people 

have described here. The Iranians, you know, there was a plot taking place to blow up an Ambassador here in a restaurant in Washington. There are a number of different serious issues that exist, 

and they are not tied either to this, because the nuclear file is the 

most critical, most pressing, most urgent with respect to Israel, the 

region, and us and the world in terms of proliferation, and it is critical to be disciplined and focused and targeted on that program and 

get that under control. And meanwhile, we are continuing to put 

to test their bona fides on all of these other issues. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Mr. Albio Sires from New Jersey. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing 

today. 

And welcome, Mr. Secretary. 

You know, Mr. Secretary, in your statement you stated that 

there were no guarantees and that you have serious questions regarding these negotiations. And obviously we are all skeptical for 

the very reasons you just stated to Mr. Smith. 

My concern, we have this window of negotiations. Who determines whether negotiations are going well? Are we going to have 

a scenario where you are going to come back to us and say, well, 

look, we are moving forward, I need another 6 months or I need 

another 3 months? Who determines whether we are making 

progress or not or we are going to cut off the negotiations and we 

are going to come back to the Congress and say, listen, we tried, 

you are committed to the sanctions, let’s do this in a week? 

Secretary KERRY. Congressman, we will, obviously, the President 

of the United States, my team. We will make the initial judgment. 

But we are accountable to you and to the American people through 

you. So we will obviously have to confer, we will come up here. I 

am sure you will want to hear from us somewhere in the middle 

of this or somewhere in the process. And we will, needless to say, 

brief you in the appropriate places and in the appropriate manner. 

24

And you will join us, I hope, in making that judgment. But, you 

know, this is in all of our interests to get this right. 

Mr. SIRES. Do you see a scenario where you are going to come 

back to us and say, look, we need more time? 

Secretary KERRY. You know, I am not going to say that it won’t 

happen, but it is not our preference. And my hope is that this can 

be resolved sooner rather than later. My hope is we could even 

move faster than the 6 months. I think there is a chance, an outside chance, that that might be able to be possible. So I can’t tell 

you today. 

We left a provision that you could extend the 6 months, but it 

has to be by mutual concept. So if we think they are not doing it 

and they want to extend, we obviously will be reluctant to. If, on 

the other hand, we are really making progress and we think we are 

on track, we may come to you and describe that to you, and you 

may concur in the judgment that it is worth a few more months 

or something. My hope is and my expectation is that will not have 

to happen——

Mr. SIRES. Well, Mr. Secretary, I think that will send——

Secretary KERRY [continuing]. But it could. 

Mr. SIRES [continuing]. That will send a terrible message if we 

keep extending these negotiations. 

Secretary KERRY. I said my expectation is it will not happen. It 

could, but I don’t expect it. And my hope is that we get it done 

sooner rather than later. 

Mr. SIRES. Okay. You know, I keep reading about the resolve of 

the Iranians to get this nuclear program done. And, quite frankly, 

I just don’t know if this diplomatic effort on their behalf is really 

serious. Do you sense there is sincerity in this, any sincerity in 

this? 

Secretary KERRY. Whose sincerity? 

Mr. SIRES. The Iranians. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, it is not my job to measure sincerity. It 

is my job to lay down a process by which we can measure it, and 

thus far they have indicated they are ready to do things that make 

a difference. But they haven’t done them yet. So we have to get the 

implementation moving and we have to start moving down those 

6 months. I just said to you we are not going to go by virtue of 

words. This is based on actions, so it is test and verify. And we 

need to verify it and put it to the test. That is what we are saying 

to you. 

Mr. SIRES. Because I really don’t think that they care what their 

people think in Iran. I think this is a regime that the leader makes 

the decisions, and whether the Iranian people are happy that we 

are negotiating doesn’t mean anything to them. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, you know, I think your comment sort of 

speaks for itself. The supreme leader is the supreme leader. 

Mr. SIRES. Right. All right. Thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. 

We will go now to Mr. Rohrabacher of California. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being with us. And I know it is a 

grueling situation to face, but we appreciate you being here with 

us. Rarely do we get a chance to ask you some questions, so I have 

25

got a few housekeeping questions to ask before I go into the issue 

of the day. 

I am introducing a bill today that will allow 3,000 refugees from 

Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty, now Camp Liberty, status, refugee status, and thus will permit them to be enabled to come to 

the United States. Hundreds of these people have been slaughtered. They live under constant threat of being murdered. We know 

that. And will this administration be supporting my legislation to 

prevent these people from being slaughtered by this pro-mullah regime that we have in Iraq now? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, Congressman, I have gone to the lengths 

of appointing a special representative to work exclusively to get 

the——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I am just asking about—we have legislation. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, I need to see the legislation, but in principle, we are trying to find a place for them to go, including here. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. But in principle you would agree with letting 

these refugees have status, refugee status, so they can come here? 

Secretary KERRY. We are trying to find a place for them to go 

now. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. So in principle do you agree that——

Secretary KERRY. In principle, I would like to see the legislation, 

but I can’t speak for the President on this one unseen. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. Thank you. All right. I am trying 

to get the answer, but I understand. 

Mr. Secretary, it has been reported that there was live drone 

footage 2 hours into the attack on our consulate in Benghazi. Further, it was reported that there were closed circuit cameras on the 

outer walls of the consulate. And one State Department official has 

been quoted as saying that ‘‘the main gate camera revealed large 

numbers of men, armed men, flowing into the compound’’ at 9:40 

that night. 

We have not seen those videos. First of all, do the videos exist? 

If they do exist, will you make them available to this committee? 

Secretary KERRY. I haven’t seen any drone video footage, but I 

have seen video footage of the facility itself and I have seen those 

people pouring in. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Secretary KERRY. And we all saw them. We saw them in the Senate. I think they were made available to the House, too. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. So are you aware of any videos that 

have not been made available? 

Secretary KERRY. I am not. No, I am not. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. Secretary, again, when we are talking about the issue at 

hand today, we all should recognize that you are trying to deal 

with a challenge, a threat that you did not make and that was 

around while the Republicans were in charge of government and 

they did not succeed. So that being considered, I am going to ask 

you some tough questions, but I do understand that you didn’t 

make the problem and you are here trying to do what you can, 

what you believe will solve the issue. 

You know, when you talk about we are not going to trust but 

verify, we are going to test but verify, and then you refer to the 

26

leader of the government there as the supreme leader, quite frankly, that is groveling, but test but verify. The fact is, he is not a supreme leader, he is not some democratically elected governor of 

that. He is a vicious man with a bloody background, and we are 

treating him like the supreme leader. Isn’t that groveling before a 

group of people who do not deserve. Of course they are not going 

to at that point. Of course they are going to think that they have 

got leverage and they can do things if we treat them with that type 

of respect, the same way we would a democratic government. 

Secretary KERRY. There is no equivalency, Congressman. That is 

just his title. It is his name. That is what they treat him as. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, that is what they call him. And are we 

necessarily going to treat Adolf Hitler as the fuhrer? This is not a 

supreme leader. This is a man who holds power through brute 

force. And as I say, instead of trust but verify, instead of test but 

verify, it looks like it is grovel but verify, to me. 

Secretary KERRY. Congressman, I just don’t agree with you about 

the question of test but verify being groveling. The point I am making is there is no issue of trust involved. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. 

Secretary KERRY. We are going to protect our interests by testing 

what they are doing. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I understand the point you are making, sir. 

Secretary KERRY. And I don’t consider anything that we have 

done here with respect to this to be anything except acting in the 

interests of our Nation and of our friends in the region. And I think 

we are better off today than we were the day before we made this 

agreement, when they were progressing to do whatever they wanted in this program. Now they are not. Now they are, because of the 

sanctions, negotiating with us with respect to a final agreement. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We will, look at your proposal very closely. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary KERRY. Thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. 

We go to Mr. Ted Deutch of Florida. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. And first I would like 

to thank you for your efforts on behalf of my constituent, Robert 

Levinson, on behalf of his family, who really appreciates your personal efforts and those of the State Department and so many in 

government. We hope you will continue to press for his release so 

he can come home safely to south Florida. 

I wanted to talk about sanctions a little bit and take some issue 

with your premise that we put sanctions in place to get to negotiation. I don’t think that is why we put sanctions in place. We put 

sanctions in place to get to negotiation on our way to getting the 

Iranians to give up their nuclear weapons capability. That is where 

we were going. 

And the concern that a lot of us have, I think, is that if we don’t 

set some marker—you asked us to work with you, we ask the same 

back—if we don’t set some marker that says if there is not a deal, 

and which we thought might come in 6 months, but the interim 

agreement now says the goal is to have it in 12 months, but if 

there is not a deal, then these additional sanctions that we passed 

27

during the summer, when many told us not to because Rouhani 

wouldn’t even negotiate if we did, but we should put those in place 

so it is clear what will happen if there is not a deal. 

