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98–831PDF 2016

STRENGTHENING U.S. LEADERSHIP IN A

TURBULENT WORLD: THE FY 2017 FOREIGN

AFFAIRS BUDGET

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

Serial No. 114–168

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 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

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 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

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

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable John F. Kerry: Prepared statement ............................................. 8

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 74

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 75

The Honorable Eliot L. Engel, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of New York: Material submitted for the record ............................................... 77

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey: Material submitted for the record ............................ 79

The Honorable Darrell E. Issa, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California: Material submitted for the record ............................................... 84

Written responses from the Honorable John F. Kerry to questions submitted 

for the record by: 

The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of California, and chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs .............. 92

The Honorable Eliot L. Engel ............................................................................. 96

The Honorable Edward R. Royce and the Honorable Eliot L. Engel ............... 124

The Honorable Dana Rohrabacher, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of California ............................................................................................ 126

The Honorable Brad Sherman, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California ...................................................................................................... 127

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

of South Carolina .............................................................................................. 128

The Honorable William Keating, a Representative in Congress from the 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts ................................................................... 135

The Honorable Michael T. McCaul, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of Texas ............................................................................................. 141

The Honorable David Cicilline, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Rhode Island ....................................................................................... 142

The Honorable Ted Poe, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Texas .................................................................................................................. 143

The Honorable Brendan F. Boyle, a Representative in Congress from the 

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ..................................................................... 151

The Honorable Matt Salmon, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Arizona .......................................................................................................... 155

The Honorable Scott Perry, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ............................................................................. 158

The Honorable David A. Trott, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan ............................................................................................. 159

(1)

STRENGTHENING U.S. LEADERSHIP IN A 

TURBULENT WORLD: THE FY 2017 FOREIGN 

AFFAIRS BUDGET 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2016

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room 

2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Chairman ROYCE. This hearing will come to order. 

This morning the committee once again welcomes Secretary of 

State John Kerry to consider the department’s budget request. 

When Secretary Kerry last appeared before us, he was presenting the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement with Iran. 

In the 7 months since, the administration got its agreement and 

the Middle East has been transformed, and not for the better. Now, 

with access to $100 billion in unfrozen assets and sanctions wiped 

away, Iran has instantly become the dominant country in the region. The Revolutionary Guards, already Iran’s ‘‘most powerful economic actor,’’ in the words of the Treasury Department, will only 

grow more powerful with international investment. 

The committee has deep concerns about the way the Obama administration—in apparent deference to Tehran—has chosen to ignore portions of a new bipartisan law ending visa waiver travel for 

those who have visited Iran. And, Mr. Secretary, the committee 

still awaits a detailed response to its many questions about a surprise $1.7 billion payment to the Iranian regime that coincided 

with the release of several Americans. 

Look no further than Syria for the horrible consequences of an 

emboldened Iran. The slaughter continues, and while the Secretary 

does his best to broker some sort of ceasefire, the fact remains that 

Russia, Iran, and Assad are calling the shots on the ground. The 

administration says there is no military solution to the conflict in 

Syria, yet as far as Putin and Assad see it, there very much is. 

Of course, Russia’s backing of Assad means that ISIS only grows 

elsewhere. The ISIS ‘‘JV team’’ has gone global, capable of striking 

in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, and here at home. Some 50 ISISlinked groups have carried out attacks in over 20 countries. In the 

failed state of Libya, ISIS has doubled in size. Now it has 6,000 

fighters in Libya. Every day that ISIS advances, it draws recruits 

to plot new attacks abroad. The committee hopes to understand 

2

just what is the department’s strategy to counter violent extremism? 

Looking toward Asia, the committee met yesterday with the Chinese Foreign Minister and reminded him that the South China Sea 

must remain open to international shipping and that any disputes 

should be resolved peacefully. Even after the latest North Korean 

nuclear test, Chinese pressure on the regime in North Korea is 

weak. Fortunately, the President just signed into law this committee’s North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act. It is now 

up to the President to enforce this law aggressively to cut off the 

funds now flowing to the Kim regime in North Korea. 

After years of congressional pressing, this budget does acknowledge the need to respond to Russia’s ‘‘weaponization of information’’ 

and to ISIS propaganda. But the Broadcasting Board of Governors—the international broadcasting agency that your predecessor called ‘‘defunct’’—remains in desperate need of an overhaul. 

Mr. Secretary, working together, we can, we must, fix this. 

Facing a chronic budget deficit, even good programs may not be 

supportable at levels we’d like and that’s why I’m proud that this 

committee’s scrutiny of the department’s new diplomatic security 

training facility helped to save the taxpayers over $500 million. 

I now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Engel of New York, for 

any opening comments he may have. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Secretary, as always, welcome to our committee. 

We work very hard on this committee to make and keep it the 

most bipartisan committee in Congress because, when it comes to 

foreign policy, our differences really should stop at the water’s 

edge. 

So I want to thank you for your distinguished service to our 

country. I know that you sat on this side of the dais long enough 

to understand Congress’ important role in foreign policy, and we’re 

grateful for everything you do. 

I will get into a few specifics, but even if we all listed our top 

ten foreign policy priorities, we would just be scratching the surface. I can never remember a time when so much was happening, 

all at the same time, all at once. 

If you threw a dart at a map of the world, wherever it lands, 

you’d find an American foreign policy interest. It might not be a top 

priority today because we focus mostly on the fires already burning 

out of control. 

But what happens if we don’t provide resources in sub-Saharan 

Africa to help consolidate democratic gains? What happens to the 

Asia rebalance if we neglect U.S.-India security cooperation? 

What happens if we say tackling climate change and protecting 

the environment just need to wait? 

The issues we ignore today will be the fires burning out of control tomorrow, and one thing is certain. Stopping an ongoing crisis 

is a much costlier business than preventing one—in terms of American dollars and often American lives. 

So, we need a robust foreign policy. We need to invest in diplomacy, development, and foreign assistance in order to tackle all of 

these challenges. 

3

We need to make the case that modest investments today, just 

over 1 percent of the Federal budget, will pay back huge dividends 

for our security and prosperity tomorrow. We need to show that 

American leadership is always a sure thing because if we’re not 

doing this work around the world, no one else will. 

So let me turn to a few particulars. I know and you know, Mr. 

Secretary, that we must continue to hold Iran’s feet to the fire, and 

we must make sure that they adhere to the agreement—to the letter of the law. 

I’m glad the administration imposed new sanctions following 

Iran’s ballistic missile test. 

We need to continue making sure Iran, again, is following its nuclear deal obligations to the letter. We also need to crack down on 

Iran’s other destructive behavior. 

Iran continues stirring up trouble throughout the region, sending 

IRGC commanders to Syria, supporting the Houthis in Yemen, 

spreading instability in Lebanon, and being the main supporter of 

Hezbollah. 

We need to do what it takes to curb Iran’s ongoing mischief and 

support our allies and partners in the region, especially the state 

of Israel, which Iran poses an existential threat to. 

In Syria, even with the planned ceasefire, I don’t foresee a quick 

end to the crisis, especially now that Russia has provided Assad 

another lifeline. 

The millions of refugees and displaced families desperately need 

humanitarian assistance, and we should support the administration’s $4.1 billion request. 

But food and supplies won’t end this conflict. We need to push 

for a political resolution to get Assad out of power and help the 

Syrian people start rebuilding. 

We also need a new AUMF giving the President what he needs 

to defeat ISIS, while preventing another large-scale open ended 

commitment of American troops on the ground. 

Turning to Ukraine, as fighting again intensifies, we cannot take 

our eye off the ball. Today, Ukraine’s top priority should be rooting 

out corruption and pushing reform, and we need to support these 

efforts. 

We need to work with the Ukraine. We need to be a partner of 

Ukraine. A stronger, more prosperous Ukraine stands a better 

chance of turning Putin back. 

And speaking of Putin, we need to let him know that we will 

never acquiesce to his illegal occupation of Crimea, and his aggression in Ukraine will not be tolerated. 

So that’s why I’m glad we’re doing the right thing by bolstering 

NATO in Eastern Europe to deter further Russian aggression. Any 

talk of sanctions relief for Russia is premature so long as Ukraine 

doesn’t control its own eastern border. 

But, Mr. Secretary, we must do more to counter Russian propaganda. The chairman and I feel very strongly about the fact that 

people who speak Russian sometimes only hear on air what Putin 

wants them to hear. They get a very unbalanced view, and we need 

to make sure that they get a balanced view. 

4

Here in our neighborhood, let me applaud President Obama for 

what he has done over the last year. We should support the President’s billion-dollar request for Central America. 

If we get to the root causes of child migration from El Salvador, 

Guatemala, and Honduras, fewer children will attempt the dangerous trip. Our top ally in the region, Colombia, is nearing a historic peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—the FARC. 

Just as we have supported Colombia throughout this conflict, we 

should continue standing with Colombia’s people and government 

as they build a peaceful future. 

Turning to Argentina, the new government’s desire to work more 

closely with the U.S. is a good sign. Chairman Royce and I have 

urged the President to prioritize this relationship, and I’m glad 

that the President is traveling there next month. 

Our policy in the Americas brings me finally to global health. 

The Zika virus may soon touch nearly every country in the hemisphere, and the connection between Zika and the birth defect 

microcephaly creates even greater urgency. 

We should prioritize awareness efforts, including the risk of sexual transmission, and meet the needs for contraception. Women 

need the right tools and information to choose whether and when 

to have children, particularly with this virus running wild. 

More generally, we continue to see the importance of investing 

in global health. The President’s budget request is strong, but we 

should focus on the right priorities. For example, tuberculosis is 

the world’s number-one infectious killer. So, I don’t understand 

why the funding request from last year hasn’t gone up. 

So Mr. Secretary, I could go on and on, but I look forward to 

hearing from you on these and other concerns. Again, thank you, 

and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Engel. 

So this morning we are pleased to be joined by Mr. John Kerry, 

the 68th Secretary of State. Prior to his appointment, the Secretary 

served as a United States Senator from Massachusetts for 28 years 

and chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the last 

4 years. 

And so, Mr. Secretary, welcome again. Without objection, the witness’ full prepared statement will be made part of the record. Members here will have 5 calendar days to submit any statements or 

questions or any other material for the record. 

We want as many members as possible to have a chance to question the Secretary, and to accomplish that I would just ask every 

member and the witness, let’s try to stick to the time limit. That 

means leaving an adequate amount of time for the Secretary to answer your questions. 

So if we ask our questions succinctly and we get a succinct response, we can get through the members of the committee, and 

with that we will begin with a summary of, Mr. Secretary, your 

testimony. 

Thank you again. 

5

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN F. KERRY, 

SECRETARY OF STATE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

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

Ranking Member Engel, all the members of the committee. 

I’m privileged to be here, to have a chance to present the 2017 

budget and to answer your questions and, obviously, I know most 

of them will be more with respect to policy, et cetera. 

But I will try to be very rapid in this opening. First, our request for resources this year of $50 billion is equal, as Ranking Member 

Engel reminded everybody, to about 1 percent of the entire Federal 

budget. 

One penny on the dollar is everything we do with respect to diplomatic security, development security, relationship security—all of 

the things we do with our Embassies, AID, everything. 

And I would suggest very respectfully to members of this committee it is a minimum price for the leadership that we offer to the 

world, that we are currently engaged. 

I think as the chairman said, I can’t remember a time where 

there are as many hot spots, as many difficult challenges because 

of the transformation taking in the world right now—taking place 

and as a result we are engaged in more places simultaneously than 

at any time that I can remember in my public life. 

The scope of that engagement is, frankly, essential to protect the 

interests of our country, to project our values and to provide for the 

security of the United States. 

We’re confronted today by perils that are as old as nationalist aggression, state actions and as new as cyber warfare, and nonstate 

actors who are the principal protagonists in today’s conflicts as well 

as dictators in too many places who run roughshod over global 

international norms and also by violent extremists who combine 

modern media techniques with medieval thinking in order to wage 

war on civilization itself. 

And despite the dangers, I come to you unabashedly ready to say 

that we Americans, I think, have many and profound reasons for 

confidence. 

In recent years, our economy has added more jobs than all of the 

rest of the industrial world combined. Our military, our armed 

forces, are second to none. My friends, it’s not even close. 

Our alliances in Europe and Asia are vigilant and strong and 

growing stronger with the TPP and with the rebalance and our citizens are, frankly, unmatched with any country in the world in 

their generosity and their commitment to humanitarian causes to 

civil society and to freedom. 

We hear a lot of verbal hand wringing today but I, for one, will 

tell you that despite my deep respect and affection for my colleagues that I have worked with these last 3 years plus, I wouldn’t 

switch places with one Foreign Minister in the world. 

And I certainly don’t want to see the United States retreat to 

some illusionary golden age, given the conflicts and the challenges 

that we face in the world today and the need to project our values 

and protect our interests and build the security of our nation. 

So I, frankly, think that here and now we have enormous opportunities that we are seizing. In the past year, with great debate 

here, obviously, and many people who chose to oppose it, we 

6

reached an historic multilateral accord—multilateral accord, P5+1, 

and the world with Iran that has cut off that country’s pathways 

to a nuclear weapon and it has made the world safer because they 

no longer have the fissile material or the capacity to build that 

bomb. 

In Paris in December we joined governments from more than 190 

nations. That’s not insignificant that 190 nations agreed on specific 

steps—a comprehensive agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions and limit the most harmful consequences of climate change 

that we are witnessing to a greater degree every single day. 