And I do think that we can work with you on this, but no one 

is suggesting that the legislation impose those additional sanctions 

this afternoon. But if it is not 6 months, because you need space, 

then let’s figure out what it is. Is it 7 months? Is it 8 months? At 

some point why wouldn’t it be in our interest and the interests of 

our allies to make clear what will happen if the Iranians continue 

to push and extend and extend and there is no deal? Why can’t we 

work together in the interest of a negotiating position to help with 

diplomacy, to strengthen diplomacy in order to do that? 

Secretary KERRY. Congressman, we have made it clear to them 

what the implications are of not being successful. They know what 

the stakes are. And we have told them there will not be new sanctions of any kind imposed while we are negotiating. So if Congress 

votes for new sanctions, Congress is going off on its own, and it 

raises a question. Most importantly, I am not as worried about, you 

know, how they interpret it as I am worried about how our allies, 

our friends, our partners interpret it. They are part of this. And if 

the United States sort of just lumbers off on its own and does its 

own thing when we are working with those partners, they have a 

right to say, you know, we are in partnership. 

Mr. DEUTCH. They do. They do, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, let me just finish one thing, though. You 

know, our whole policy is that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon. 

So we are not in this for the sake of negotiations for negotiations’ 

sake; we are here because those negotiations are to prevent them 

from getting the program, obviously. I finished the sentence. But, 

you know, if we don’t negotiate, I think, in a way—I don’t want to 

give them an excuse or any other rationale for upping the ante, 

changing the——

Mr. DEUTCH. Mr. Secretary, I am sorry, we are limited in time. 

Secretary KERRY. Let me ask you something. Let me ask you 

something. 

Mr. DEUTCH. I agree. 

Secretary KERRY. They are listening to us now. They know there 

are going to be more sanctions. We have told them 100 times. What 

is wrong with our working together to tee up what we think might 

be appropriate if there is failure and then do it? 

Mr. DEUTCH. Completely agree. I completely agree. We should 

tee it up and we should tee it up with a date certain. 

Secretary KERRY. But teeing it up doesn’t mean passing it here 

now. 

Mr. DEUTCH. We should tee it up with a date certain. And if we 

all agree that at some date——

Secretary KERRY. But you can’t have a date certain until you 

know how your negotiations are working. You don’t want to make 

a presumption. 

Mr. DEUTCH. My concern is we have heard the argument before 

that sanctions undermine international unity. When the Senate 

voted unanimously on the Iranian Central Bank sanctions, it was 

the same day that the Department of Treasury sent a letter to 

every Senator telling them not to vote for it. Not only did it pass 

28

unanimously, but it was vital in changing Iran’s nuclear calculus 

and the world’s approach to Iran, because of the decision that they 

had to make about whether to do business with Iran or whether 

to do business with the United States. So I would like to work together to try to tee something up, as you said. 

I just have one other quick question. You said that oil sanctions 

continue as they are in place with no diminishment of oil sanctions, 

and yet the sanctions relief provides that a million barrels per day 

is now a fixed amount during the 6 months that the Iranian can 

export. And yet under our existing sanctions, there needs to be a 

significant reduction in the amount that they can export. So it 

seems to me there is a contradiction. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, what we did, Congressman, is we put in 

place a pause for the few nations, China, India, South Korea, 

Japan, there are a number of nations who are working with us 

very closely in sanctions enforcement who have been reducing their 

consumption of oil now over this period of time. And they have 

reached a point where it is very, very difficult for them to further 

reduce without serious impact on global economy and their economy. So in effect we worked a way that we were able to release 

some of the money against giving them a pause for these 6 months 

because of that difficulty. 

Now, that is not a change in the sanctions regime, it is simply 

a pause in its application, but it still applies, and it will apply after 

the 6 months are over if we don’t have an agreement. 

Chairman ROYCE. We are going to need to go to Mr. Joe Wilson 

of South Carolina. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Ranking Member Eliot Engel, for your leadership, too. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. But you can see, this 

is a bipartisan concern. I think there are excellent questions on 

both sides, because many of us believe that the policies of this administration are putting the American people at risk, our allies at 

risk, Israel, the Persian Gulf states, Saudi Arabia. In fact, with the 

missile capability that Iran has, our NATO allies, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece. And so there are just great concerns that we have. 

And I truly agree with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that 

this agreement is a mistake. Additionally, I agree with Ambassador 

John Bolton. In the Weekly Standard he wrote,

‘‘This interim agreement is badly skewed from America’s perspective. Iran retains full capacity to enrich uranium, thus 

abandoning a decade of Western insistence and Security Council resolutions that Iran stop all uranium enrichment activities. 

Allowing Iran to continue enriching, and despite modest (indeed utterly inadequate) measures to prevent it from increasing its enriched-uranium stockpiles and its overall nuclear infrastructure, lays the predicate for Iran itself to fully enjoy its 

‘right’ to enrichment of any ‘final’ agreement. Indeed, the interim agreement itself acknowledges that a ‘comprehensive solution’ will ‘involve a mutually defined enrichment program.’

‘‘In exchange for superficial concessions, Iran achieved three 

critical breakthroughs. First, it bought time to continue all asVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:19 Mar 05, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\121013\86003 HFA PsN: SHIRL
29

pects of its nuclear weapons program the agreement does not 

cover (centrifuge manufacturing and testing; weaponization research and fabrication; and the entire ballistic missile program). Indeed, given that the interim agreement contemplates 

periodic renewals, Iran may have gained all the time it needs 

to achieve weaponization, not for simply a handful of nuclear 

weapons, but dozens more.’’

I also agree with Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New 

Jersey. In The Hill last week it was pointed out that,

‘‘He argued that it was harsh sanctions that have brought Iran 

to the negotiating table in the first place. He added that he 

found many additional flaws within the agreement besides its 

approach on sanctions.’’

Mr. Secretary, again, we see how bipartisan this is, and I am just 

really pleased. This is nothing personal. The American people are 

concerned, our allies are concerned. Clearly sanctions make a difference. 

What are the baselines or red lines or markers of success that 

you will be looking for in 6 months? 

Secretary KERRY. Very simple. Iran’s inability to have ever, without our knowing it with sufficient amount of time, a huge amount 

of time that we could do something about it to stop it, any kind 

of weaponization or nuclear weapons program, bottom line. 

Look, you just said decades of resolutions that they abandon enrichment. What did they get you? What did those decades of resolutions get you? 

Mr. WILSON. They have gotten the people of Iran hopefully to the 

point—this is the great culture of Persia—hopefully for the people 

of Iran an opportunity for them, the Green Revolution, to finally 

succeed. 

Secretary KERRY. Congressman, that is a wishful thought, but 

meanwhile their program continues to grow; meanwhile, Israel is 

more at risk. In 2003, my friend, they had 164 centrifuges. Now 

they have 19,000. You know what Zarif said to me? You know what 

your sanctions have gotten you? Nineteen thousand centrifuges. 

Mr. WILSON. But also that is clearly indicating that they are not 

dealing in good faith, that they cannot be trusted, and even with 

test but verify. 

Secretary KERRY. Congressman, nobody has said to you, I never 

sat here and said, I have never said the word good faith in terms 

of what they are doing. Everybody knows that you don’t build a secret hole in a mountain to have centrifuges and enrich if you are 

operating in good faith. Everybody knows you don’t refuse to sign 

the additional protocols. Everybody knows you don’t deny the IAEA 

access. Everybody knows you don’t go up to 19,000 centrifuges. We 

all understand that. 

The issue here is, what are we going to do about it so that we 

don’t have a sudden breakout that threatens Israel and all the 

countries in the region and ourselves? Now, the truth is, you went 

further, you said something like they bought time to continue all 

aspects of weaponization. 

Mr. WILSON. Yes. 

30

Secretary KERRY. No, they haven’t, because in order to weaponize 

you have to have highly enriched uranium, and under our plan 

they are going the opposite direction. They are destroying their 

highly enriched uranium. 

Mr. WILSON. And it appears to me to be benign observation. 

Secretary KERRY. We would know, Congressman, we would know 

immediately——

Chairman ROYCE. We are going to go now to Mr. Ami Bera from 

California. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Chairman Royce. 

And thank you, Secretary Kerry, for joining us today. 

You know, we don’t agree on a lot in this town, but I would say 

certainly on this committee, throughout Congress, and, I believe, 

the administration, and to quote your words, we all agree on one 

issue, which is Iran must not and will not acquire a nuclear weapon. I think there is general consensus on that. 

On Saturday the President, when being asked at the Sabin Institute what he envisioned the final agreement might look like, he 

talked about an agreement that would let Iran enrich enough nuclear material for energy, but enough in the way of restrictions to 

assure the United States and Israel that it could not produce a nuclear weapon. I think I am quoting that correctly. When asked the 

chances of success of getting to that agreement, to quote the President, I wouldn’t say it is more than 50/50, but we have to try. 

I think we agree that we should try, because the outcome of failure is probably one that we don’t want to see. But given Iran’s history, you know, many of us in this body, on this committee, and 

myself personally, remain very skeptical. And certainly, as you approach the negotiations, I think you have expressed a healthy set 

of skepticism as well. But again, we have to try. Any agreement 

that we enter into has to—and, again, I think to quote you—it has 

to halt their progress and roll it back, and it has to lengthen the 

time to nuclear breakout. 

So with this model of test and verify, how can we guarantee that, 

you know, they aren’t continuing to enrich, they aren’t continuing 

to enrich above the 3 percent threshold or above a 5 percent 

threshold? 

Secretary KERRY. It is certainly a good question. 

Mr. BERA. And within the context, do they understand how skeptical members of this body are and how, you know, if there is any 

backsliding, you know, we have already in a unanimous way supported increased sanctions? Over in the Senate, you know, they are 

probably very close to, you know, if there is progress, how close 

they are. 

Secretary KERRY. How close they are? 

Mr. BERA. How skeptical we are within this body about their intentions. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, look, the answer is that the purpose of 

our first step is to know with certainty what they are doing. And 

they have said to us, I mean, that is part of their proffer to us, if 

they say it is going to be a peaceful program, they say we will 

allow you unlimited access, we will allow restraints, we will make 

these things happen. And that is sort of what we have to put to 

the test now. 

31

Now, we will now have access to this secret underground facility. 

We haven’t had that. That is a big deal. We will now have access 

to Natanz and we will know what they are doing there. We will 

have sufficient access to the heavy water reactor. 

Now, as we go down the road here, there are going to have to 

be built in very significant intrusive verification mechanisms so 

that we know to a certainty. When I say to a certainty, you know, 

Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to sit there and say to us, and 

others, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, you know, 

Mohammed bin Zayed, they are going to look to us and say, are we 

really protected? And we have a responsibility as an administration 

to negotiate an agreement where we can come to all of you and 

withstand appropriate scrutiny of what the framework of this 

agreement is. Does it answer the question that you know what they 

are doing? Does it give you adequate insight ongoing? Is it possible 

for them to somehow be cheating on you and you don’t know it? Is 

there a way that you can, you know, failsafe guarantee that there 

is no hidden enrichment taking place? Is there a guarantee that 

you are able to say this program is, to a certainty, a peaceful program? 

Now, as I said, there are other countries that engage in peaceful 

programs, and we have inspectors and inspection and a level of intrusion. It will take Iran a period of time, obviously, where that is 

going to have to be greater for them. Why? Because of the record 

here, because of the history that has raised these sanctions to the 

level they are, that has brought the global community together in 

this effort. And it is up to Iran really to decide how fast they want 

to prove this and how far they are willing to go to make it clear 

that it is certain. If it isn’t certain, we have a problem. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mike McCaul of Texas. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here today. 

As President Kennedy once said, let us never fear to negotiate, 

but let us not negotiate out of fear. As an American, I want to wish 

you my heartfelt, sincere wish that your negotiations are successful. I think every American wants that. I think that the stakes you 

are dealing with, the national security stakes have never been 

higher than they are with Iran, and from a national security, 

homeland security standpoint as well. 

I have some concerns about this deal. We have worked on these 

sanctions for a decade. We have gotten to the point where we can 

possibly negotiate. I sent a letter to Senator Reid signed by 70 

Members of Congress to continue and vote on the sanctions bill 

that we passed by 400 votes in the House so that we could 

strengthen your hand, strengthen your leverage in these negotiations. 

My concern is that this deal violates six U.N. Security Council 

resolutions to give Iran the right to enrich; that it sends a message 

to our partners in the Middle East that it is okay for a state sponsor of terrorism to enrich, but not for them. I am concerned that 

it could spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East if not done 

correctly. I am concerned that it deals nothing with the technology 

aspects, as we know they have the capability to hit Israel and Europe with its missiles currently, and the Pentagon projects that 

32

they have ICBM capability of hitting the United States by 2015. 

And I think most disturbingly, Mr. Secretary, that President 

Rouhani just said this week that Iran’s centrifuges, in his words, 

‘‘will never stop spinning.’’

Now, I have talked to officials in the Bush administration who 

claim that one of the biggest mistakes made was North Korea. I 

think Iran is playing the North Korean playbook, if you will, and 

also trying to play the United States. 

As Homeland Security chairman, I am concerned about $7 billion 

of relief without any assurance that that money will not be used 

for further terrorism and will not be used to further a nuclear 

weapons program. I think that we should negotiate, but I believe 

that lifting sanctions should not be done until they have dismantled their nuclear program. In other words, Mr. Secretary, are you 

willing at the end of the 6 months, in the final deal, to say, look, 

we are willing to lift the sanctions when you stop enriching uranium? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, let me speak for a minute to the question 

of the never stop spinning the centrifuges. If they are, you know, 

less than 1,000 or 500 or whatever they are, they may never stop 

spinning them, but they are very limited in what they are going 

to be able to do. 

The outlines of this have to take shape now, and we are very 

clear. This agreement, as I read earlier to you, envisions, and they 

have accepted this, envisions severe restraints, a mutually defined 

program with mutually agreed parameters consistent with practical needs. What are the practical needs? To have some medical 

research, maybe; to feed enough fuel into a legitimate power program, which may be done in consortium with other people with intrusive knowledge of what is going on as a result? I mean, there 

are a lot of things here yet to be filled out in this. 

So the answer is, at the end of this, I can’t tell you they might 

not have some enrichment, but I can tell you to a certainty it will 

not be possible for them to be able to turn it into a weapons program without our knowing it so far in advance that all the options 

that are available to us today to stop it. Let’s say we weren’t here 

talking about this and they are proceeding down the road and we 

came to you and said, hey, we have got to stop it the only way we 

know how. That is still going to be available to us, only it is going 

to be available to us with much greater foresight, much greater 

knowledge of what is happening, and much more restraint on 

whatever their program is between now and then. That does make 

Israel and Saudi Arabia and the Emirates and Egypt and all the 

other countries concerned much more secure. It makes us more secure. 

Mr. MCCAUL. I think you would have more confidence from 

Israel, I think, and Members of Congress if you came back in 6 

months and said, you know, they can have a peaceful program, but 

not enriching uranium inside Iran, and that can be done by providing that enriched uranium to them outside of Iran. I would urge 

you to pursue that. 

Secretary KERRY. That deal was on the table a number of years 

ago, but that deal, I am afraid, has probably been lost. 

33

Chairman ROYCE. The gentleman’s time has expired. We go to 

Gerry Connolly of Virginia. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And welcome, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. Secretary, when is the last time we had a negotiated agreement of any kind with Iran? 

Secretary KERRY. I think 10 years ago there was some restraint 

on some level of their program. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Kind of an infrequent phenomenon. 

Secretary KERRY. That was the first time. Well, we haven’t really 

talked to them face to face in 35, 40 years, whatever it is, since 

1979. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Some of the critics of this agreement, interim 

agreement, frame it as——

Secretary KERRY. Let me reframe that. There have been a couple 

of meetings where people have talked, but there has been no negotiation of this kind. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. No agreement. 

Some of the critics would have one believe that an alternative to 

what you and your team, working with our allies, have hammered 

out here really could be improved upon and actually made into a 

comprehensive agreement. Why have an interim confidence-building agreement when really the only agreement that counts is the 

complete dismantlement of existing stockpiles, sites, processing facilities, and the like? And that has come from some friends, or socalled friends, who have criticized the interim agreement. I wonder 

if you could comment on that. Why didn’t you get a comprehensive 

agreement that meets all of our concerns? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, it is not an interim agreement. Let me 

frame this very carefully for everybody. It is not an interim agreement. It is a first step toward a comprehensive agreement. And 

why did we do that? For the simple reason we wanted to make our 

friends and ourselves safer. And if you simply sat there and negotiated toward the comprehensive agreement, then you are getting 

sucked into the North Korea syndrome where you are having six 

parties who are negotiating while they develop their program, and 

then they go explode something and it is too late. We definitively 

did not want to fall into that trap. So we insisted on trying to get 

a step where we could hold things where they are while we put to 

test their sincerity and willingness to do the whole thing. 

Now, if they are willing to do the whole thing then we have lost 

nothing, and if they are not willing to do the whole thing we have 

not allowed them to progress to a point where we put people at 

greater risk. That is what I think makes this a smarter approach. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Secretary, you talked about inspections. 

What is our current capability in terms of inspections? Can we go 

in every day? 

Secretary KERRY. No. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Or any day into Iran and inspect what they are 

doing? 