Witness the drought in California, the increased flooding, the increased numbers of fires, the intensity of storms, the fact that we 

spent about $8 billion in response to the intensity of those storms 

over the course of the last year alone compared to the minimal cost 

that we are asking you to provide for the Global Green Climate 

Fund. 

In addition, we signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership which will 

ensure a level playing field for American businesses and workers. 

It will reassert United States leadership in a region that is vital 

to our interests. 

In northern and eastern Europe we are quadrupling support for 

our security reassurance initiative, giving Russia a very clear 

choice between continued sanctions and meeting its obligations to 

a sovereign and democratic Ukraine. 

In our hemisphere, we are helping Colombia to end the globe’s 

longest running civil conflict. Though there are still hurdles in that 

effort, we are working at it. 

We’re aiding our partners in Central America to implement reforms that will reduce the pressure for illegal migration. 

In Asia, we’re standing with our allies in opposition to the 

threats posed by a belligerent North Korea and we’re helping Afghanistan and Pakistan to counter violent extremism and we are 

encouraging resolution of competing maritime claims in the South 

China Sea. 

With friends in fast-growing Africa, we have embarked on specific initiatives to combat hunger, to promote health, to empower 

women, to fight back against such terrorist groups as al-Shabaab 

and Boko Haram. 

And, of course, the administration recognizes that the threat 

posed by violent extremism extends far beyond any one region and 

will not be addressed simply by military means. So the approach 

we have adopted is a comprehensive and a long-term one. Diplomatically, we are striving to end conflicts that fuel extremism 

such as those in Libya and Yemen and we also work with partners 

to more broadly share intelligence, and as everybody here knows, 

we have forged a 66-nation coalition to counter Daesh and we will 

defeat Daesh. 

I have no question about that. We just moved with troops that 

we support on Ramadi. We are making enormous progress there. 

We have, together with the enormous efforts of the Iraqi military, now liberated 40 percent of the territory that was held by 

Daesh. We’re moving on Hit. We will eventually move on Mosul. 

7

We have cut off the road of access to Araka and Mosul and there 

are many other things happening that we can discuss in the course 

of the morning. 

We’re assisting the government in Baghdad as it seeks to professionalize its security forces and through the international Syria 

support group, which we formed and put together, we have helped 

design a plan that has resulted in the delivery of a possible cessation of hostilities to take place on Saturday. 

We have a team that will be working in Geneva and another 

team working in the next couple days directly with the co-chairs—

the Russians—in an effort to try to encourage that process to take 

hold. 

I will say that for the first time in years five or six communities 

have received some 114 trucks of humanitarian assistance and 

some 80,000 people now have supplies for a month that didn’t have 

it a week ago before we were able to seal that agreement. 

And my hope is, though I know it’s very difficult—no illusions 

about it—my hope is that we can work out a modality in the next 

few days that will see this actually take hold. 

We’re calling on every eligible party to join in this effort and we 

can talk more, obviously, in the course of the morning about our 

vision for the political settlement itself. 

So I just close by saying, Mr. Chairman, as everybody knows this 

is the last budget of the Obama administration, the last one we 

will submit to this committee on behalf of American foreign policy 

and the national security of our country. 

There is nothing that I, as Secretary, or personally as a citizen 

take more seriously than protecting the security of our country. 

I ask for the fair consideration, for your counsel, your advice, 

your support and backing for this budget and our initiatives. 

But above all, I just want to say thank you to all of you for the 

extraordinary privilege of being able to work with you in support 

of an agenda that I believe not only reflects the best hopes and values of our country. 

But I am convinced when you analyse the challenges of the world 

today I believe this budget also reflects the best hopes of the world 

and that’s what America’s leadership is all about. 

So I thank you and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Secretary Kerry follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

We’re going to move as quickly as possible, keeping all members 

to 5 minutes so we can get to as many members here as we possibly can. 

Let me start with the observation that since just last month, Mr. 

Secretary, we’ve seen major foreign economic developments in 

terms of investment in Iran—$20 billion on the part of Airbus, $1⁄2

billion to modernize a car factory from Peugeot. 

We see French and Italian energy companies investing billions to 

revive the oil and gas infrastructure. 

These companies are government backed, many of them, and we 

have Chinese and we have Russian investment. In the face of this 

flood, isn’t snap back really just an empty threat? 

Hasn’t the dam broken? 

Secretary KERRY. Not at all, Congressman—Mr. Chairman. Not 

in the least. 

Every country that you’ve just mentioned—China, Russia, 

France, Britain, Germany—are all agreed and signed up to and 

have voted for a United Nations resolution that says snap back will 

take effect if Iran were to engage in egregious, unsolvable violation 

of the JCPOA. 

But in the meantime, Mr. Chairman, they are going to do what 

they are permitted to do under the agreement which is do business 

in terms of Iran and hopefully those links will ultimately result in 

transformation to some degree. 

Now, I would ask all of you to ask a question. Why isn’t it Boeing? Why isn’t it General Motors? I sat next to the chairman of 

General Motors the other day in Davos, Switzerland. They’re sitting there watching Peugeot go in and others. 

We can’t do that. Why? Because we still have a sanctions regime 

against Iran on our embargo because of our other issues. 

Chairman ROYCE. Because of ballistic missiles and because of 

their support for terrorism. 

Secretary KERRY. Because of other—that’s correct, Mr. Chairman. 

But we can’t sit here and complain about other people doing 

what they’re allowed to do when we ourselves prevent ourselves 

from doing certain things. 

Chairman ROYCE. But the major economic actor from the standpoint of members of this committee or many of us is the IRGC—

is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps—and we see them on the 

march. 

We see them in violation of another U.N. sanction, not only 

working on their ICBM programs but also carrying out terrorist activity. So given the stock you’re putting in the snap back provision 

are you asking Congress to renew the Iran Sanctions Act? Because 

that’s going to expire. That’s going to expire at the end of this year. 

This is the foundation of the sanctions regime. If it expires there 

is nothing to snap back. 

Secretary KERRY. That’s not accurate, Mr. Chairman. 

We have all the snap back power that we need without the ISA. 

I’m not saying, you know, not to do it but I wouldn’t advise that 

right now for a number of reasons. 

19

We just announced implementation day. Whatever we do with respect to the Iran Sanctions Act, my colleagues, friends, should be 

really done in the light of what we know is happening or not happening in the context of implementation and Iran’s behavior going 

forward. 

Now, it’s too early to measure all of that. Everybody here knows 

we can pass the Iran Sanctions Act if we needed to because of 

Iran’s behavior in 10 minutes in each house—in the Senate and in 

the House. 

There is no rush here, number one. Number two, the President 

has all the power in the world through the Emergency Economic 

Powers Act to be able to implement. That’s what we did to implement many of the sanctions we’ve put in place. The executive orders are empowered under that and the power of the presidency, 

not, you know——

Chairman ROYCE. Let me close, though, with an observation. 

Secretary KERRY. They’re not dependent—they’re not dependent 

on the ISA. That is my point. 

Chairman ROYCE. I understand that point. But when you say 

there’s no rush here let me point that in terms of the Iranian behavior there is very much a rush toward the mass production of an 

ICBM program and we’re witnessing this. 

There is a rush on their part. There was a rush into Yemen with 

militia. There was a rush into Syria with Quds Forces and with 

proxies from Iran. 

It is that that we’re seeing now. So if the administration isn’t 

supportive of this renewal not only are we preventing the possibility of the snap back but from the standpoint of myself and many 

of the members of this committee we’re also giving relief on missiles, basically. 

Secretary KERRY. No, we’re not. 

Chairman ROYCE. We’re giving relief on actions which we would 

consider terrorist activity, you know, especially the attacks by the 

Quds Forces. 

Secretary KERRY. Mr. Chairman, I respectfully beg to differ with 

you on that. We are not in fact giving them a freebie on anything, 

which is precisely why we left the missile sanctions in place. 

The arms sanctions are in place. The sanctions on terrorist support are in place. The sanctions on human rights are in place. 

They are separate from the JCPOA and they were purposefully 

separated in the context of these negotiations to protect our ability 

to be able to push Iran if they engage in those activities. 

Now, we just sanctioned Iran. On January 16th, we sanctioned 

three entities and eight individuals for their support for the missile 

activities and we have made it very clear to Iran that if it chooses 

to engage in those activities going forward there will be further activity. 

So we haven’t, and secondly, Mr. President—Mr. Chairman, we 

haven’t lost our ability to put the sanctions in place or snap back. 

As I said to you, they are not reliant. That power is not reliant on 

the Iran Sanctions Act. 

Chairman ROYCE. My time is expired so I’m going to go now to 

Mr. Eliot Engel, the ranking member of this committee. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

20

Mr. Secretary, I’m going to throw out a few things and ask you 

to comment on them. First of all, to continue on Iran, what steps 

are we taking and will we take to combat Iran’s support for terrorism and other maligned activities? 

What are we doing to make sure that Israel will be safe, as Iran 

rearms and continues to arm Hezbollah, which threatens Israel? 

With Ukraine, Russia is challenging our NATO allies across the 

continent. I’m encouraged by the President’s commitment of significant additional resources to the defense of Europe. 

But, I still think we need to do more. NATO needs to permanently station a brigade in Poland, and the Baltic States and every 

ally need to get above the 2 percent requirement for their defense 

spending. 

So, I’m hoping that the administration will permanently commit 

more troops to the defense of Europe and press our allies to more 

adequately share the burden of their defense. 

I’d like to ask you what the administration thinks will happen 

next and what we’re doing vis-a`-vis North Korea. Finally, I want 

to talk about Pakistan because I’m concerned that it continues to 

play a double game, fighting terrorism that has a direct impact inside Pakistan, and supporting it in places like India and Afghanistan where Pakistan believes such a policy furthers its national interests. 

So what are we doing about that? How does our assistance support or hinder our hope that Pakistan begins to fight all terrorists? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, Mr. Ranking Member, let me try to address those as quickly as I can. 

On Iran, let me just inform everybody here that the IRGC has 

actually pulled its troops back from Syria. Ayatollah Khomeini 

pulled a significant number of troops out. Their presence is actually 

reduced in Syria, number one. 

Number two, that doesn’t mean that they’re still not engaged and 

active in the flow of weapons from Syria through Damascus to Lebanon. We’re concerned about that and that is an ongoing concern. 

The other thing is that this money—I keep hearing this figure 

of $100 billion, $150 billion. Iran is not going to get a $100 billion 

or $150 billion, certainly not in the near term, and that figure is 

not accurate. 

It’s more—our estimates are it’s somewhere in the vicinity of $50 

billion to $55 billion at some point in time but it’s way below that 

right now, and in fact they are complaining about the slowness 

with which there has been a process of repatriation. 

So I urge you to go to the intel piece, get the intel briefing on 

what has happened with the IRGC and what is happening with the 

flow of money. 

Now, with respect to Iran’s behavior in the region, we have been 

deeply engaged with our GCC friends and I’ve had three or four 

meetings now with them since last summer when they came to 

Camp David. 

Since then, I’m meeting with them again shortly. We’ve engaged 

in a major plus up of our military exercise, military cooperation, 

military support. 

We are joining with them in an active effort to push back against 

other activities. We’re part of the coalition that has been supVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:53 Jul 19, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\022516\98831 SHIRL
21

porting the Saudis and the Emiratis and others who pushed into 

Yemen to protect Saudi Arabia against the Houthis. 

And I believe we may even now as a result of those efforts find 

a ripeness in a political process that might be able to help resolve 

that. 

On Syria, Iran has come to the table together with Russia to 

agree to two communiques in Vienna and a United Nations Security Council resolution outlining a framework for the political resolution of Syria. 

Now, I am not here to vouch for the words. But I am here to say 

to you there is at least a framework on paper which we are now 

following with hopes of getting back to the discussion in Geneva in 

the next week with the support of Iran and Russia. 

Now, we’re going to have to put that to the test. We’re not sitting 

here saying it’s going to happen automatically. But if there’s going 

to be a political settlement the only way to get there is with the 

agreement and consent of all the parties. 

All the stakeholders are at the table for the first time. So we’re 

hopeful that we can press that forward and at least come to you 

with a notion in a matter of months, weeks, they’re either serious 

or they’re not. 

If they are not serious, then we are going to have to be talking 

with you about whatever Plan B is going to be. But if there’s a 

prayer of holding Syria together unified as a whole country without 

further refugee migration challenges to Europe and challenges to 

Jordan and Lebanon and the rest of the region, we must pursue 

some kind of a political process. 

With respect to Europe, we have engaged in a significant plus 

up, as I just mentioned. The budget goes from about $700 million, 

$700 million plus, $750 million up to $3.4 billion in our support for 

the forward deployment of both troops rotating support structure 

and assistance to Europe. 

But I won’t go into all the details now. Maybe I’ll submit it for 

the record because of the time frame. But I just want to say to you 

that there is a very robust effort going on on the front line state 

support and our support for Ukraine, our pushing on Minsk. 

President Obama has had three or four conversations with President Putin the course of the last months from the United Nations 

meeting on. 

In every one of them, he spends probably 50 percent of the time 

at least on the issue of Ukraine and full implementation of Minsk 

and responsibility for protecting the integrity and sovereignty of 

Ukraine. 

So we’re deeply engaged on those fronts and I think our support 

is welcome and very important. 

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

of Florida. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary KERRY. Thank you. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. I hope that we are both opposed to Abu 

Mazen’s schemes at the U.N. to achieve unilateral statehood recognition outside of the peace process. 

22

I remain firmly opposed to your administration’s offer continually 

to get a waiver to the law that prohibits U.S. funds from going to 

UNESCO, a law that has been effective at preventing the Palestinians from being admitted to other U.N. agencies. So I will continue 

to fight every effort by the administration to get a waiver to that 

law. 

In its last months of legacy shopping as it tries to check off the 

remaining goals of its misguided foreign policy, is your administration going to abstain from a vote on a French resolution at the 

U.N. supporting Palestinian statehood? 

So I will ask you to definitively answer here this morning, Mr. 

Secretary. Will the United States veto any resolution at the U.N. 

supporting Palestinian statehood? Yes or no. 

Secretary KERRY. I don’t know of any resolution by the French 

specifically. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. If there were? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, we have always opposed any one-sided 

resolution, something that is unfair to Israel or that——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. Thank you. 

And moving on to the administration’s shameful concession policy toward Cuba that has turned its back on human rights advocates, yes or no, are human rights in Cuba a priority for this administration? 

Secretary KERRY. Of course they are. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. 

Then how do you explain this year’s budget request for even less 

democracy funding for Cuba while repression is worse than ever 

before? 

And you’re about to travel to Cuba for your second visit. Yesterday was the 20th anniversary, as you know, of the shoot down of 

the Brothers to the Rescue planes that were ordered by Raul Castro, resulting in the murder of innocent Americans. 

Will you commit, Mr. Secretary, to the families of these victims 

today that you will seek the extradition of Castro regime officials 

responsible for the shoot down—General Ruben Martinez Puente, 

Lorenzo Alberto Perez y Perez, and Francisco Perez y Perez? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, Madam Chair, let me just say that we 

are engaged actually more directly in human rights than we ever 

have been or capable of being because we now have negotiated additional diplomatic presence in Cuba. 

We now have negotiated the right for our diplomats to be able 

to travel——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Secretary, are you aware that over 8,000 

people were arrested——

Secretary KERRY. Yes, I’m very well——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN [continuing]. Since the December 17th announcement of President Obama——

Secretary KERRY. When you say arrested there were people 

who——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Arbitrary arrests, detaining human rights 

advocates——

Secretary KERRY. Correct. There were many people detained——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN [continuing]. Whatever you would like to call 

people who are being held outside of their will. 

23

Secretary KERRY. People were indeed detained——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Eight thousand. 

Secretary KERRY [continuing]. And we are very much aware of 

that and we have objected to that and we are in conversations——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. If I could just—thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary KERRY [continuing]. And we have succeeded in getting 

people released who previously had not been——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Yes, some that had been released were actually put on the list and rearrested so that they could be released 

again. And some who were released were—anyway——

Secretary KERRY. Some——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN [continuing]. That’s very interesting about 

that list of freed people that Castro plays. I hope we’re not silly 

enough to believe that. 

And I’m wondering if you know on which illegally confiscated 

U.S. property you will be holding a press conference while you’re 

in Havana. Last year, you held a press conference in the Hotel 

Nacional. 

The American owner, the Intercontinental Hotel Corporation, 

still has a U.S.-certified claim for its majority interest in the hotel. 

Do you know which illegally confiscated property you will stop at 

this time? 

And then, finally, will you commit to this committee that you will 

pressure Castro to unconditionally return to the United States New 

Jersey cop killer JoAnne Chesimard? Human rights, confiscated 

property, U.S. fugitives from justice? Does any of it matter to this 

administration? 

Secretary KERRY. It matters hugely. In fact, we believe we have 

actually created more opportunities for intervention, more opportunities to make progress. 

One in four people in Cuba are now beginning to work for private 

enterprise. They are able to move money——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. How do you explain the massive exodus of 80 

percent increase of Cubans leaving the island since the——

Secretary KERRY. Madam Chair, do you want the answer—do 

you want an answer or do you want to just ask a question? I can 

sit here if you want to do that. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. But you’re talking about small business owners that are just—I’d like to go to that optometrist——

Secretary KERRY. I haven’t finished my answer. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN [continuing]. Because those rose-colored 

glasses are amazing. There have been massive arrests, massive exodus and still we talk about this nonexistent entrepreneurial class 

in Cuba. 

Secretary KERRY. We now have more opportunity to engage. We 

have more visits taking place with various groups, NGOs and others who are going to Cuba and engaging with the Cuban people 

than ever before in the last 50 years of our policy. We believe——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. They’re leaving in record numbers. 

Secretary KERRY [continuing]. This has a greater chance of 

changing Cuba than anything that has happened in the last 50 

years. Didn’t work for 50 years. 

Chairman ROYCE. We need to go to Mr.——

Secretary KERRY. Nothing changed. Now it is changing. 

24

Chairman ROYCE. We need to go to Mr. Gregory Meeks of New 

York. Time has expired. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, first, I want to thank you for the great work that 

you’ve been doing and I just want to ask three quick questions in 

the spirit of what the chair has asked us to make sure that we’re 

timely and give you an opportunity to answer those questions. 

First question, of course, deals with the situation in Turkey as 

it moves a tipping point. Specifically, I’m referring to tensions and 

conflict between Turkey and the Kurdish community. 

I think the details are important because we’re working well 

with the Syrian Kurds—the YPK—in the fight against ISIL. Nevertheless, the rising tensions between the Kurds and Turkey have 

deepened and particularly since the tragic events in Ankara. 

And so my question basically there is how is Turkey’s tension 

with the Kurds affecting the ongoing fight against Daesh and the 

end of the humanitarian tragedy there and what role if any can the 

United States play in helping with the Kurdish question. 

Secondly—different part of the world—as you also indicated in 

your opening statement, I am delighted that, you know, we were 

able to share the fifteenth anniversary of Plan Colombia with 

President Santos here and now we’re talking about Peace Colombia, which I think is tremendously important, as we hopefully get 

to an end of that situation there. 

So but I’m concerned about how we make sure that Africans, Colombians and indigenous are included in the $450 million that’s 

there. 

And finally, you also mentioned that we have concluded the negotiations in Asia on TPP and if we do not vote here in the United 

States to support the administration’s negotiations, what setbacks 

if any will it have for us in the region, whether it’s dealing with 

our allies and friends that are part of the agreement vis-a`-vis 

China, and will they have a strategic advantage over us? 

Secretary KERRY. Thank you very much, Congressman. I appreciate the questions. Let me just move quickly through them. 

Turkey is our NATO ally. We work very closely with Turkey, obviously. Turkey has a border with Syria and Turkey has enormous 

interest in what is happening there. 

We are very sensitive to this challenge of their concern about the 

PKK, their concern about the links to the PKK, YPG and so forth, 

and we’ve been talking with them considerably about it. 

We need to respect Turkey’s concerns and we will. We have, we 

believe. Going forward, it is very important that there not be a different problem created by the short-term solution of working with 

the Kurds and then that creates a longer-term challenge for all of 

us in the region. 

So we’re working very, very carefully. On the other hand, we’ve 

also needed to have some people on the ground who are prepared 

to push back against Daesh. 

Kobani is an example of that. We were able to hold Kobani and 

drive Daesh out of Kobani as a result of Kurd support and the 

Peshmerga particularly with respect to the northwest component of 

Iraq have been particularly helpful and engaged. 

25

They were essential to a number of successful military initiatives 

to push Daesh back, and in fact there are different Kurds because 

some are more prepared and more comfortable working with Turkey than others are and those divisions are very complicated and 

need to be managed carefully. 

Bottom line to your question is we are talking with the Turks 

right now about how to proceed in ways that do not cross important lines for them and that respect the sensitivities of the region 

and I’m confident we will be able to do that. 

With respect to Peace Colombia, we have committed, as you 

know, and it’s in the budget, a very important de-mining initiative 

which could take place in the aftermath of an agreement. 

There are still some difficult issues to resolve in the context of 

the agreement and we’re encouraging that process. President 

Obama has appointed Bernie Aronson as a special envoy to those 

talks. 

He has the respect and confidence of President Santos and the 

other participants. I may well be meeting with some of them shortly in the next days, depending on how events flow. 

There are many countries that are supportive of this effort and 

our hope is that we can resolve the transitional justice issues and 

the victims issues, which are two of the most critical ones outstanding at the moment. 

On the TPP, folks, I just—you know, I know—I mean, I’ve been 

part of trade debate on the Hill for the 28-plus years. I served in 

the Senate and I know how difficult it is. 

I was there when NAFTA passed and we went through some 

enormous transitions. This agreement is different from any trade 

agreement that I saw at any of the time that I was here because 

labor requirements, environment requirements are boldly within 

the four corners of the agreement and because this is essential, 

frankly, to raising the business standards of the region. 

It eliminates 18,000 taxes on American goods that can be exported into the region. It’s a benefit to American workers. 

It will create jobs here in America and it will profoundly impact 

the standards going forward for the protection of intellectual property, for the protection under cyber, and for our ability to be able 

to raise the transparency and accountability by which people do 

business. 

If this doesn’t pass then we are rejecting the most important economic initiative and unifying moment of, I think, the last, you 

know, 20, 30 years and we would be turning our back on American 

leadership in that endeavor and then leave to people who want to 

race to the bottom the standards for doing business, the absence 

of transparency, the absence of efforts to counter corruption, to deal 

with reform. 

Important reforms are contained in this TPP and I simply urge 

you look at it, analyze it and I believe in the end you will agree 

this is not like any prior trade agreement and I believe takes us 

to a much better place and reinforces American leadership in the 

region. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Chris Smith of New Jersey. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you, Mr. Secretary, for your service. 

26

A couple of questions. When I learned late last year that the administration was contemplating designating massive crimes 

against the Yazidis as genocide, which it is, but not Christians, I 

convened an emergency hearing on December 9th. 

Mirza Ismail, chairman of the Yazidi Human Rights Organization-International, testified that the Yazidis were on the verge of 

annihilation but also said the Yazidis and Christians—this is his 

quote—‘‘face this genocide together.’’

Chaldean Bishop Kalabat testified, and I quote him,

‘‘Christians have encountered genocide and the Obama administration refuses to recognize their plight.’’

Dr. Gregory Stanton of Genocide Watch testified,

‘‘Failure to call ISIS’ mass murder of Christians, Muslims, and 

other groups in addition to the Yazidis by its proper name, 

genocide, would be an act of denial as grave as U.S. refusal to 

recognize the Rwandan genocide in 1994.’’

My first question is when and will Christians and other minority 

faiths be included in a genocide designation? And secondly, because 

I know I only have 5 minutes, last year a Reuters investigative report—it was a very incisive report and without objection I would 

ask it be made part of the record—found that Tier 3 recommendations made by the Trafficking in Persons Office experts in 14 instances including Malaysia, China, Cuba, India, and Oman were 

rejected further up the chain of command at State and artificially 

given a clean bill of health for other political purposes. 

I convened a hearing. Kari Johnstone testified in November. I 

asked a lot of pointed questions about who made these decisions, 

were there other political factors involved. She was very tight 

lipped—very good person but did not convey information. 

Can you assure us, because the new TIP Report will be coming 

out very shortly, that that won’t happen again this year? 

You have the credibility of the TIP Report in speaking truth to 

power and defending victims against these heinous crimes of sex 

and labor trafficking, as you know, because you were a very strong 

supporter of it as a Senator and, of course, as Secretary of State. 

We have to get the book right. What you do with that is all up 

to the administration in terms of penalties and sanctions. But the 

book has to speak truth to power by getting it right. 

Fourteen instances. Can you respond? 

Secretary KERRY. Yes, I can, and I will respond. 

I am responsible for that report. I accept responsibility for that 

report. I made the decision about Malaysia and I made it strictly 

on the merits and in fact Malaysia has made improvements. 

It has increased prosecutions. It has increased its investigations. 

It has passed amendments on anti-trafficking. It has passed 

amendments on providing better law enforcement protection. 

It has issued regulations in consultation with NGOs and it has 

increased law enforcement efforts to prosecute and convict and it 

had additional convictions. 

Now, you know, you have to make a judgement in some of these 

cases. But I will absolutely vouch for the integrity of this process. 

27

We have a very detailed year-long effort where people are measuring and I have instructed our Embassies to be engaged year long 

in working with countries to try to give them time to make 

changes, to respond to our needs. 

Sometimes you are better off working with, encouraging and getting people to do something than just slamming them in a report 

and finding that they say well, to hell with them and they walk 

away and they don’t respond. 

We found, in the case of Malaysia and some other countries, 

we’ve actually been able to make progress. But I can assure you 

this report will demote somebody who deserves to be demoted and 

we will call it as we see it. 

And I don’t think anybody—you know, but I’m responsible——

Mr. SMITH. With respect, Cuba, China, Oman—we were told that 

Oman, because they helped on the negotiations with Iran, Cuba because of the rapprochement that’s occurred, and China—when it 

comes to sex trafficking because of the missing girls, tens of millions of missing girls, has become the ultimate magnet for pimps 

who are turning women into commodities and selling them across 

borders into China. 

It is, I believe, the worst violator in the entire world in terms of 

the massive numbers. So I would hope China would be looked at. 

And, again, on the Christian genocide designation, if you could just 

speak to that. 

Secretary KERRY. I’ll come back to that. I do want to speak to 

that very much. 

But let me just say to you, you know, each of these are real judgments that we make—that I make, ultimately. On Cuba, Cuba was 

upgraded to a Tier 2 watch list from Tier 3 because it did make 

significant efforts to address and prosecute sex trafficking including the conviction of 13 sex traffickers and it provided more services to sex trafficking victims. 

The government provided training to Cuban officials to address 

sex trafficking. The Ministry of Tourism actually reached out to address sex tourism and reduced the demand for commercial sex and 

they have committed to reform their laws in accordance with the 

U.N. Palermo protocol. 

Now, if that doesn’t happen then there’s a measurement to try 

to go backwards. But we felt that in each of these cases there was 

progress. 