Secretary KERRY. No, we can’t. We can’t at all. The IAEA is allowed to get into some facilities on an, I think, once a week—they 

can get in to the two facilities we are now going into daily, and 

34

they have been able to go into Arak, I think, on a sporadic basis. 

I think it is about once a month. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And the agreement that you all have, have negotiated, allows daily inspections? 

Secretary KERRY. Daily. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. On all of the sites we are concerned about? 

Secretary KERRY. No. Daily on Fordow, daily on Natanz and 

monthly on Arak, may even wind up being a little more monthly, 

but it is definitely monthly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So significant change in our capacity to look at 

and view what is going on. 

Secretary KERRY. Well very much so. And in addition to that, we 

have access to their centrifuge storage facilities, their centrifuge 

workshops, production facilities, and we have the plans that will be 

given us with respect to Arak. So we have much greater manifestation of a kind of willingness to open up and put this to the test. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. You know, it is an adage in negotiations, Mr. 

Secretary, that you want to try to let it be a win-win, not an ‘‘I win, 

you lose’’ kind of situation. And often that requires face-saving 

measures to allow some of us to step back from the brink. What 

is in it for Iran? What most motivates Iran to want to, A) reach 

this agreement, and B) reach the ultimate part of this agreement? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, I think Iran mostly wants to get out from 

under the sanctions ultimately because their economy is in shambles. Their people are hurting, and there is enormous pressure on 

President Rouhani to deliver. You recall that Rouhani was not the 

choice of the supreme leader, that Rouhani was really a reflection 

of votes that were cast, and it was a surprise. And then he promised the people of Iran in his election campaign that he was going 

to deliver change. He was going to try and reach out to the West, 

change the relationships and improve the economy. And I think 

that is really what has been driving them. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Ted Poe of Texas. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I want to make it clear that I do not 

question the motives or the interest that you have and the administration has in doing what is best for the United States. I really 

believe that that is what you want to do is make the world safer 

for us and everyone else. 

On this, particular agreement, and the proposal, I disagree. It 

seems to me that we are giving away the farm and the mineral 

right, as well. It seems to me also that rather than make them dismantle their nuclear weapons program, we are just freezing the 

program, which could be thawed out at any time down the road. 

And these are my concerns about Iran and this situation, and 

then I am going to have two questions if I don’t talk too long. 

The first concern, of course, is their continuing development of 

intercontinental ballistic missiles. When I met with Prime Minister 

Netanyahu in Israel a couple weeks ago, he said that they are not 

developing those ICBMs for us, Israel, they can reach us with what 

they already have; they are developing them for you, United States. 

And so I am concerned about that. They continue to develop 

intercontinental ballistic missiles. It seems that they would want 

35

something on the tips of those intercontinental ballistics down the 

road, like weapons. 

The second concern are the terror groups that they sponsor all 

over the world, in most places that most Americans have never 

even hard of: Hezbollah, of course, their activities not only in the 

Middle East but in other parts of the world; the Quds Force, IRGC. 

They are causing mischief, as you know, everywhere including in 

Syria, trying to support a rogue government there as a puppet 

state maybe for Iran. 

Mr. Rouhani is a smooth talker, in my opinion. He is different 

from Ahmadinejad, who was a flamethrower, a bomb thrower, with 

his rhetoric, but he seems to continue to hang his own people and 

smile in the process of that. And, of course, there is always the situation that we continue to talk about because it hasn’t been resolved of the MEK, the dissident group, now five attacks on them. 

No one has been brought to justice in the Iraqi Government and 

criminals haven’t been brought to justice. 

The latest one—excuse my partner here—when they were attacked on September 1st, the murders occurred in Iraq; 50 people 

were murdered. Many of them murdered while they were wounded 

in the different locations, tracked down and murdered. I believe 

that Iran was behind this attack. And, of course, no one has been 

held accountable, not Iran, not the Iraqis, and not the criminals 

themselves. And there are some other examples. 

My question is this: Big picture, has the supreme leader changed 

his position that Iran wants to eliminate Israel and Iran wants to 

eliminate the United States? 

Secretary KERRY. Congressman, let me begin by saying to you 

that I agree with you on each of the concerns that you have expressed. 

There is no question but that the ICBM missile program of Iran 

is of serious concern, and we have, we believe, inserted language 

in the agreement and an understanding in the agreement that that 

is very much one of our concerns going forward is the 

weaponization. 

Likewise, the terror, support for terror, I raised it earlier, and I 

will let the record just speak to that. 

With respect to the stated positions, public positions of Iran and 

its rhetoric, no, it hasn’t changed, and it is very inflammatory and 

very threatening. 

Mr. POE. Excuse me, Mr. Secretary, because I just have 1 minute 

left. Do you believe it is still the goal of the supreme leader to destroy Israel and destroy the United States? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, you know, when you say, do I believe, believe, that that is——

Mr. POE. Well, do you think, do you believe, what do you think 

about that position? He states that. 

Secretary KERRY. I think their rhetoric is dangerous and threatening and, you know, incredibly counterproductive and damaging 

to any potential rational relationship but——

Mr. POE. Reclaiming my time. I want to reclaim my time, Mr. 

Secretary. I asked the question. 

Secretary KERRY. But, my but is——

36

Mr. POE. I am reclaiming my time. My other question is this, Mr. 

Secretary. If Iran gets nuclear weapons, will then Saudi Arabia, 

Turkey and Egypt also then rush to get nuclear weapons as well? 

Secretary KERRY. If Iran got a nuclear weapon, there would be 

an arms race in the region for certain, which is one of the reasons 

why they are not going to get a nuclear weapon. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary KERRY. I want to finish——

Mr. ROYCE. Absolutely, Mr. Secretary. Go ahead. 

Secretary KERRY. I just want to finish that there are lots of people in the world who use outrageous and outlandish rhetoric, and 

they play to their street, and they play to their constituency, and 

they have no means of actually implementing what they are saying. But we take seriously the threat of Iran and the potential of 

a nuclear weapon. And that is why the centerpiece of the President’s foreign policy is they will got not get a nuclear weapon while 

this President is President of the United States. 

Chairman ROYCE. Juan Vargas of California. 

Mr. VARGAS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, very much, Mr. Secretary, for being here. 

I want to premise my remarks by saying I have nothing but the 

highest respect and regard for you personally and professionally. In 

fact, one of my biggest disappointments politically is that you did 

not become President. We worked very hard in California for you, 

and I think you would been a magnificent President, so I am not 

a so-called friend; I am a believer. 

However, when it comes to this deal, I am completely against it. 

I do think it is naive, and I don’t think it makes us safer, unfortunately, and I don’t think it makes our allies safer, especially Israel. 

Instead, I agree with those that say that sanctions were working 

but that we didn’t ratchet them up enough, that we should have 

tightened them down even more. 

So the choice becomes whether the Iranians decide that they 

want a functioning economy or they want a nuclear weapons capability, a weapons program. I think we need a corollary to your 

axiom that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and instead, we should say that we won’t agree to anything until everything is agreed. We need that comprehensive deal first. 

And you said, has Iran changed its nuclear calculus? We don’t 

know; we should be skeptical. I am not skeptical. I am not skeptical at all. I don’t think it changed its calculus. I think it continues 

to want a nuclear weapons program. 

I do want to give you plenty of time to answer those questions 

so I won’t go all the way until there are 2 seconds left and then 

say, Mr. Secretary, would you like to answer those 50 questions? 

But I do want to know, it seems to me to be naive, to be frank, 

on its face. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, first of all, Congressman, I am really 

pleased that you think I would have made a good President, and 

I appreciate your support in that effort, and I hate to disappoint 

you that I have come up with something in conjunction with the 

administration and our efforts that you think is naive. 

I think it is anything but naive, anything but. And I think that 

for many reasons. I have been thinking about and working on the 

37

Iran file, so to speak, for a lot of years. And there are a lot of people who have a different calculation about what Iran might or 

might not want to do. It is all well and good to sit here and theoretically say, ratchet up the sanctions, and you will drive them in 

to a place where they will crush. But do you know what? The Russians and the Chinese won’t be with you doing that. And ultimately, the Europeans might not be either, because as you ratchet 

them up and they think it is unreasonable based on their willingness to explore the diplomacy, you lose them, too. And then guess 

what you have done? You have actually undone the sanctions, not 

reinforced them. 

Let me go a step further. There are a lot of people in the intel 

community who will sit and tell you—and I urge you to get briefed 

on it—who will tell you that their whole school of thought in Iran, 

the hardliners, who welcome the idea that the United States might 

whack them because they think they will be heroes in the street, 

and they think they will be true to the revolution, and they think 

that, as a result, they will actually be stronger as a regime. And 

there are many people who believe that if the regime got into real 

extremis on the economy, what would happen is the supreme leader will say, Well, I am not surrendering. We are not ever going to 

surrender to the Great Satan. Now we are going to go for the weapon because it is the only thing we can do, and we will dig deeper, 

and we will go more secret, and we will take whatever it takes, but 

we are going to get it because that is all the United States of 

America understands. 