Now, I would put on the record here today we are concerned that 

the Government of Cuba has not recognized forced labor as a problem, criminalized forced labor or reported efforts to prevent it. 

And so there are things that we need to do going forward and 

that’s what we’ll measure. On the Christian issue, I share your 

concern very, very much. Again, this is a judgment that I have to 

make. 

I will make it, and any reports that we have made a decision to 

the contrary, that the decision has been made not to, are incorrect. 

That doesn’t mean we made a decision to do so. 

This has to be done of the basis of a legal standard with respect 

to genocide and the legal standard with respect to crimes against 

humanity. 

28

I have asked our legal department to evaluate—to reevaluate, actually, several observations that were circulating as part of the vetting process of this issue and I’m concerned about it and I will 

make a judgment. 

I will also try to do so very, very soon. We know this is hanging 

out there. 

Chairman ROYCE. We need to go to Mr. Albio Sires of New Jersey. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you for all your hard work. I want to go 

back to the topic of Cuba. I know that we have had this issue of 

50 years. 

But there seems to be more repression in the last 10 years—this 

year, this past year than in the last 10 years. 

And I was wondering with all the people going back and forth 

to Cuba are any efforts being made to bring JoAnne Chesimard 

back to the United States? 

Secretary KERRY. We are discussing all of the outstanding—I 

might add, in conjunction with the chairwoman’s question also, we 

are entering into the period now we’re going to begin to be discussing the confiscated property and that’s a very critical component of this as well as extradition or release of various people and 

all of those human rights issues are on the table. 

I pursue them and the President will pursue them when he’s 

there. 

Mr. SIRES. JoAnne Chesimard? 

Secretary KERRY. Yes. I said we will be working on all of these 

issues. I can’t go into the specifics of each of them now. 

Mr. SIRES. And there seems to be more repression now than in 

the last 10 years after we made all these contacts with Cuba. Are 

we addressing that? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, yes, we are addressing the arrests. We 

were particularly incensed by the arrest of several of the people 

who had been part of the release effort originally and here’s what 

the Cubans say. 

The Cubans say well, they went out and broke the law again and 

we looked at what they had allegedly broken and we object entirely. 

One of them had hung a sign in a window saying that I will—

you know, I will only vote in an election in which I can vote to 

choose my President and so forth—and 4 year sentence. 

That’s ridiculous. It’s obscene, and we believe it’s obscene and we 

told them that is wrong. So we continue to press those issues. But 

we do have more ability to be able to interact with the Cuban people. 

When I was there to raise the flag, to have the Marines raise the 

flag—the Marines who lowered the flag were there to raise the 

flag—there were Cubans massed behind the——

Mr. SIRES. There were no dissidents, though. Dissidents weren’t 

invited. 

Secretary KERRY. No, no, no. These were people who cheered 

mightily at the return of the United States and the presence of our 

country, and my speech in which I talked about democracy and 

talked about the need to have protection of human rights was 

29

broadcast for the entire country and some of it—a little bit of it in 

Spanish, and the President’s——

Mr. SIRES. Well, our diplomats——

Secretary KERRY. We have more ability—we have more ability 

because of this to interact with the Cuban people and more Americans are traveling there and interacting——

Mr. SIRES. Even our diplomats are restricted from moving 

around throughout the island. 

Secretary KERRY. Our diplomats—we negotiated an ability for 

our diplomats, a specific number, as we test the, you know, expansion of this relationship. 

More diplomats are able to proceed to travel around unannounced and without people following them or engaged in any activities. We have diplomats who are able to travel around the country. 

Mr. SIRES. Are they actually traveling? 

Secretary KERRY. I believe they are. I’ve heard nothing to the 

contrary. 

Mr. SIRES. The other thing I want to talk about is Colombia. If 

they do come to an understanding I hope that we do not walk away 

from helping Colombia. 

Secretary KERRY. We are deeply committed. President Obama—

that was part of the reason for the celebration of the 15-year mark. 

We invested—we, you, everybody here—well, not everybody but 

those of you in the upper dais certainly invested significantly in the 

late 1990s in Plan Colombia and it’s made all the difference. 

That is why we now talk about Plan Paz, Plan Peace, because 

we want to continue that investment. 

Mr. SIRES. If we do reach peace—I hope that we still continue 

to assist Colombia. 

Secretary KERRY. So do I. So do I. 

Mr. SIRES. And the other thing—this morning in the news I saw 

that Russia gave Afghanistan all these arms. What do we make of 

that, I mean, now that there’s an incursion by the Russians into 

Afghanistan? 

Secretary KERRY. The Russians are deeply concerned about the 

stability of the country. They have raised the issue with us of trying to protect the region. They have concerns about the countries 

near them. 

They have concerns about the flow of terrorists. That is also one 

of their concerns about Syria. And so they are engaged—in fact, we 

are discussing with the Russians these issues of security for the ongoing challenges of Afghanistan. 

Mr. SIRES. So were you aware that they were going to give these 

arms to Afghanistan? 

Secretary KERRY. We know that they’re supporting the Afghan——

Mr. SIRES. This morning—it was in the news this morning. 

Secretary KERRY. You’re talking about the Afghan Government 

or the——

Mr. SIRES. Yes, they gave 10,000 rifles or whatever, you know, 

arms to——

Secretary KERRY. Yes. Yes, we support that. 

Mr. SIRES. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

30

Secretary KERRY. Thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. We now go to Mr. Dana Rohrabacher of California. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and again, thank 

you for your service to our country. You work very hard for us and 

while we have some policy disagreements you have our respect and 

our gratitude. 

So, first of all, let me mention then some of these issues that we 

may have disagreements on. When you say that the decision will 

be made very, very soon to act on the idea of whether Christians 

and Yazidis are targets of genocide, let me just note this had been 

going on—we have been seeing this now for well over a year—

roughly, several years now of the slaughter of Christians in the 

Middle East. 

And for us to not have made a decision and that we’re making 

the decision but that decision hasn’t been made yet is unacceptable. 

We’re talking about the lives of tens of thousands of people who 

are being brutally slaughtered, targeted for genocide. 

I have a bill, H.R. 4017, and the President has commented that 

it would just be giving preference to Christians. 

Is it preference to give—I mean, is it wrong to give preference 

to people who are targets of genocide and say we’re going to save 

them, realizing that they are the ones who are most likely to be 

slaughtered? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, this decision has to be made strictly on—

and has to be made quickly and I understand that. 

But I only—I think I only had the first discussion come to my 

desk on this in terms of the legal interpretations a couple of weeks 

ago and that’s when I—that’s when I immediately initiated some 

reevaluation which I’m looking at and I can tell you I want to do 

this as quickly as I can. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, let me just suggest, having this come 

to your attention only weeks ago——

Secretary KERRY. Well, it has to go through—it requires—Congressman, it does require a lot of fact gathering. I mean, you have 

to get the facts from the ground more than just anecdotal——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Secretary, the whole world knows that 

Christians are being slaughtered in the Middle East. It’s clear. 

It’s time for America to act and the excuse that we’ve got to 

study it, we got to ask the lawyers what the wording is, is this 

really preference or not, is unacceptable, and I would hope that 

your word that it’s going to be acted on very soon we’re going to 

hold you to that. 

So second, about the idea here, do you agree with some of the 

administration officials that claim that Russia is a greater threat 

to our national security than is radical Islamic terrorism? 

Secretary KERRY. I think—you know, I don’t want to get into a 

sort of either/or here because I don’t think it’s necessary. I think 

that what the Defense Department and others have been saying is 

that they see activities that Russia has engaged in which present 

challenges. 

For instance, what happened with Crimea, what happens in the 

Donbass, what’s happened in support for the separatists, the long 

process of back and forth on Minsk implementation is interpreted 

31

by the front line states as a threat and there’s engagement by Russia through its propaganda, through operatives in some of these 

other countries. So it is perceived of as engaging——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Secretary——

Secretary KERRY. Let me just finish. Let me just finish. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay, sir. 

Secretary KERRY. I believe if you wanted me to put on the table 

the top threat to the United States today in terms of day to day 

life and the stability of the world, it is violent extremism, radical 

religious extremism and the violence of——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Are you unable to say radical Islamic terrorism, as our President is unable to say? 

Secretary KERRY. I think you just heard me say radical religious 

extremism. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. No. You didn’t say radical——

Secretary KERRY. It’s not always extreme——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. You don’t want to say radical Islamic extremism. 

Secretary KERRY. It’s predominantly Islamic. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It is disheartening when a member of—when 

a representative of our Government can’t say radical Islamic terrorism and at the same time can’t make a decision whether Christians are being targeted for genocide. This is not acceptable. 

About your point on Russia and whether or not we consider them 

the greatest threat over radical Islamic terrorism, let me just note 

that increasing the spending of our military spending in Europe so 

that we’ll now have more tanks in Europe could be taken as a hostile act by Russia as well. 

It’s time for us to get out of this cycle of well, we’re going to find 

things that they can—that they’re doing that we consider hostile 

and vice versa. 

Russia has—we have every reason, do we not, Mr. Secretary, of 

trying to find a way we can work with Russia to combat what is 

the real threat, which is radical Islamic terrorism. 

Secretary KERRY. Congressman, I think you heard me say that 

it is predominantly Islamic and I have no hesitation in saying that 

and I’ve said that in many parts of the world. 

That’s not the issue and yes, we are trying to cooperate with 

Russia with respect to this issue in Syria right now. Russia is the 

co-chair with us of the international Syria support group and of the 

cessation of hostilities task force. 

And we are working very closely on the countering violent extremism initiatives, which President Obama has led in the U.N. and 

elsewhere in convening people to work against violent extremism 

on a global basis. 

To me, this is the greatest challenge we face because there are 

hundreds of millions of young people in many of these countries 

where you have 60 to 70 percent of the nation under the age of 35 

and if they don’t have jobs and if they are not educated and there 

is not opportunity or we don’t keep radical religious extremists of 

any kind from reaching them and turning them in to a suicide 

bomber or an extreme operative of one kind, we have a problem—

all of us. 

32

So this is, to me, the more prevalent challenge that we all face 

and Russia shares an interest in working with us to deal with that 

challenge. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Mr. Gerry Connolly of Virginia. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Secretary. 

Obviously, my colleague wants to get you to say that the number-one threat is Islamic terrorism. 

But is it not also true not to dilute anything that the biggest victims of that terrorism are in fact Islamists themselves and that 

many of our allies fighting this terrorist war are Islamic countries? 

Is that not true? 

Secretary KERRY. They are indeed our very significant allies in 

this effort and I would say every single country of the world they 

are joining in an effort to deal with the terrible distortion of one 

of the world’s principal religions. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I think that’s a very important point, Mr. Secretary, to put it in context because it’s not that my friend would 

do that. I don’t mean that. 

But we have heard some Presidential candidates taint an entire 

faith with something I think grossly unfairly when in fact victims 

are Muslims and many of the countries allied with us in the fight 

against terrorists are in fact Muslim countries. 

So it’s a very complex situation. But not subject to some simplification or oversimplification of who are the villains and who are 

the good guys. So I just thought we’d get that on the record. 

I think this is your first visit back since JCPOA, the Iran nuclear 

agreement got implemented and I just want to say for one I think 

it’s one of the most successful things U.S. foreign diplomacy has 

done in a long time, and despite the critics and all the predictions 

we had a hearing the other week and established definitively the 

fact Iran has complied. 

And if you’re looking at removing an existential threat to Israel 

we did it. And I just want to congratulate you and if you want to 

disagree that—about compliance please feel free. But it’s my observation that in every metric we set so far we have not seen cheating. 

We have not seen subterfuge. We have been able to observe and 

validate and in fact Iran has complied. That doesn’t make Iran a 

good guy in the international stage but it does mean we in fact 

were able to deliver an enforceable agreement and improves 

everybody’s security. 

I don’t know if you want to comment on that, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary KERRY. I thank you. I thank you, Congressman, very, 

very much and that is in fact what we concur with, that they have 

complied. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. Real quickly, I want to pivot to Crimea and the Ukraine. 

One of the concerns I’ve got, and I know it’s shared by friends 

on both sides of the aisle, is with respect to Soviet expansionism, 

Soviet imperialism, hegemony, whatever word we want to use for 

it, it all starts with Crimea. 

If you let Crimea go now you’re quibbling over the price in eastern Ukraine or Abkhazia or wherever and what is the United 

States’ position with respect to the illegal annexation of Crimea? 

33

Secretary KERRY. That it is illegal and we’re not ceding Crimea 

with respect to anything. But the primary focus for the moment is 

clearly on the Donbass and the Minsk agreements implementation. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. But we’re not going to give up on the Crimea? 

Secretary KERRY. No, we have no intention of that. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And the President—if I’m correct, I know some 

of my friends have criticized him for the issuance of executive orders but presumably not these. 

He’s issued executive orders 13660, 661, 662, and 685 blocking 

property, persons, and transactions related to the illegal annexation of Crimea and subversion in the Eastern Ukraine. 

How is compliance going with those executive orders and is the 

administration seeking additional legislative relief with respect to 

the subject? 

Secretary KERRY. We believe that Russia continues to pay a real 

price for the annexation of Crimea and Crimea is physically isolated from international transport links now, from the global financial system. 

Its tourism sector has collapsed. It remains unable to provide full 

significant electricity to its population and inflation has completely 

erased any potential of the Russian promises of a better standard 

of living for the people. 

Now, it’s obviously tragic for the people of Crimea. We know that 

since the annexation the human rights situation for the people of 

Crimea has deteriorated and there has been a mounting repression 

of minorities, particularly the Tartars. 

So we continue to press Russia on this issue and I believe that 

the measures that are in place are having an impact. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Steve Chabot of Ohio. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Let me thank you, Mr. Secretary, and thank you 

for your long service to our country. 

Secretary KERRY. Thank you very much. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Mr. Secretary. 

This is the 20th year that I’ve had the honor to serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee. I’ve chaired the Middle East Subcommittee. 

I’ve chaired the Asia Pacific Subcommittee and I’ve had the opportunity to listen to and to question a number of foreign—or excuse me, a number of our Secretaries of State from Warren Christopher to Madeleine Albright to Colin Powell to Condoleeza Rice to 

Hillary Clinton, to yourself in the past and again here today. 

Now, this administration has less than a year to go. So what I’d 

like to do is to ask you to address some of the things which many 

would argue haven’t gone so well and what we can learn from 

these things and hopefully avoid repeating in the future and as you 

know I’ve got limited time and I have several questions. 

So I’d ask that you keep your answers reasonably succinct because I would try to avoid to interrupt you. 

First, you’ve already been asked about the Iran deal. But I’d like 

to go back before the deal and ask this, and I realize, of course, 

that Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and not yourself. So I’m 

not blaming you. 

34

But I would ask this question. Was not aiding the students and 

the pro-democracy reformers in the Iranian green movement a mistake? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, I think my memory is that President 

Obama spoke out in support of—and we suffered a lot of criticism 

from Iran. In fact, this is one of the hurdles we had to get over in 

our negotiation. They believed that we were not only supportive 

but even responsible for it. 

Mr. CHABOT. That’s not my recollection. You know, these young 

pro-democracy folks pleaded for our help—pleaded for it and they 

got exactly nothing from this administration. 

President Obama essentially, if you go back and look at what he 

said at the time, he took the side, I would argue, of the repressive 

mullahs of Iran over its freedom-seeking people. 

I think most people who were looking at it at the time would say 

it was shameful what happened. Let me move on. 

In retrospect, was it a mistake to pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq? 

Secretary KERRY. I believe that this has been badly misinterpreted because there was no contemplation—first of all, the agreement itself was made by President Bush to draw the troops out. 

What President Obama tried to do was negotiate with Prime 

Minister Maliki the remainder that would stay and they were noncombat troops. Everybody needs to focus on that. 

There were no combat troops that were going to stay there. So 

even if they had stayed that would not have made a difference with 

respect to what was happening because Prime Minister Maliki was 

turning the army into his own personal private sectarian enterprise 

and that is the principal reason——

Mr. CHABOT. Again, I have to interrupt you but I——

Secretary KERRY. Let me just finish. That’s the principal——

Mr. CHABOT. I think—I think next to the Iran deal I would argue 

that it was this administration’s greatest mistake and it led, I 

think, directly to the rise of ISIS. 

Let me ask this. How did this administration so misread Putin? 

Now, to be fair, President Bush did too. He famously looked into 

Putin’s eyes, believing that he’d got a sense of his soul. 

But let’s face it, Putin’s been undermining U.S. policy at every 

turn. Why did this administration not see that coming? Why did 

it let it happen? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, I don’t think that anybody could predict 

what an unpredictable set of choices might produce. The bottom 

line is that at the time a number of other things happened which 

had an impact on Putin’s perception of what was going on. 

Mr. CHABOT. Let me just—I’m almost out of time. Just let me 

comment on your comment. It seems to me that from the start of 

this administration, from Hillary’s famous pressing of the reset 

button, that we’ve been played like chumps by Putin. 

This administration scrapped the missile defense program with 

our allies, Poland and the Czech Republic, to placate Putin. And 

what did we get? 

You know, he invaded and annexed Crimea, started a war in 

Eastern Ukraine, which is ongoing, shoots down a civilian airliner 

and, of course, denies it—his allies did that—threatens the NATO 

35

alliance, props up Assad in Syria, harbors the treasonous Edward 

Snowden, and on and on. 

I’d argue that this administration’s policy with respect to Russia 

has been feckless and, unfortunately, I’m out of time. So I’m going 

to have to leave it there. 

Secretary KERRY. Can I just respond very quickly, Congressman? 

There was an agreement which Yanukovych was supposed to 

honor and we don’t believe he honored it. But Putin, from his perspective, had an attitude that there was a deal and the deal was 

broken, and he thought and perceived certain things. 

People respond in certain ways and perceptions. I don’t believe 

that—and also the European Association agreement and the way 

that had been maneuvered had a lot to do with perceptions. 

Now, we are building the missile defense. The administration 

came to a conclusion they could do a more effective one and that 

is currently being deployed. 

Russia still objects to what is happening but it’s happening. So 

nobody pulled back from doing something as a consequence. Nobody’s been played for a chump. 

We went in and put sanctions in place that have profoundly negatively impacted Russia’s economy, profoundly impacted Russia’s 

ability to move and maneuver in the region and ultimately resulted 

in the Minsk agreement, which we hope can be implemented fully. 

If it is implemented fully, our policy will have in fact been successful because Russia will not have taken over all of Ukraine, not 

even the eastern part where the separatists will then still be part 

of Ukraine and in an arrangement with the government in Kiev. 

So I just don’t agree with your conclusion there and I also think 

that if you look, Russia’s cooperated with the United States on the 

Iran agreement. 

Russia cooperated with the United States in getting the chemical 

weapons that were declared out of Syria. Russia has cooperated 

with the United States and the Syrian International Support 

Group and the Vienna process and now in an effort to try to fight 

against Daesh and——

Chairman ROYCE. We need to go to Mr. Ted Deutch of Florida. 

Secretary KERRY. It’s not—it’s just not—you know, the point I’m 

trying to make is it doesn’t lend itself to just one judgment. This 

is more complicated and for better or worse more nuanced than 

some of these conclusions allow for. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Ted Deutch of Florida. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, thanks for being here. Thanks for your service to 

our country. 

Mr. Secretary, I had the pleasure this morning of spending some 

time with Amir Hekmati and as you know Bob Levinson is my constituent and it’s wonderful to see Amir and I’m thrilled for the 

Rezaian and the Abedini families but I just want to urge you to 

continue to press with the utmost, the greatest sense of commitment and urgency to bring Bob home to his family. 

I’m grateful for your raising this issue. I just urge you in the 

strongest way to really continue to push. 

I’d like to talk about the Iran agreement. Without making judgements about whether it’s the greatest achievement ever or the 

36

worst thing that’s ever been done, I think it’s—this is a 15-year 

term, 5 months since it was signed. We just had the implementation day. 

A lot of us, whatever side we were on before, want to see this 

succeed. So I want to focus just specifically on the snap back provisions, which had come up earlier—both the international snap back 

of international sanctions and the snap back of domestic sanctions. 

On the international, the tests of the ballistic missiles by Iran 

clearly violate the Security Council resolution. Ambassador Power, 

to her credit, took this to the Security Council and the Security 

Council has kicked it to the sanctions committee, as I understand 

it, and the question is if what is in this case a clear violation can’t 

be sanctioned at the international level—I commend you and the 

administration for taking action as the United States against these 

three entities and individuals. 

But at the international level if the Security Council cannot—

when there’s a clear violation like this over the term of this agreement why shouldn’t we have concerns or how do we address the 

concerns that they’ll never be able to act when there’s a violation. 

That’s with respect to international. 

On the domestic front, you talked about the Iran Sanctions Act 

and the reauthorization of the Iran Sanctions Act. I just wanted to 

go back to a story that was in Politico last summer, in August in 

the midst of the heated discussions about the JCPOA. 

A senior official told Politico, and I quote,

‘‘We absolutely support renewal of the Iran Sanctions Act. 

It’s an important piece of legislation. 

‘‘We want to discuss renewal with Congress in a thoughtful 

way at the right time. Now is not the time as the ISA doesn’t 

expire until next year and because we are focused on implementation. 

‘‘We will have plenty of opportunity in the coming months to 

take part in the deliberate and focused communications with 

Congress on this important topic.’’

The deal has now been signed. Implementation Day has now 

come and passed—come and gone. It is 2016, the year in which this 

is going to expire. 

Mr. Secretary, if not now, when? When will we have these discussions that the administration was committed to having last 

summer? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, Congressman, first of all, on Bob 

Levinson, I understand completely. 

I just met with the family recently and I completely understand 

the tension, the feelings, and the disappointment that they feel. 

They see people come back and Bob is not among them and they 

don’t have answers yet. 

But we have put a process in place as part of the actual agreement that we reached whereby he is very much front and center 

in terms of our following through to trace every lead there is and 

to be personally engaged. 

I won’t get into greater detail but I shared with the family some 

of the things that we plan to do and we will—in fact, we are doing 

them. 

37

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you. 

Secretary KERRY. With respect to the UNSCR, you asked about 

the missiles—does it have the meaning somehow that we’re not 

going to do what we said we’re going to do and the answer to that 

is no. 

The missiles were left outside of JCPOA. JCPOA stands by itself. 

The missiles are a separate track. The arms are a separate track 

and we purposefully did not want to confuse the implementation 

and accountability for the implementation with these other things. 

So that’s why we put additional sanctions on because of the missile launch on three entities and eight individuals. Now, you raised 

the question about 2016—it not now, when. Well, now is a good 

time to have the discussion. 

This is part of the discussion. We’re having it here today. And 

I’m saying to you that we should be informed in whatever we 

choose to do on the ISA by how well the implementation goes, by 

how necessary it is to be thinking about their concern about the application of the sanctions. 

We don’t need—we don’t need the ISA to be able to have snap 

back. 

Mr. DEUTCH. I’m sorry, I’m out of time. 

But I just wanted to ask is one of the reasons that there is a hesitation to go forward now even after Implementation Day is that 

Iran is going to view this as—interpret this as some sort of violation of the agreement which, clearly, it’s not? 

Secretary KERRY. No. I think—I think it’s on its face exactly 

what I just described to you. There’s no rush. We know we can pass 

whatever we would need to very quickly, number one. 

Number two, we want to be—in whatever we decide to do, whatever message it might send, ought to be advised by the efficiency 

and effectiveness of the way this has been implemented so that 

whatever we’re putting in it is in fact rational and related to the 

process itself. 

As you yourself just said, we’re only a few months into it. Let’s 

get into it—there’s plenty of time here—and see where we are. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Mr. Joe Wilson of South Carolina. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. 

I’m very grateful that Speaker Paul Davis Ryan has provided 

shocking admissions of how Iran will use sanctions relief to fund 

terrorism, which I believe the American people need to know puts 

families at risk. 

On January 21st, Mr. Secretary, you admitted,

‘‘I think that some of the funds from the sanctions relief will 

end up in the hands of the IRGC or other entities, some of 

which are labeled terrorists.’’

This is sad, Mr. Secretary. Iran is widely recognized as the 

world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, supporting groups like 

Hamas and Hezbollah. 

They are responsible for murdering hundreds of Americans. It 

therefore should come as no surprise that at least some of the $100 

billion in sanctions relief granted under the nuclear agreement will 

38

be used to finance terrorists. You are not alone in this assertion. 

In fact, several key Obama administration officials including the 

President himself have made the exact same admission:

‘‘Do we think that some of the sanctions coming down that 

Iran will have some additional resources for its military for 

some of the activities in the region that are a threat to us and 

a threat to our allies? I think that is a likelihood that they’ve 

got some additional resources.’’

—President Barack Obama.

Also,

‘‘We should expect that some of the portion of money would go 

to Iranian military that could potentially be used for the kinds 

of bad behavior we’ve seen in the region up to now.’’

—From National Security Advisor Susan Rice.

Also,

‘‘As Iran’s behavior the United States is under no illusions. 

This agreement was never based on the expectations that it 

would transform the Iranian regime or cause Tehran to cease 

contributing to sectarian violence and terrorism in the Middle 

East.’’

—Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy 

Sherman.

We agree on Implementation Day in January. Speaker Paul 

Davis Ryan noted,

‘‘The President himself has acknowledged Iran is likely to use 

this cash infusion, more than $100 billion in total, to finance 

terrorists.’’

This is exactly why a bipartisan majority of the House voted to 

reject the nuclear deal. Sanctions should be only lifted when Iran 

ceases its litany of illicit activities and ends its support for terrorism. 

Until that day comes, we should not be complicit in fueling a regime that has a long history of hostility toward the United States 

and its allies. 

I am particularly grateful for the bipartisan conduct of this committee with Chairman Ed Royce of California and Ranking Member 

Eliot Engel of New York with their thoughtful opposition to the 

Iran deal. 

I believe Iran promotes attacks on American families with its 

pledge of death to America and death to Israel as proven by the 

intercontinental ballistic missile development as cited by Chairman 

Royce and Congressman Deutch. 

Secretary Kerry, from your responses to Chairman Royce’s questions, what I heard you say is the administration wants to let the 

Iran Sanctions Act expire. 

The administration, extending it through the International 

Emergency Economic Powers Act, is simply a power grab. Allowing 

ISA to expire statutorily is unacceptable. 

With this background, how have Iran’s terrorist activities been 

affected by deal and the subsequent lifting of sanctions? Has Iranian support for terrorism increased or decreased? 

39

Secretary KERRY. Well, Congressman, you raise a lot of questions 

in all that and you make some assumptions that I just don’t—I 

don’t share or agree with. 

We never suggested that the goal is to let it expire. I said let’s 

take our time and be thoughtful about it. So you’re drawing a conclusion that I never lent any credence to. 

Secondly, this goes back to the sort of argument about the Iran 

deal itself. You say we shouldn’t lift sanctions until they have given 

up their sponsorship for terror. 