Now that is an alternative theory to this notion that you can just 

go out there and raise your sanctions ad infinitum and you are 

going to win. We are in a good place now to negotiate. We are at 

a level of reasonableness and capacity to perhaps get an agreement. Now maybe we won’t get the agreement, and we will have 

to do the other thing anyway. 

But you know, one of the things I learned a long time ago is if 

you are going to take a nation to war, you better have exhausted 

all the possibilities of trying to get a peaceful resolution before you 

do it. And we are doing that now. We are going through the testing 

and testing to see whether or not they are serious, and if not, we 

have all the options available to us. 

But there is nothing naive about what we are doing. It is calculated, it may be wrong, you may find that it is a miscalculation, 

but it is not miscalculation based on naivete. We understand the 

dangers. We understand the risks. We understand how critical this 

is and how high the stakes are. And I believe, absolutely, no question in my mind, if we were just negotiating and pressing further, 

we would be inviting a prolonged process, which would drive them 

to want to get the weapon even more, and then you would be in 

a place where you might get to a negotiation but they are even 

closer to having the weapon than they are today. Much more dangerous. 

Mr. VARGAS. In my last 8 seconds, I pray you are right. And 

again, I encourage you. I think you are a man of great courage, and 

I hope the best for you. Thank you. 

Secretary KERRY. Thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. Matt Salmon of Arizona. 

38

Mr. SALMON. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

I have three questions, and they all deal with the issue of accountability, and I am going to ask the three questions, and then 

I will turn the time over to you. 

It is an alarming fact that this agreement that you struck with the Iranians gives them access to $7 billion in cash. Can you assure the American people that not one single dollar of that new 

money coming into Iran is going to be used to kill one American 

soldier? 

The second question is that I don’t feel like the Obama administration has a stellar track record on the issue of accountability. 

From Benghazi, NSA, AP, IRS to Fast and Furious, these are all 

dismal examples of where we still don’t have answers to why they 

happened or who is ultimately accountable. So where does the buck 

stop with this new deal if Iran doesn’t work like it is promised? Are 

you going to held ultimately accountable or the President or who 

in the administration? 

And finally, continuing on that theme of accountability, the administration claimed to not be in negotiations with Iran when they 

in fact were. The State Department has admitted that Victoria 

Nuland misled reporters when, in February, she flatly denied the 

existence of direct secret bilateral talks with Iran. It turns out your 

department intentionally misled the American people about these 

negotiations taking place behind closed doors. 

So how can we have the confidence that the information you are 

giving us now is on the level, particularly since the Iranians clearly 

have a different interpretation of the agreement than you do? 

Those are my questions, and I am very interested in your answers. 

Secretary KERRY. I honestly I would have to go back and check. 

I became Secretary of State I think February 1st. I am not—I am 

not sure what was said then or not said exactly or what the state 

of play was, but let me find out. 

With respect to accountability, I am hanging out there. I will be 

accountable. I have absolute confidence that you will hold me accountable. As I said to the chairwoman a moment ago, I said I 

don’t think the sanctions regime will come apart; she says it is the 

death knell of it. We are going to know in a few months. So I will 

be accountable. 

Mr. SALMON. As to my very first question, with the new money 

that they are getting—and I will take at face value the amount 

that you have speculated $7 billion—with that new money coming 

into the Iran, can you assure the American people that not a dollar 

of that money is going to be used to kill an American soldier? 

Secretary KERRY. Congressman, I wish I could give you that kind 

of an assurance, but I have no ability to tell you exactly what 

fundibility there is in money in Iran or where the budget goes or 

what happens. My prayer is that no soldier will be killed as a consequence of anything that Iran chooses to do. And our hope is that, 

as a consequence of this process, maybe we can get at some of 

those other issues that are very significant between our two countries. 

Mr. SALMON. Finally, I think this has boiled down to a disagreement of whether or not ultimately we want them to be able to conVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:19 Mar 05, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\121013\86003 HFA PsN: SHIRL
39

tinue any kind of a nuclear program within Iran versus being able 

to go forward and not have any kind of a nuclear program. 

Secretary KERRY. When you say ‘‘nuclear,’’ do you mean power 

program or power plant? 

Mr. SALMON. Yes, any kind of a nuclear program, any kind of enrichment whatsoever. They can get all the nuclear material that 

they need for power by purchasing that from other countries. They 

don’t need to be able to enrich that themselves. 

And the way I look at this deal, and I understand there are a 

lot of components, but you mentioned earlier in your initial remarks that one of the big successes of this interim deal or 6-month 

deal is that they have to waylay their 20 percent enriched uranium. But that is very insubstantial. It is a small quantity. They 

have a far larger quantity of 3 to 5 percent enriched materials, and 

it doesn’t take a lot to get to that next level. I think we all understand that. 

And so it seems like a large—it seems to me like a great deal 

to get a small quantity of 20 percent enriched uranium for $7 billion bucks. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, Congressman, if they don’t have the ability to enrich it, and they can’t during this—they are not allowed 

to put in any enrichment facilities, any additional facilities. They 

are not allowed to change that stock. So it is relative. If you think 

it is not worth for 6 months trying to negotiate a comprehensive 

deal while you hold their program where it is, then you make your 

judgment. We believe it is. 

And, you know, we have proven in the last years, as we went 

from those 164 centrifuges to 19,000, what you get for not talking. 

You get closer to a bomb. So we believe it is important to try to 

sit down and see if we can resolve this. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Mr. David Cicilline, if we could, 

of Rhode Island. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here, and thank you to the 

administration for its briefings and for the important information 

you have shared with us today and thank you for the good work 

that you are doing. 

I was very pleased to hear you say and each time the President 

has spoken about it reaffirmed our commitment to ensure that Iran 

not be permitted to develop a nuclear weapon. And I think when 

people ask the question whether this deal make us safer and 

makes our allies safer, the question is whether or not this is likely 

to make it more likely or less likely that we prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon. And the skepticism that everyone has expressed is healthy. But I think the question is, what is, you know, 

does this make it more likely that we achieve this objective. 

And I think there seem to be very competing timelines. One is, 

you know, one timeline is doing nothing and the development of a 

nuclear Iran. The other timeline is additional sanctions so severe 

that either Iran abandons its nuclear ambition or the regime is 

brought down. And then another timeline is this negotiation. And 

I think we, we ask questions as if nothing will happen if we don’t 

take some action or pursue some diplomatic alternative. 

40

And so like everyone on this panel, I hope you are successful in 

leading this effort because I think the greatest safety will be 

achieved if we prevent a nuclear Iran and we do it as expeditiously 

as we can. 

But I want to follow up with really two questions. One is to follow up on Congressman Deutch’s question, if it is true that the Iranians are certain that if they violate this agreement that additional 

sanctions will be imposed, if they are certain of that, then speak 

to what would be the consequence of enacting sanctions, additional 

sanctions, that would not be triggered until a default of some kind 

in the agreement or even an effective date a year from now or some 

other mechanism if, in fact, they already expect that? You know, 

what would be the impact on the negotiations? What would be the 

impact on our allies? Why wouldn’t we do that as a mechanism to 

be—sort of make clear what they, what you are already indicating 

they already know? 

Secretary KERRY. Because we told them we wouldn’t do it while 

we were negotiating and because our partners——

Mr. CICILLINE. Additional sanctions or passing——

Secretary KERRY. Because our partners don’t expect us to pass 

new sanctions while we are negotiating and because our partners, 

if we pass them now, you know, could get squirrely on the whole 

idea of the sanctions. I mean, they will figure we are kind of doing 

our own thing and that we are not part of the team. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Do you think that is the same view, even if the 

sanctions are not imposed but enacted——

Secretary KERRY. Even if the sanctions are not imposed, it implies a lack of faith in the process and an unwillingness to play by 

the rules that our partners are playing by. 

Mr. CICILLINE. And the second question, Mr. Secretary, is I know 

that, and I think this is an important point the interim agreement 

says, and I quote, ‘‘Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will 

Iran ever seek or develop any nuclear weapons.’’

And as you well know, there are many steps in research and development and testing that a state may undertake that are important steps to build nuclear capacity. In the past, according to IAEA, 

Iran has taken some of these steps and argued dual use because 

of civilian use. 

Is that an issue that you intend and can assure us that you will 

address in a final agreement? 

Secretary KERRY. It has to be. Absolutely. And that is part of 

what we were talking about, about resolving all of our concerns 

and dealing with the larger U.N. Security Council and ballistic 

missile and weaponization program issues. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Then, Mr. Secretary, it seems to me that the outlines of the first step are creating a window of opportunity, and the 

alternative of not proceeding aggressively in this negotiation would 

allow the Iranians to proceed unchecked really over the next 6 

months or longer. And it is my hope that you will be successful, 

and it will provide greater security to this country and to our allies 

in the region. 

And I thank you, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary KERRY. Thank you, Mr. Congressman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. 

41

And we go to Mr. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, it is quite a feat to have the Secretary State in front 

of our committee twice in 1 year, and I just wanted to remind the 

committee that it has been 15 months since the Benghazi terrorist 

attacks that have killed four brave Americans, including Tyrone 

Woods. The administration has brought none of the perpetrators to 

justice, nor has anyone been dismissed at the Department of State 

that may have culpability in the deaths of these brave Americans. 

In negotiating with Iran, the administration chose to ignore the 

plight of Pastor Abedini during the negotiations and decided instead to release an Iranian nuclear scientist to please the Iranians. 

That just baffles me. 

Mr. Secretary, in negotiating with Iran, you seem to give them 

the benefit of the doubt that they will comply with the agreement. 

But I agree with the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John 

Baird, who says, ‘‘We think past actions best predict future actions, 

and Iran has defied the United Nations Security Council and the 

IAEA.’’ Simply put, ‘‘Iran has not earned the right to have the benefit of the doubt.’’ Iran is a bad actor. We all know that. 

Numerous hearings in this committee have pointed out Iranian 

activity in the Western Hemisphere. Even the Defense Minister of 

Israel acknowledges this in a December 9th article in the Times of 

Israel. He states that Iran has built an infrastructure of terror in 

Central and South America in order to, among other goals, have a 

base from which to attack the U.S. These are the guys we are negotiating with. 

Iran has been clearly implicated in the Buenos Aires AMIA 

bombings in the 1990s and Latin America’s administration has chosen to abandon 190 years of U.S. foreign policy by declaring the era 

of the Monroe Doctrine is over. Now what kind of message does 

that send? It sends the wrong message to countries like Iran and 

also to China, Russia and North Korea about our reliability in the 

region. 

So having made all those statements, I have to ask, why trust 

Iran? There has been no accountability for past actions and past 

links to terrorism. 

So I have got a series of yes-or-no questions for you. 

Iran is still listed by the U.S. State Department as a State sponsor of terrorism, correct? 

Secretary KERRY. Yes, it is. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Is Iran still supporting Hezbollah and Hamas? 

Secretary KERRY. Yes. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Hezbollah is still active in South America. We have 

established that in this committee, and the State Department has 

seemed to agree with that in complying with the Iranian threat in 

the Western Hemisphere Act of the last Congress. So what impact 

do you estimate sanctions relief will have on Iranian financial and 

material assistance to Hezbollah and other regional proxies? If we 

lift these sanctions and they have $7 billion of U.S. dollars, what 

impact do you think that will have on their state sponsor of terrorism? 

Secretary KERRY. I think very little, if any, because they are a 

$1 trillion economy, and this is a tiny percentage of that. So they 

42

don’t—they are not banking on this money in order to be able to 

engage in the nefarious activities they take place in, which we disagree with, all of them. I cited a moment ago our concern about the 

many other issues, from ballistic missiles to supports for terror to 

support for Hezbollah. I mentioned Hezbollah earlier. So, obviously, 

all of these things concern us a lot, Congressman. 

But nowhere, nowhere, not once today, nothing that I said intimated in any way whatsoever a benefit of any doubt. I sat here and 

said we are skeptical. I sat here and said they have got to prove 

it. I sat here and said we are going to test them. I said we are not 

going to even mention the word trust. This is based on testing and 

verification. 

So I don’t know where you get this idea about giving them any 

benefit of the doubt. There is no benefit of any doubt here. This is 

a very skeptical and tested and focused process of verifying a program that we have to account to the world for. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Let me ask you another question then. 

Does North Korea have nuclear weapons? 

Secretary KERRY. North Korea does not have a program yet that 

is capable, but they have had some explosions of devices. 

Mr. DUNCAN. In February and April 2007, North Korea agreed 

to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs 

and returning at an early date to a treaty on nonproliferation of 

nuclear weapons and the IAEA safeguards. Supposedly, this significant achievement commits six parties at that time to an agreement 

to a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. That was in February and 

April 2007. 

Guess what? September 2008, they were back. And we gave them 

700—I think it was 950,000 tons of fuel if they would stop their 

nuclear weapons program. 

I go back to one of the gentlemen to my left said, freeze and then 

it would unfreeze. That is exactly what happened in North Korea. 

They froze it, and then they got what they wanted out of the deal, 

and then they restarted it. I am afraid we are going to do this similar thing happen; different actors, the same script. 

And I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. We are going to go to Lois Frankel of Florida. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And we all agree, and thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your service, 

your perseverance and your fortitude. And we all agree that Iran 

should not acquire a nuclear weapon. 

I have a few questions. There seems to be, listening to my colleagues, a lot of skepticism in the room, and implicit is, it sounds 

to me, is the belief that pushing more sanctions will—would eventually bring Iran to full capitulation. 

So my question to you really has to do with the timing. Why do 

you think the timing is right now for these talks and whether you 

disagree with the premise that more sanctions until you reach full 

capitulation is possible? One question. 

Number two, are we getting pressure from our partners, not just 

about sticking with this agreement but with actually bringing an 

agreement? Do you feel like they are tiring about enforcing sanctions? 

43

And then, as to the $7 billion, you seem to imply that it is really more or less a drop in the bucket. I know $7 billion isn’t a drop 

in the bucket, but you say compared to what stays in place. 

So what is—what is Iran getting from this that will lead us to 

progress in these talks? 

And last, in talking about the final deal, are you going to be looking at having—putting back sanctions automatically if certain 

benchmarks are not met? 

Secretary KERRY. Say the last one again? I am sorry. 

Ms. FRANKEL. In the final deal, are you looking at sanctions 

automatically being put back if certain benchmarks are not met? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, let me go through each of your questions, 

Congresswoman. Thank you very much. Is the timing right? Is capitulation possible? And what is the timing here? Well, the timing, 

we believe, is right for a number of different reasons. Because we 

have the unity of the P5+1, because we believe that Iran, because 

of the change of the administration in Iran, wants to try to reach 

out and see if they can indeed achieve a different relationship. 

Now, for all the mistrust here, I have to tell you, there is an 

equal amount, if not more, mistrust in Iran. They mistrust us. 

They have a complete lack of a sense of confidence that we are willing to make a deal or that we will keep the deal. And so these 

things work two ways. And they have a perception that we are out 

for regime change and that what we want to do is just hammer 

them and bring more sanctions. So there is a lot of doubt about 

whether we are going to negotiate in good faith, which is one of the 

reasons why there is a question here about what we wind up doing 

after we enter into a negotiation. 

Now is capitulation possible? I don’t believe that it is. I mean, 

it depends what you, I suppose, engage in. Does United States have 

the power ultimately, militarily, yeah, but is that where we are 

headed? Is that where Americans want to go? Is that what the situation calls for? That is a whole different set of questions, and I 

doubt the answers are very affirmative. 

But I think that basically sanctions are not going to produce capitulation, and I think that is part of the calculation here. 

And I think when you have a country ready to negotiate, and 

they step up and say, ‘‘We are prepared to do this,’’ and we have 

partners in the deal, if those partners perceive that we are not prepared to do it, then they will go off and do what they need to do 

and you lose this unanimity, this cohesion that we have today and 

cooperation we have, which is part of what makes the application 

of these sanctions so powerful. We don’t want to lose that. 

In addition, you asked, you know, what is Iran getting? Well, 

what Iran is getting is a road map to the way they can get rid of 

the sanctions, that they ultimately hopefully can even strike a new 

relationship. 

Now what does that that require? It obviously requires things beyond just the nuclear program. It will require dealing with missiles, ballistic missiles, with terrorism, their support for it, with 

other kinds of activities. But you have got to begin somewhere. And 

the most immediate threat to us and to our friends in the region 

is the nuclear program, and that is where we have begun. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Mo Brooks of Alabama. 

44

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for sharing your time 

with us on a very important and very high risk issue. 

In 2005, the President of Iran stated, ‘‘Israel must be wiped off 

the page of time.’’ In 2006, the President of Iran said, ‘‘Whether 

you like it or not, the Zionist regime,’’ referring to Israel, ‘‘is on the 

road to being eliminated.’’ Also, in 2006, the Iranian President 

added that ‘‘the Zionist regime is a rotten dry tree that will be 

eliminated by one storm.’’

I emphasize that a nuclear attack on Israel certainly qualifies as 

being ‘‘eliminated by one storm.’’

The Jewish community, the United States and, for that matter, 

almost all the rest of the world disregarded Adolph Hitler’s threats 

and were deceived by Hitler’s promises in the 1930s, resulting in 

the Holocaust and murder of millions of innocent Jews. Inasmuch 

as Israel appears to be Iran’s number one target, I give great 

weight to Israel’s opinion about the Iran nuke deal that you advocate. 