The problem is would they judge—you know, they just have a 

different interpretation about some of those things that would have 

lasted a lifetime and they would have then had a nuclear weapon. 

Iran with a nuclear weapon would have been far more dangerous 

than an Iran without one. 

So if you’re worried about terror, the first objective is make sure 

they don’t have a nuclear weapon. Now, we’ve been very honest. 

I’m not going to sit here and suggest that some portion of the 

money might not find its way to one of those groups. But what they 

do is not dependent on money, Congressman. Never has been. 

They’re going to do it anyway. If we hadn’t gotten rid of the nuclear weapon they were still supporting the Houthis. They’ve still 

been supporting Hezbollah. They’ve been supporting them for how 

many years? Countless years. 

Mr. WILSON. Well, now they can finance terrorists in this country. Mr. Secretary, this is not right. I yield. 

Chairman ROYCE. Okay. We’re going to go to Mr. David Cicilline 

of Rhode Island. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. 

Secretary, for your extraordinary service to our country. 

I have four questions that I’m going to run through quickly to 

give you as much time as possible to answer. The first is I’m very 

concerned about the deteriorating state of the rule of law and adherence to human rights in Egypt. 

The Egyptian judiciary has long been rife with corruption and 

political agendas. But reports yesterday exemplify how bad this situation has become when a Cairo military court handed down a 

mass life sentence to 116 defendants that mistakenly included a 3-

year-old boy. This is incredibly outrageous and really does exemplify how little the Egyptian judiciary and security apparatus care 

for the rule of law. 

And I would like to hear what we’re doing about it and additionally in the appendix to this year’s budget request you asked Congress to remove Egypt’s partial aide conditions accompanying national security waiver and the reporting requirement entirely. 

What’s the justification for proposing the removal of this language and what kind of signal will it send to the Egyptian Government and the Egyptian people? 

Secretary KERRY. Congressman, the removal of which language? 

Mr. CICILLINE. The language related to partial aid conditions, the 

national security waiver and the reporting requirement. The second 

question is you—you know, there are tremendous challenges. 

You’ve outlined them in your testimony and the budget—the 

international affairs budget which funds programs designed to confront these challenges continues to shrink. 

40

Since Fiscal Year 2010 the overall funding for the international 

affairs—that’s the base budget plus OCO—has been to produce 12 

percent and the Fiscal Year 2007 request is slightly down from last 

year. 

What are your most serious concerns about the resources that 

are necessary to confront the many challenges facing our country 

and does this budget really provide the resources that you think we 

need? 

And third and finally, the U.S.-Israeli memorandum of understanding I know is going to expire in 2018. I understand that we’ve 

already begun to discuss a new set of terms. 

What’s the status of those negotiations and what kind of training 

and equipment and assistance will Israel need in light of increased 

instability in the region and threats to their security? Tried to do 

those fast. 

Secretary KERRY. Okay. No, I appreciate it. Congratulations in 

moving up to the upper dais there. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you. 

Secretary KERRY. The—let me just begin with your question 

about Egypt itself and look, these sentences, obviously, are of enormous concern to all of us. 

We’ve expressed that very straightforwardly and we’ve seen a deterioration over the course of this last—these last months, I guess, 

is a fair way to say it, with arrests of journalists and arrests of 

some civil society personalities. 

We understand that Egypt is going through a very difficult challenge right now. There are terrorists in the Sinai, there are the 

challenges of extremism that has played out in bombings in Cairo 

and in Sharm el-Sheikh, elsewhere. 

So it’s difficult. Nobody is suggesting otherwise. But we believe 

deeply that countries that protect freedom of speech and assembly 

and encourage civil society will ultimately do better and be stronger in their ability to be able to defeat extremism. 

We work very closely—I have a good working relationship with 

my counterpart. We talk frequently. We are working on these 

issues on a regular basis. 

We have succeeded in getting some people released. We’ve succeeded in getting some progress on a number of human rights 

issues. But it is a concern. Their judicial system, which operates 

separately, makes some moves that I think sometimes, you know, 

the leadership itself finds difficult to deal with. 

And our hope is that over the course of these next weeks and 

months we can make some progress in moving back on these. I 

do—I think Egypt said something about the 3-year-old, if I recall, 

but I don’t want to—I don’t want to dwell on it right now. 

On the resources, we are cannibalizing a lot of programs within 

the budget. I mean, bottom line is everybody is dealing with difficulties in governance today as a result of our budget challenges 

and it’s no secret to any of you because these are the fights that 

you’ve all been engaged in on the floor. 

I think we’re making a mistake—I mean, I try not to get into the 

politics in this position at all but I do think the United States is 

not responding in ways that we ought to be to our global responsiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:53 Jul 19, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\022516\98831 SHIRL
41

bility as reflected in the budget overall and I think that we can and 

should be doing more. 

I think we handicap ourselves. I think we’re behaving to some 

degree—for the richest nation on the face of the planet—we’re 

choosing to behave more like, you know, a country that actually 

doesn’t have resources available to it. 

It’s a question of which choices we make, where we want to make 

the overall trades in the budget and we are where we are. So we 

have had to cannibalize considerably to make things work and it 

really, in my judgement, diminishes the ability of the most powerful nation on the planet to be able to actually affect things more. 

And so we see a frustration on the part of our people that the 

world is in turmoil or we’re not responding adequately here or 

there. A fairly significant amount of that is a reflection of resources. 

Sometimes it’s a reflection of policy judgments—I understand 

that—but a lot of it is driven by the resource allocation. 

With respect to Israel and the MOU, we will—we’re working on 

it now. We’re in negotiations. We have never ever put any of 

Israel’s security needs or challenges on the table with respect to 

other issues between us. 

Israel’s security comes first and foremost. President Obama, I 

think, has unprecedentedly addressed those concerns with Iron 

Dome, with assistance, with our efforts in global institutions to not 

see Israel singled out and we will continue to do what is necessary 

to provide Israel with all the assistance necessary so it can provide 

for its own security. 

I am confident we will get an MOU at some point in time, the 

sooner the better, because it allows everybody to plan appropriately. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I yield back. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being 

here today. I’m suffering from a major head cold so I may have—

go a little easy on you today. 

Secretary KERRY. That’s good. I don’t wish a cold on you but I’ll 

take the benefit. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Last December we passed the visa waiver program 

bill out of my committee. It passed overwhelmingly. It was designed to keep foreign fighters from exploiting the visa waiver program from certain countries like Iraq, Syria, Sudan, and Iran. 

And in the negotiations—and I was in the middle of those as 

were the national security chairman involved with the correspondence back and forth between Homeland, State Department, and the 

White House—we carved out two exceptions. One was national security and the other one was law enforcement. 

In the exchange between the Department of Homeland Security 

they mentioned when we considered humanitarian, business purposes, cultural, journalistic, I was in the room with the majority 

leader. 

Those exceptions were rejected. DHS came back again and the 

final email from the White House was that the administration supports this legislation—my thanks to all. 

And then finally the White House says I spoke to State Department—they did not request any additional edits. The administraVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:53 Jul 19, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\022516\98831 SHIRL
42

tion does not request any changes at this time. We’re good with the 

text as drafted. Reopening the bill would require us to look at it 

again. 

Yet the day after it passed, you read a letter to the Iranian Foreign Minister stating that parts of this law could be waived to accommodate Iranian business interests. 

In my judgment, having played a part in that negotiation, it was 

in direct contradiction with the intent and the clear definition of 

the statute and the law. 

It seems to me you’re putting the interest—business interests of 

Iran over the security interests of the United States and, quite 

frankly, either misconstruing or rewriting the very law that we 

passed overwhelmingly by the Congress. I want to give you the opportunity to respond to that. 

Secretary KERRY. I really appreciate it, Congressman McCaul. 

Thank you very much and I appreciate the work we’ve done to try 

to work through this. 

Look, we respect, obviously, the congressional intent and we respect the purpose of this. We all share that goal. We have to protect the country. 

We have to have adequate control over who’s coming in to the 

country and we learned, obviously, in the course of the K visa situation that there’s more that could be done conceivably to be able 

to analyze and dig into background. 

But the bottom line is this. The letter that I wrote to the Iranian 

Foreign Minister was not an excuse for anything. It simply said 

that they were arguing that we had violated JCPOA and I wrote 

a letter saying no, it does not violate JCPOA. 

It explained and defended the law and it made clear to them that 

we were going to keep our JCPOA commitments. 

Now, the—what we’re doing is actually following the letter of the 

law. But you have to—I please would like you to understand that 

our friends, our allies—French, Germans, British, others—are 

deeply concerned about the impact of this law inadvertent on their 

citizens. 

They have dual nationals, and if one of—and if one of those dual 

nationals just travels to Iran all of a sudden and they’re in a visa 

waiver program and they’re a very legitimate business person, all 

of a sudden that person’s ability——

Mr. MCCAUL. If I could use my time. Look, I wrote the law. 

Secretary KERRY. Let me just finish. 

Mr. MCCAUL. I’m the author of the bill. I understand the intent 

of the law. We had conversations with the White House. You tried 

to get this business exemption written into the law. 

That was rejected by the leadership and the Congress, and the 

time to have changed that was prior to the President signing it into 

law. 

But once the President signed it into law you can’t just go back 

and either violate or rewrite it. I know the law. I knocked it up out 

of my committee and you’re talking to the author of the bill. 

That was not the intent of Congress to carve out a business exemption and I understand—I understand we’re not—[simultaneous 

speaking]—the French and the Iranians in all this stuff. But that 

was not the intent of the Congress. 

43

Secretary KERRY. Well, Mr. Chairman, we’re not carving out a 

wholesale waiver intent. It’s a case by case basis, very carefully 

and narrowly tailored, number one. 

Number two, the text of the law is clear. The Secretary of Homeland Security——

Mr. MCCAUL. I agree with you. 

Secretary KERRY [continuing]. Waived the travel, can waive the 

travel or dual nationality restrictions if that—if he deems that it 

is in the law enforcement or national security interests of the country to do so. 

Now, we believe the full and fair implementation of the law is 

in fact in our national security interest. We have a very thorough 

systematic——

Mr. MCCAUL. I guess my time—I guess it depends on how you 

define national security interests. 

I will commend—Jeh Johnson called me to add Libya, Somalia, 

and Yemen to this list and I am——

Secretary KERRY. I concurred in that. 

Mr. MCCAUL [continuing]. And I commend that decision. I’m sure 

you’re going to construe the law in your interpretation. I do think 

adding those three countries was a positive step. 

Just one last question. On the designation of Iran as a jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern, are we going to keep 

that designation or is there any intent by you to lift that designation? 

Secretary KERRY. We’ve had no such determination. I haven’t 

contemplated it. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Do you intend to consider additional measures to 

provide economic relief to Iran to lift any other designations? 

Secretary KERRY. None at this point in time that I know of. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Okay. And I appreciate that. 

The Chair now recognizes Brad Sherman of California. 

Mr. SHERMAN. As to your bill, I’d point out that most ISIS fighters go into Turkey where perhaps their passports are stamped and 

then they sneak into ISIS-controlled areas where ISIS has a shoddy record of stamping passports, and we may have to look at every 

European passport stamped in Turkey that would obviously be an 

issue. 

Secretary KERRY. Actually, what is now an issue is Daesh’s ability to actually produce phony passports. 

Mr. SHERMAN. That would be another issue. 

Mr. Secretary, I’ve got so many issues. Most of them, I think, 

you’ll choose to respond for the record. 

First, on the budget, this committee had urged and voted that 

you spend $11⁄2 million broadcasting in the Sindhi language to 

reach a huge part of Pakistan—southern Pakistan—in the Sindhi 

language. We talked about this last time you were here. 

Now your budget requests an additional $35 million for broadcasting efforts. My hope is that you’ll be able to respond for the 

record that if we get you a substantial increase, maybe not the full 

$35 million but the first additional dollars will be to broadcast in 

the language of southern Pakistan. 

Secretary KERRY. I think it’s worth $35 million, Congressman. 

44

Mr. SHERMAN. It only takes $11⁄2 million. The rest is for whatever else you choose to spend the money on, and I want to compliment your general counsel in Karachi for looking in to the assassination of Anwar Leghari who was a protector of Sindhi culture. 

As to our work against ISIS, during World War II we had bombing rules of engagement that led to the deaths of 70,000 French civilians because we were serious. 

General DeGaulle never urged us not to bomb an electric facility 

because it would inconvenience French civilians. He never asked 

Dwight Eisenhower not to hit a tanker truck because a civilian 

might be driving it. 

Yet I’m told that in bombing ISIS we will not hit a moving truck 

and we will not hit electric power lines because not only do we not 

want to kill any civilians, even those working for ISIS, but we don’t 

want to inconvenience those living under ISIS, and it is a major 

inconvenience not to have electricity. I hope you would comment for 

the record about our rules of engagement against ISIS. 

I now want to focus on Iran. North Korea provided the nuclear 

technology that was used at al-Kibar, which the Israelis destroyed 

in Syria a few years ago. 

Now, North Korea has a dozen nuclear weapons. That’s about 

what they need. Perhaps the next one goes on eBay. Not quite that 

flippantly but you get the point. 

I spoke to the Chinese Foreign Minister yesterday and I will urge 

you to urge him as I did that China prevent any nonstop flight over 

its territory from North Korea to Tehran. Such a nonstop flight 

could easily export one or several nuclear weapons. 

If, on the other hand, that flight stops for fuel as, of course, it 

should if China requires they will—I’m sure the Chinese will take 

a look at what’s on the plane. 