So far, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not been 

favorably impressed, having said,

‘‘What was achieved in Geneva is not a historic agreement. It 

is a historic mistake. To a large degree, this agreement rescues 

Iran from the pressure it has been under and also gives it 

international legitimacy to continue its nuclear program. This 

is a bad agreement.’’

It seems to me, Mr. Secretary, that the key to any agreement is 

whether the United States can and will enforce it. In that vein, Mr. 

Secretary, on April 12, 2013, the chairman of the House Armed 

Services Committee, Buck McKeon, and the chairman of the House 

Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Mike Rogers, sent 

President Obama and you a letter that states in part,

‘‘Since October, we have written to you twice with our concerns 

about a massive Russian violation and circumvention of an 

arms control obligation to the United States of great significance to this Nation and to its NATO allies.’’

Given the Obama administration’s failure to enforce arms control 

agreement with Russia, what can you say to Israel and the rest of 

our allies in the Middle East to convince them that America is still 

a reliable ally, that America will enforce agreements with Iran, or 

else, and that America’s not ignoring history and repeating the 

1930s Neville Chamberlain like pattern of appeasement and retreat 

that helped trigger World War II and the deaths of tens of millions 

of people around the world? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, let me begin, Congressman, by first of all 

condemning in the strongest language possible those expressions of 

hate and of sheer and utter insanity almost, asking for a country 

to be wiped off the face of the map and of time and for people to 

be so. That language is the most abhorrent kind of language you 

can find in any discourse in public life. It has no place in a reasonable world. It is unacceptable, and we should never hear that kind 

of language again. 

Secondly, with respect to Prime Minister Netanyahu and ‘‘his attitude’’ about this, I have had many conversations with the Prime 

45

Minister. He is a friend of mine, we talk frequently, and I respect 

his leadership. And I think he and I are working very, very effectively together on a lot of things. He knows, and I think Israel 

knows, that nothing will come between our relationship, our security relationship. Our commitment to Israel is ironclad, and we just 

may occasionally have a difference of tactics, but we have no difference strategically in what our goal is. Our goal is to make Israel 

safer, make the world and region safer, and we are committed to 

not allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon. 

And this President, I will tell you unequivocally, without any 

question, demonstrably, measurably has done more to provide for 

the security of Israel than any other administration in history. He 

has provided an Iron Dome——

Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Secretary, my time is running out, let me just 

conclude with one sentence. 

Secretary KERRY. I am going to exercise the privilege of answering your question, Congressman. I am not just going to sit here and 

have you lecture me——

Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Chairman, may I have 5 to 10 seconds? 

Chairman ROYCE. Excuse me, I think there is time for, Mr. 

Brooks, both for you to ask a question and certainly for our Secretary of State to answer that question. 

Secretary KERRY. The President has made certain that Israel has 

Iron Dome, Israel has the B–22 Osprey. No other nation in the 

world has it. Israel has weaponry no other nation has. We have an 

aid program. A day-to-day collaboration, day to day. Even this 

week, the national security adviser is here collaborating, talking 

with us about how we approach this question of dealing with Iran. 

So I will tell you that we take no back seat to any administration 

ever in our support and our friendship and commitment to the 

state of Israel. 

Now, that said, I think that the United States is engaged in 

many efforts in the region now that make clear our determination 

to be a friend and supportive. We are removing weapons of mass 

destruction from Syria. We are engaged in major discussions with 

the Saudis, Emirates, and others about Syria, about other issues, 

and I think those countries understand that when the President 

says Iran will not get a nuclear weapon and he actually develops 

the military capacity to guarantee that, which no other President 

did, they can trust that the President means what he says. 

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

In April 2009, President Obama said in Prague, ‘‘Rules must be 

binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something.’’

If there is anything I can do to assist you in that regard with 

respect to these agreements, please, let me know. 

Secretary KERRY. Absolutely. And I will tell you that we are focused on those, and we take them seriously. 

Chairman ROYCE. Well, I thank you, again, Mr. Secretary. I understand you have to go. 

And I am sorry we didn’t get to all of the members, but I think 

the department is going to be available to answer all the members’ 

written questions, and the Secretary of State will certainly be inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:19 Mar 05, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\121013\86003 HFA PsN: SHIRL
46

volved in that process in the days and weeks ahead. We, again, 

thank all of the members for attending this hearing today. 

And Mr. Secretary, we thank you. 

Secretary KERRY. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, we didn’t 

have time to do this earlier, but I would like to just put something 

on the record, because I keep hearing this and I don’t think it adequately reflects the record. 

The FBI is currently conducting investigation and working 

through the law to try to apprehend identifiable people with respect to what happened in Benghazi. But it is absolutely inaccurate 

to suggest that nobody paid a price in the State Department for 

what happened. 

A report was delivered to me. I have acted on that report, as I 

said I would. Two people were demoted and retired, two retired. 

Two careers were ended over it. And they left the department. And 

two other careers have seen demotions as a consequence of what 

happened there. 

So I think it is simply inaccurate, and I hope we will stop repeating something as a mythology that has no basis in fact. There was 

accountability. There is accountability, and we need to go forward 

from that, frankly. 

Chairman ROYCE. Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

As you know, we have made requests for a lot of data, which—

some of which we got and a lot we did not. And so we look forward 

to continuing to work with you to have the questions that were 

asked by Members of Congress answered by the department of 

State and receiving the information that we have requested. We 

thank you again for your testimony here today. 

We thank the members. 

Secretary KERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. We stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

(47)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

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FlJLL COMMITTEE HEARING NOTICE 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

W ASHTNGTON, DC 20515-6128 

Edward R. Royce (R-CA), Chairman 

December 10, 2013 

TO: MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

You are respectfully requested to attend an OPEN hearing of the Committee on Foreign 

AtIairs, to be held in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Oft'ice Building (and available live on 

the Committee website at httpllwwwForeignAffairs.house.gov) 

DATE: 

TIME: 

SUBJECT: 

WITNESS: 

Tuesday, December 10,2013 

1:00 p.m. 

The Iran Nuclear Deal: Does It Further u.s. National Security? 

The Honorable John F. Kerry 

Secretary of State 

U. S Department of State 

By Direction of the Chairman 
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

MINUTES OF FULL COMMITTEE HEARING 

Day_----'T'-'u"e~s"'da"_v'__Date, ___ .!.12"'1"'1~01"'1"'3 ___ Room, ___ _=2."-1.:...72"-__ _ 

Starting Time 1:05 P.M. Ending Time 3:45 P.M. 

, Recesses' <-to ----.J <-to __ ) <-to ----.J L-to __ ) <-to ----.J L-to----.J 

Presiding Member(s) 

Rep. Edward R. Royce, Chairman 

Check all of the following that apply: 

Open Session [Z] 

Executive (closed) Session D Televised [Z] 

TITLE OF HEARING: 

Electronically Recorded (taped)[Z] 

Stenographic Record [Z] 

The Iran Nuclear Deal: Does It Further u.s. National Security? 

COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: 

See Attendance SheeL 

NON-COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: 

None. 

HEARING WITNESSES: Same as meeting notice attached? YesO NoD 

(If "no ") please list below and include title, agency, department, or organization.) 

STATEMENTS FOR THE RECORD: (List any statements submit/edror the record.) 

SFR - Connolly 

TIME SCHEDULED TO RECONVENE ___ _ 

or 

TIME ADJOURNED 3:45 P.M. 
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JJresent 

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X 

X 

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X 

X 

X 

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X 

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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FORETGN AFFAIRS 

Full Commillee Hearing 

Member j'resent Member 

Edward R. Royce. C A X Eliot L. Engel, NY 

Christopher H. Smith. NJ Eni F.H. Faleomavaega. AS 

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. FL X Brad Sherman, CA 

Dana Rohrabacher. CA Gregory W. Meeks, NY 

SteYe Chabot. OH X Albio Sires. NJ 

Joe Wilson. SC X Gerald E. C01111olly, VA 

Michael T. McCaul. TX X Theodore E. Deutch. FL 

Ted Poe. TX Brian Higgins, NY 

Matt Salmon. AZ Karen Bass. CA 

Tom Marino. PA William Keating, MA 

Jeff Duncan. SC X David Cicilline. RT 

Adam Kinzingcr. IL Alan Grayson. FL 

Mo Brooks. AL X Juan Vargas. CA 

Tom Cotton. AR X Bradley S Schneider. IL 

Paul Cook. C A Joseph P. Kennedy III. MA 

George Holding. NC X Ami Bera, CA 

Randy K. Weber. Sr.. TX X Alan S. Lmventhal. CA 

Scott Perry. P A X Grace Meng. NY 

Steyc Stockman. T.X X Lois Frankel, FL 

Ron DeSantis. FL X Tulsi Gabbard, fIT 

Trey Radel. FL Joaquin Castro, TX 

Doug Collins. GA 

Mark Meadows, N C 

Ted S. Yoho. FL 

Luke Messer. IN 
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Statement for the Record 

Submitted by the Honorable Gerald H. Connolly 

It seems to me that a short-term deal that will etTectively freeze Iran's nuclear program is better 

than the status quo, which currently allows Iran to freely pursue its nuclear ambitions away from 

the prying eyes of international weapons inspectors. I would also point out that the simple act of 

negotiating is not capitulating. The United States has a long and storied history of negotiating 

with its adversaries. In his inaub'llral address, President Kennedy famously said 

" ... Let liS begin anew-remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign o.fweakness, 

and sincerity is always subject to proof Let us never negotiate out o}jear. But let us 

neverfear to negotiate. " 

The Administration has emphasized that the interim deal with Iran is a preliminary step, not the 

final word on the United States' policy toward Iran. It is a way for the United States and its allies 

to pause Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon to gauge the feasibility of a long-term deal. 