It’s natural that you’re here defending the nuclear deal. I didn’t 

vote for it but there are very good aspects of that deal. But I’m concerned that the administration now is just in a role of defending 

Iran as if any comment about Iran is an attack on the deal. 

During Rouhani’s tenure we’ve seen a lot more executions in Iran 

and I hope that you would personally issue a statement condemning Iran’s violation of human rights, particularly when they 

kill people for the so-called crime of waging war on God. 

As to the missile sanctions, you indicate we sanctioned a few 

companies. We sanctioned a few individuals. Those companies don’t 

do business in the United States. 

Those individuals do not want to visit Disneyland, and I hope 

that you would sanction the Iranian Government for its violation 

with sanctions that actually affect the Iranian economy. 

Otherwise, to say certain individuals who have no intention of 

coming to the United States will not be allowed in the United 

States indicates an acceptance of Iranian violations. 

And under the U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 Russia 

can’t sell fighter planes to Iran unless the Security Council specifically approves that. I’ll ask you to—will we use our veto to prevent 

fighter planes from being sold to Iran from Russia? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, I don’t think you have to use a veto. I 

think it’s a matter of a committee—there’s a committee and it’s in 

approval in the committee. But we would not approve it. 

45

Mr. SHERMAN. And would we—would we use our veto if necessary to prevent the sale? 

Secretary KERRY. To the best of my knowledge, Congressman, I 

don’t—I haven’t looked at the specifics of the transaction, et cetera. 

In principle, we are very concerned about the transfer of weapons 

and so, you know, we would approach it with great skepticism. 

But I haven’t seen the specific transfer or what the request is. 

We have a committee that will analyze this thoroughly before anything happens and the committee signs off on it. I assure you we’ll 

stay in touch with you. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Chair recognizes Mr. Poe from Texas. 

Mr. POE. I thank the gentleman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for 

being here. 

I just want to say amen to what my friend from California has 

said regarding the folks in Iran that had been murdered by the regime. Two thousand three hundred have been executed, in my 

opinion mostly for political reasons or religious reasons. 

I would hope that the United States Government, through the 

State Department, would condemn this action by Rouhani and the 

Iranian Government. 

A couple of questions dealing with Georgia and Ukraine. The 

Russians occupy a third of Georgian territory. They occupy Crimea 

and they occupy parts of Ukraine’s eastern territory. 

Is it the U.S. position or not—tell me what the U.S. position is 

that the Georgia occupation is unlawful—Crimea occupation unlawful and the eastern Ukraine possession unlawful or not? 

Secretary KERRY. That’s correct. They are. 

Mr. POE. So it’s our position the Russians are unlawfully holding 

territory belonging to somebody else in those specific incidents? 

Secretary KERRY. In one case not holding but engaged in intrusions which are assisting in the holding. 

Mr. POE. And that would be in eastern Ukraine? 

Secretary KERRY. Correct. 

Mr. POE. Also, your predecessor has listed Georgia—if you have 

time this year it’d be great for our relationship if you could go to 

Georgia. 

Secretary KERRY. I’m hoping to. 

Mr. POE. And specifically I’d like to talk about a piece of legislation that has passed the House unanimously and that’s the Foreign 

Aid Transparency Accountability Act that I have authored along 

with Mr. Connolly from Virginia. 

It basically requires that there be accountability for foreign assistance whether—transparency and also evaluations of our aid to 

other countries. I think transparency in evaluations are good. The 

American public needs to know how their money is being spent and 

if it’s being spent well then maybe keep it up. If it’s not, then 

maybe we should stop it. 

The State Department, though, has resisted this legislation even 

though it’s passed the House. It’s passed your former committee 

unanimously over in the Senate and Raj Shah, when he testified 

in this committee he supported it when he was USAID director. 

46

Do you support this type of legislation or this specific legislation 

of transparency and accountability and evaluations of our foreign 

assistance? 

Secretary KERRY. Congressman, of course. We share the goal 

completely and yes, we support transparency and accountability 

and we have huge transparency and accountability. 

It’s one of our problems. I mean, I think—I don’t—I’m trying to 

get the numbers pinned down but the person hours and numbers 

of people assigned just to provide the transparency and accountability to all of you and to others is staggering. 

We lose an enormous amount of our implementing productivity 

to simply providing the transparency and the accountability. 

We’re currently—we have 51 investigations going on with an unprecedented number of hundreds of thousands of pages of FOIA 

that we’re responding to. 

I’ve had to cannibalize bureaus to ask, you know, young capable 

lawyers, professionals to come out of one bureau to go sit and work 

on this so that we’re able to meet the demands, and we’re overburdened. 

And I’ve had to—I’ve appointed—actually appointed a senior Ambassador, Janice Jacobs, to be our transparency accountability sort 

of coordinator to make sure we’re able to do this. 

So our concern is, you know, doing this in a way that is smart, 

efficient, efficient for you, efficient for us. We don’t resist the goal 

in the least. 

The American people have a right to absolute accountability and 

transparency. We think there are a lot of ways in which it’s already 

provided. There are ways we may be able to streamline some of 

that. 

So we’d like to work with you on this legislation so that it isn’t, 

you know, another moment where we’re having to transfer a lot of 

people away from doing what we’re supposed to do. 

Mr. POE. Well, the legislation——

Secretary KERRY. If you want to plus up the budget enough we 

can do it all. 

Mr. POE. Reclaiming my time. That’s exactly what the bill does. 

You have different group departments in the State Department 

doing transparency and evaluations. This makes it simpler for all 

of us. 

Secretary KERRY. Right. But we want to have a little more say 

in——

Mr. POE. Reclaiming my time. It’s passed the House unanimously. It’s passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously. But we’re getting push back from the State Department on 

the legislation. 

Secretary KERRY. We just want to make sure——

Mr. POE. And just a side note—just a side note——

Secretary KERRY. Congressman, only because we want to make 

sure it works for us in terms of our process. I mean, who can resist 

a piece of legislation—the Foreign Aid Accountability Transparency 

Act? 

Mr. POE. We want it to work for the American people because 

as you know—reclaiming my time. I have one last comment. 

47

You and I and most of the Members of Congress—when you mentioned the concept of foreign aid out there in the country to citizens, you know, they kind of get their backs bowed because people 

have been cynical for years, even though it’s a little bit of money, 

about foreign aid. 

And this legislation, I think, tells folks in the community—citizens, taxpayers who send this aid all over the world—that it’s 

working and we can have transparency evaluation for it so they 

can feel better about sending that aid. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield my time. 

Secretary KERRY. I’m with you. I support that 100 percent. President Obama does and he has instructed all of us to try to make 

sure we’re streamlining and being as transparent as we can be. 

Mr. MCCAUL. If we just move on. I know the Secretary’s time is 

limited. 

Mr. Grayson from Florida. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Secretary Kerry, I’m going to ask you a question 

that is susceptible to a yes or no answer or if you prefer yes or no 

with an explanation. 

Has Iran adhered to the nuclear deal? 

Secretary KERRY. I’m sorry. Has what? 

Mr. GRAYSON. Has Iran adhered to the nuclear deal? Yes or no. 

Secretary KERRY. Yes, to the best of our judgement. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Okay. Thank you for that. 

Now, there was concern that Iran’s money would be used to increase terrorism in the region after the deal was entered into. Has 

Iran’s support for terrorism increased, decreased or remained the 

same since the deal was enacted? 

Secretary KERRY. I think the best of our judgement would be it 

has remained the same. 

Mr. GRAYSON. All right. Is there any evidence that the money 

that Iran received as a result of the deal has been diverted to support terrorism? 

Secretary KERRY. We need to get into classified session to discuss 

that. 

Mr. GRAYSON. All right. 

Secretary KERRY. It’s a little more complicated. 

Mr. GRAYSON. We heard the phrase used at the time the deal 

was under negotiation and discussion that Iran would become a nuclear threshold state and it would push the limits of the agreement 

and get as close as it could to developing a nuclear weapon during 

the term of the agreement so that in 8 or 10 or 12 years it would 

actually have a nuclear weapon. 

Is there any evidence to support that at this point? 

Secretary KERRY. No. 

Mr. GRAYSON. What is your inference regarding that? What is 

your inference regarding behavior? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, the fact is Iran was a threshold nation 

when we began this discussion. Iran had 12,000 kilograms of 5 percent enriched. It had—I forget how much—20 percent enriched uranium. 

It was one step away from being able to produce highly enriched 

uranium for bomb manufacturing. It had enough enriched uranium 

48

to be able to make ten to 12 bombs. It has the technology and 

know-how. It has already mastered the fuel cycle. 

So in effect it already was at the threshold. That’s one of the reasons why we felt such urgency to try to close off these paths for 

actual movement to that and Iran has accepted increased transparency and accountability beyond anything that anybody else is 

engaged in on the planet. 

I mean, they’ve accepted the additional protocol. They’ve accepted higher standards for 25 years of tracking of all uranium manufacturing. They’ve accepted 20 years of television intrusion on their 

centrifuge production and limited levels of enriched uranium in the 

stockpile and limited levels of enrichment itself—3.67 percent for 

15 years. 

So they don’t have the ability to be able to make one today—just 

don’t have it physically in that regard and we are confident of our 

ability to know what they’re doing. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Has the administration ever tried to interdict Iranian shipments to help terrorism in the region? 

Secretary KERRY. Yes. We have in fact successfully interdicted. 

Mr. GRAYSON. And is it likely that that effort will continue? 

Secretary KERRY. Not likely. It will for certain. 

Mr. GRAYSON. It will for certain? Can you give us one particular 

example that is not classified? 

Secretary KERRY. Recently we turned around a convoy. We didn’t 

know exactly what was on it but we thought it was headed to 

Yemen and we made sure that it went back to Iran. 

Mr. GRAYSON. All right. I’d like to ask you a couple questions 

about ISIS. What is your own personal or agency assessment regarding the necessity to have ground troops involved in the fight 

against ISIS? Not American ground troops necessarily but any 

ground troops. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, American ground troops in the—American special forces are engaged as enablers on the ground in Syria 

today and in Iraq and I am a 100 percent supporter of that. 

I strongly advocate that that is a powerful way to have an impact. I am for trying to get rid of Daesh as fast as is feasible without a major American ‘‘invasion’’ but by enabling, by using our special forces, by augmenting the Syrian, Arab and other presence on 

the ground I believe it is imperative for us to try to terminate this 

threat as rapidly as we can. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Has the American Government had discussions 

with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, or Jordan concerning whether 

they would lend ground troops to the effort to fight ISIS? 

Secretary KERRY. We are engaged in discussions with them regarding their offers to do so at this time. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Can you tell us anything about that? 

Secretary KERRY. Not—no, I think it’s in a preliminary stage. It’s 

in discussion. They’ve indicated a willingness to be helpful and this 

is in the fight against Daesh, let me emphasize, and as part of the 

President’s effort to explore every possibility that is reasonable of 

ways in which to have an impact on ending the scourge of Daesh 

that is being evaluated. 

Mr. GRAYSON. What about other countries in the region—Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco? Have you had similar disVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:53 Jul 19, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\022516\98831 SHIRL
49

cussions regarding their potential to send ground troops against 

ISIS? 

Secretary KERRY. There have been broad discussions with various mil-to-mil discussions and intel discussions regarding possible 

provision of people under certain circumstances. 

Mr. GRAYSON. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. MCCAUL. The Chair recognizes——

Mr. ISSA. Chairman, could I ask unanimous consent request? 

Mr. MCCAUL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent 

that the letter dated December 13, 2012 addressed to then Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton be placed in the record. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. ISSA. And I further ask that the response from the State Department dated March 27th, 2013 to then Chairman Darrell Issa 

be placed in the record. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Without objection. 

Mr. ISSA. Lastly, I would ask that the news articles from the 

Daily Caller dated January 30, 2016, and the Hill, dated 2/2/2016, 

be placed in the record. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. Issa is recognized. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, first of all, I want to congratulate you on naming 

Ambassador Jacobs as your czar, if you will, for FOIA requests. 

I share with you the sympathy that the American people’s desire 

to know things has outpaced the automation and the process for 

FOIA from the State Department. 

As a former businessman, I might suggest though that as good 

as the Ambassador is perhaps you need to turn it over to somebody 

who is much better at getting data out rather than evaluating the 

details of State Department communication. 

Having said that, the information I put in the record is for a reason. In the last days of Secretary Clinton’s administration I sent 

her a letter specifically related to use of personal emails and I did 

so not because of Benghazi, not because of any other investigations 

you might be familiar with but because in the investigation of the 

Solyndra scandal at Department of Energy we had discovered that 

a political appointee, Jonathan Silver, had been using personal 

emails to circumvent FOIA and the scrutiny. 

He went so far as to say, and this is in the letter to Secretary 

Clinton, ‘‘Don’t ever send an email to DOE email with a personal 

email address. That makes it subpoenable.’’

The letter went on to go through a number of those things and 

it specifically asked then Secretary Clinton whether or not she had 

an email and whether or not any senior agency officials ever used 

a personal email account to conduct official business—have any 

senior agency officials ever used alias emails. 

That was a different investigation. And it went on, and I know 

by now you must have been made familiar with this letter. Approximately 2 months into your administration, as the Secretary 

your agency responded to that letter by not responding. Your agency sent a response that basically said here’s the title and the rules. 

50

Now, since it’s been reported in those two articles that you personally communicated with Secretary Clinton your personal email 

to her personal email, is it true that you were aware that she had 

a personal email and that she used it regularly? 

Secretary KERRY. I have no knowledge of what kind of email she 

had. I was given an email address and I sent it to her. 

Mr. ISSA. Did you look at the email address? I mean, was it a 

.gov and would you have noticed if it wasn’t a .gov? 