The restrictions of this agreement are real and tangible as The White House has noted: 

Without this phased aJ-,rreement, iran wuld start spinning thousands of additional 

cenlr!filges. il could inslall and spill nexl-generalion cenlr!filges Ihal will reduce ils 

breakout times. it could.filel and commission the Arak heavy water reactor. it could 

grow its siockpile o.f 20% enriched uranium 10 beyond Ihe Ihreshold.fix a bomb's worlh 

o.furanium.iran can do none o.fthese things under the wnditions o.fthefirst step 

underslallding. 

Given the understandable war weariness in our country, the United States has an obligation to 

ensure that we leave no stone unturned on the diplomatic track. We have to engage with Iran to 

roll back its nuclear weapons development. In order to realize meaningful progress on the part of 

Iran, two-way engagement - with transparent and verifiable metrics - will be critical. Winston 

Churchill famously said, "It is better to jaw jaw than it is to war war." In other words, it is better 

to talk before pursuing possible military action. It has been more than 30 years since the United 

States and Iran have engaged on a meaningful level, which makes an interim agreement all the 

more necessary. Such an agreement ought to include provisions regarding inspections, aim for a 

moratorium on enrichment, and address concerns about secondary nuclear pathways such as the 

heavy water pant at Arak 

The November deal moves us toward that path. If we let the perfect be the enemy of the good, 

we may never make progress. Therefore, I believe we should give this agreement a chance with a 

key corollary-the underlying sanctions regime against Iran must be maintained with no 

blacksliding. This is important to ensure our allies that we are committed to holding Iran to its 

commitments while we pursue the possibility of a long-term deal. I believe we should gi ve this 

agreement a chance. If, after six months, we see that Iran was not sincere about scaling back its 

nuclear weapons pursuit, then we can reassess the situation and respond accordingly. 
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Question 1: 

Questious for the Record 

Suhmitted hy the Honorahle William R. Keating 

To the Honorahle John F. Kerry 

In the interim agreement, Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will it ever seek or 

develop any nuclear weapons. Will future research, development and testing activities 

associated with nuclear weaponization, including those already identified by the IAEA, be 

addressed in the final agreement? 

[RESPONSE NOT RECEIVED AT TIME OF PRINTING] 

Question 2: 

Many analysts conclude that tough international sanctions brought Tran to the negotiating 

table in the first place. However, history shows that Tran has increased its enrichment 

program when sanctions have been imposed in the past. Would the threat of increased 

sanctions - not just a retnrn to the current sanction system - further behold Iran to 

cooperation with the interim deal and consequent permanent agreement? 

[RESPONSE NOT RECEIVED AT TIME OF PRINTING] 

Question 3: 

I worked with my colleagne, Congressman Michael McCanl, to include an amendment in 

the House-passed sanctions bill that wonld designate the Qnds Force of the Iranian 

Revolntionary Gnard as a foreign terrorist organization. In the midst of Iran's presence in 

the international spotlight throughout the P5+ 1 uegotiations, the Quds Force is believed to 

have continued its covert and deadly activities throughout the region. And, President 

Rouhani and his cabinet have long been tied to significant human rights abuses, including 

Rouhani's pivotal role in the crackdown on a 1999 student demonstration. Will the U.S. 

strongly uphold all sanctions should Iran continue its path of human rights abuse and 

supporting international terrorism? How does this initial six month agreement impact 

humanitarian efforts? How can we ensure that these priorities are strengthened in the 

permanent negotiations? 

[RESPONSE NOT RECEIVED AT TIME OF PRINTING] 
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Questiou 4: 

What impact do you foresee this agreement having on the United States' ability to react to 

future situations on the ground within the region, such as Syria? How do you believe the 

international community will be impacted in terms of multilateral responses? 

[RESPONSE NOT RECEIVED AT TIME OF PRINTING] 
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Questiou 1: 

Questions for the Record 

Submitted by the Honorable Joe Wilson 

To {he Honorable John F. Kerry 

Persuading other countries to implement sanctions has required a great deal of time and 

effort by the United States, and, in many cases, was done so with significant reluctance. 

After many years, we had finally achieved an environment where dealing with Iran was 

perceived as highly risky for companies across the world. How can we get comfort that our 

new efforts to lead a rolling back of sanctions will not change the dynamic and cause 

companies to no longer fear the ramifications of dealing with Iran and resume trade, 

regardless of whether or not it is still a "technical" violation of sanctions? 

[RESPONSE NOT RECEIVED AT TIME OF PRINTING] 

Ouestion 2 

Recently, there have been reports in multiple publications that Anham FZCO, a 

contractor to the U.S. military, violated the Iran Sanctions Act by shipping goods and 

materials through the Iranian Port of Bandar Abbas. The Treasury Department's 

Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has designated the company that operates 

the Port of Bandar Abbas, Tidewater Middle East Co., as being owned by Iran's 

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. U.S. persons are generally prohibited from 

engaging in transactions with Tidewater. 

Secretary Kerry, are you aware of any license or waiver that would have permitted 

Anham to have transshipped these goods and materials through Iran? What 

measures has the United States Government taken to punish Anham and what 

measures have been taken to ensure that violations such as this do not take place in 

the future? 

[RESPONSE NOT RECEIVED AT TIME OF PRINTING] 

Question 3: 

While some in Washington seem to have very short memories, I have not forgotten that a 

few short months ago Iran was ruled by man who called Israel a "Stain of disgrace that will 

be cleaned from the garment of the world." I know it is a new day and President Rouhani is 

supposedly a "new" type ofleader in Iran. However, I personally have deep reservations on 

betting the house on Rouhani at a time when our dear friend, Prime Minister Netanyahu, is 

screaming that we are making an "Historic mistake." Secretary Kerry, what gives this 

Administration confidence that President Rouhani should be trusted over Prime Minister 

Netanyahu? 

[RESPONSE NOT RECEIVED AT TIME OF PRINTING] 
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Questiou 4 

Given that Israel's security is a key reason the US is having these discussions with Iran, 

why would we sign off on any deal that the entity we are trying to protect is against? 

[RESPONSE NOT RECEIVED AT TIME OF PRINTING] 
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Qnestion: 

Question for the Record 

Suhmitted hy the Honorahle Paul Cook 

To the Honorable John F. Kerry 

President Obama bronght ns to the verge of war against the Syria jnst a few months ago 

over its nse of chemical weapons. Iran has been the chief financier of the Syrian regime and 

the Hezbollah terrorists that are leading the fight against the Syrian rebel forces. These are 

the same terrorists that killed hnndreds of American marines, sailors, and soldiers in a 

terrorist attack in Beirut back in the 1980s. Does the President really believe that a regime 

that is a state snpporter of terrorism and is complicit in the nse of chemical weapons will 

snddenly give np their pnrsnit of nnclear weapons? Can we really trust an Iranian 

President with the blood of hnndreds of Americans on his hands? 

[RESPONSE NOT RECEIVED AT TIME OF PRINTING] 
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Questiou 1: 

Questions for the Record 

Suhmitted hy the Honorahle Scott Perry 

To the Honorable John F. Kerry 

How would you characterize the outcome of uuclear uegotiatious with North Korea led by 

curreut Uuder Secretary of State for Political Affairs Shermau? 

[RESPONSE NOT RECEIVED AT TIME OF PRINTING] 

Questiou 2: 

Was the Under Secretary's appeasement strategy toward North Korea nuclear negotiations 

taken into account when considering her most recent assignment? 

[RESPONSE NOT RECEIVED AT TIME OF PRINTING] 

Question 3: 

What indicators or metrics should Congress and the American people look for to signal a 

transition from a strategy of prevention to one of containment? 

[RESPONSE NOT RECEIVED AT TIME OF PRINTING]