Secretary KERRY. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t know if she had 

an account or what the department gave her at that point in time 

or what she was operating with. I had no knowledge. But let me 

just say to you——

Mr. ISSA. Okay. No, I appreciate that’s a responsive answer that 

you didn’t know you were sending to her personal email from your 

personal email. 

Do you know—at least one of those documents now has been 

classified secret—do you know when that could be made available 

in camera to this committee so we’d appreciate what it was about? 

Secretary KERRY. I don’t know specifically. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. You are aware that it’s been classified secret. Is 

that correct? 

Secretary KERRY. I am aware. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. The letter which did not respond to the specific 

questions occurred on your watch. You’ve now had your watch for 

3 years. 

Are you prepared to answer the questions in that letter including 

who all is using email and what you are doing about it? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, Congressman, in principle I’m prepared. 

I’m prepared to have total accountability and I think we do. Let me 

just say to you my direction from day one to the entire department 

has been clear. Get the Clinton emails out of here into the——

Mr. ISSA. And I appreciate that, although it is amazing that 

we’re still waiting for many of them. 

Let me ask you just a couple more quick questions and then you 

can have the remaining time. 

Secretary KERRY. I want to finish my answer. 

Mr. ISSA. In the case of the use of personal email, we’ve discovered that additionally many individuals appear to be using text as 

a method of communication. 

Do you use text as a means of communication or do you know 

of any of your senior staff who use text as a method of communication? 

Secretary KERRY. Congressman, let me answer your question by 

saying this to you. In March of last year I wrote a letter to the inspector general that I hired for the department——

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that you hired one and that your predecessor never had one. 

Secretary KERRY [continuing]. And I asked—I asked the inspector general to look at all of the email practices, communications 

practices of the department in order to deliver a review and we are 

working with the IG’s observations, which have been helpful, to 

make sure that the department is living up to the highest——

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that but there’s a pending question, Mr. 

Secretary, in——

51

Secretary KERRY. But I don’t want to—I’m not going to——

Mr. ISSA. Would you answer the text question, please? 

Secretary KERRY. Congressman, I’m not going to get into an 

email discussion with you here on the budget of our department 

with all——

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Secretary, this committee is entitled to know the 

communication and——

Secretary KERRY. And our communications process is thoroughly 

being analyzed by the inspector general. 

Mr. ISSA. I have a pending——

Secretary KERRY. And we have had countless communications——

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Secretary, I appreciate that. It’s a simple pending 

question. Do you text or do you know of other individuals in your 

senior staff who use text? 

Secretary KERRY. I have no idea whether they do or don’t. I occasionally——

Mr. ISSA. Okay. And do you use text? 

Secretary KERRY [continuing]. I occasionally text some of the people. 

Mr. ISSA. And the final question is how are you seeing that that 

text which by definition is required to be saved under the FOIA requirements under the Federal Records Act, how are you seeing that 

those texts are preserved since they are not otherwise preserved? 

Secretary KERRY. That is precisely what we are working on within our process today to make sure that everything—and by the 

way, I don’t text anything regarding policy. 

I only text my logistical administering staff with respect to 

whether I’m arriving at somewhere or going something. There’s 

nothing substantive ever texted. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, I would certainly assume that your private email 

to Hillary’s private email also was intended to to be——

Secretary KERRY. Yeah, but that’s secured. All emails are on the 

server that is the State Department and it’s all preserved. It’s all 

part of the national records and that’s——

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that, Mr. Secretary. But Hillary Clinton’s 

were not and your personal email was not when a secret exchange 

occurred. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, I know. But you’re fixated—you know, 

you’re fixated on this. I don’t know how many investigations there 

are. I think people are really getting bored with it, Congressman. 

There are an awful lot of important discussions, policies, and 

other things and that’s what I’m here to discuss. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Secretary, I appreciate that. 

But as I said earlier, this is not about any of the investigations. 

This is about the work that was being done related to the Federal 

Records Act and compliance. 

It absolutely is more about whether the American people can get 

what they’re entitled to under a law that you, quite frankly——

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I would note that the gentleman’s 

time has expired. 

Secretary KERRY. I have taken unprecedented steps including 

with the inspector general to make certain that that is fully adhered to and I stand by the steps we’ve taken. 

52

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker—Chairman. 

Mr. MCCAUL. I appreciate the promotion. 

The Chair recognizes the ranking member. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. I ask unanimous consent to enter into 

the record the memo of the Inspector General Linick, February 3, 

2016, where he noted that Secretary Powell and Secretary Rice’s 

staff used private emails as well. I really think we should be consistent and not just have a political attack on Hillary Clinton. 

Mr. ISSA. As long as we can enter into the record, Mr. Chairman, 

the——

Mr. MCCAUL. Well, let me just say——

Mr. ISSA. I reserve the point. 

Mr. MCCAUL [continuing]. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. ISSA. I reserve a point. 

Mr. MCCAUL. The Chair has recognized the ranking member. 

Mr. ENGEL. May I tell the gentleman this is not the Oversight 

Committee? This is the Foreign Affairs Committee. 

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that and the only thing that I ask is 

that——

Mr. MCCAUL. Gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. ISSA [continuing]. Alongside that that the information where 

each of the former Secretaries made their accompanying statements including Secretary Powell saying that they were not classified I’m happy to have the record complete. 

Mr. KEATING. Mr. Chairman, point of order. Mr. Chairman, point 

of order. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Mr. Keating is recognized. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just wanted to know for those of us that are waiting to ask 

questions how much time is the Secretary allocated to this meeting? 

Mr. MCCAUL. He’s here until 12:30 and so with that the Chair 

recognizes Ms. Frankel from Florida. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Secretary, I want to just thank you for your service. I’m very 

proud to have you as our Secretary of State and I just want to in 

a most respectful way really object to my colleague’s litigating the 

2016 Presidential contest here in this foreign affairs meeting and 

I think there’s some more important things to discuss other than 

Hillary Clinton’s emails. 

Specifically, I’d like to talk about what’s happening in Syria and 

I would first ask you if you could very specifically detail the type 

of suffering that is going on and how many people are involved. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, Congresswoman, thank you. 

Syria represents the most significant humanitarian catastrophe 

and movement of people, deprivation of rights, slaughter since 

World War II. 

There are 121⁄2 million people or so who are displaced or refugees, about 41⁄2 refugees, more than 2 million in Jordan, million 

something in Lebanon and 2 million or so in Turkey. 

Massive numbers of people, as we’ve seen—almost a million already—who have entered into Europe, sometimes 5,000, 10,000 a 

day trying to move across the border. 

53

But what has happened in Syria itself the slaughter by Assad of 

his own people, the barrel bombs that have been dropped on 

schools, on kids, on innocent civilians, the torture which has been 

documented in vivid photographs, grotesque——

Ms. FRANKEL. And is it still occurring as we speak? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, the slaughter is still occurring. The innocent people being killed, the bombs that have dropped on hospitals 

and on schools that has obviously occurred, which is why we have 

pushed so hard to try to get a cessation of hostilities. 

But the combination of torture—of not just the torture but of 

starvation, communities that have been laid under siege, people 

who haven’t seen food supplies, medical supplies in years now——

Ms. FRANKEL. And children out of school? 

Secretary KERRY. Children out of school, people walking around 

looking like skeletons like people in the liberation of the concentration camps of World War II. 

This is horrendous beyond description, and the beheadings, the 

death by fire, and the elimination of certain people by virtue of who 

they are, this is really a sad tragic moment for a world that hoped 

that we were moving to a new order of rule of law and of possibilities for young people and so forth. 

So it’s really——

Ms. FRANKEL. So let me just follow up on that. 

If you could give us a prognosis. How long do you think it will 

be until these millions of people can either get back to a normal 

life in any way? 

Secretary KERRY. It will be when Russia, Iran, the parties at the 

table of the International Syria Support Group including the 

United States and our European allies and our Gulf State friends 

and Turkey and Egypt and others come to the table ready to implement the Geneva communique which requires a transitional government which is precisely what we are trying to do. 

Ms. FRANKEL. So let me——

Secretary KERRY. That is the moment where things could begin 

to turn conceivably for the better. But it’s going to be very difficult. 

Ms. FRANKEL. And once you get to that point is that where you 

then envision at—trying to go after ISIL or Daesh, as you call 

them? 

Secretary KERRY. No. We’re going after Daesh now as powerfully 

as possible, given the difficult circumstances of the country. 

It would be much better if we were able to get a transition government in place, according to the Geneva structure, and then have 

the United States and Russia and all of the parties focus on Daesh 

and Nusra and be able to join together. 

The difficulty with that is with Assad there and the suspicion 

about intent by some countries simply to shore up Assad, it’s impossible to be able to do that sufficiently until you have resolved 

this process or at least sufficiently engaged in that process and are 

far enough down the road that you then can license the ability to 

have a kind of cooperative effort on Daesh. The cooperative effort 

could end Daesh very, very quickly. 

Ms. FRANKEL. But that will require ground forces, you believe? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, the ground forces are there. You have the 

Syrian army. If you have an ability to be able to bring people toVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:53 Jul 19, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\022516\98831 SHIRL
54

gether around a transition government you have plenty of people 

on the ground who can then join together and together the forces 

from the air and the ground can quickly deal with the problem of 

Daesh. 

That’s why dealing with the question of Assad is so critical. People aren’t sitting around caught up in this notion that just because 

people said Assad has to go that’s why we’re sticking with the policy. 

It’s because if Assad is there you cannot end the war. As long 

as Assad is there the people supporting the opposition, the countries that are defending their right not to live under a dictator are 

going to continue to support those people. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, thank you 

for your time today. 

I’d like to try and take it back to something regarding the budget. My question—first question deals with the United Nations Relief and Work Agency in regard to our support of the Palestinians. 

To my knowledge, the American taxpayer spends about $277 million per year between the Fiscal Year 2009 and 2015 to support 

these programs. 

Meanwhile, UNRWA staff unions, including the teachers union, 

are frequently controlled by members affiliated with Hamas. The 

curriculum of UNRWA schools which use the textbooks of their respective host governments or authorities has long contained materials that are anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and supportive of violent extremism. 

Now, despite UNRWA’s contravention of the United States law 

and activities that compromise its strictly humanitarian mandate—

its strictly humanitarian mandate—UNRWA continues to receive 

United States contributions including $408 million in 2014. 

Just wondering if you could quickly sum up for us how your department is using this funding and your budget to discourage these 

activities. Taxpayers are loathe for paying for terrorism, terrorist 

activities, and support of terrorism, and I know you know this. 

Secretary KERRY. Absolutely, and not only know that, I mean, 

the bottom line is it’s disgraceful and it’s unacceptable and we’ve 

made that clear and so have the leadership, by the way, of 

UNRWA. They have—and the United Nations. There is now—has 

been very strict policy and procedure in place in order to prevent 

this kind of activity to ensure neutrality to prevent the funds and 

programs from benefitting any terrorist activity, obviously, and 

we——

Mr. PERRY. But how does that—with all due respect, how is that 

manifested? You say we have policies in place but yet they continue 

to do it and the American taxpayer continues to fund this organization. So how——

Secretary KERRY. Well, yes. And the people who have done it 

need to be fired and/or, you know——

Mr. PERRY. But are they, sir? 

Secretary KERRY. They should be. 

55

Mr. PERRY. How do we ensure accountability? How do you take 

that money and say to these folks you’re not getting the money? 

How do you use the leverage that——

Secretary KERRY. Well, we have pushed UNRWA as a result of 

what happened to condemn racism and to assess every allegation 

that has been brought to the agency about this misbehavior and 

misconduct, and in those cases in which investigations have found 

that misconduct occurred the staff are subject to remedial and disciplinary action and that’s what they have promised us is taking 

place. 

Mr. PERRY. Is it ever considered to just withdraw the funding 

until we see a good faith effort? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, the problem is—yes, it’s been considered 

and in a couple of cases it’s been mandated, and the problem is we 

don’t get back. 

I mean, we’ve lost our vote at UNESCO, as I think you know, 

because of activities beyond our control which the Palestinians engaged in by going to the U.N. and seeking membership. 

And as a result of that, we are hurt. We don’t have a vote. We 

didn’t control their action. It wasn’t a deterrent. But we have now 

lost our ability to be able to protect Israel to stand up and fight 

within the mechanisms. 

So I think being draconian about it is not the best way to do it. 

We’re being successful right now in being able to hold people accountable and I think that’s the best way to proceed. 

Mr. PERRY. And I appreciate the effort. I just—I see it differently. I don’t think anybody is being held accountable and I 

would just beseech you that the Federal Government’s $19 trillion 

in debt. 

The taxpayers are under siege and we don’t have money to waste 

on organizations that support terrorism and that’s just how I see 

it. 

But I would just ask you to consider that more than maybe you 

have. Moving on, looking at your budget, it looks like last year we 

spent about $300 million on the United Nations High Commission 

for Refugees and associated programs, and with what we see in 

Syria it seems to me that the American taxpayer is rightly—I 

mean, we want to do our part. 

We don’t want to see anything—we don’t want to see the horrific 

things happen to these people, the women and the children, and we 

want to do our part to be good neighbors and good stewards in the 

world. 

That having been said, these folks are coming to our shores and 

then school districts and hospitals and taxpayers pay doubly. 

I sent a letter to the administration asking why we haven’t pursued a safe zone in the border region of Syria and Turkey as some 

kind of a program or a strategy to make sure that they’re not refugees far from their country. 

Can you enlighten us at all whether that’s—because I haven’t 

gotten a response whatsoever. Is that even a consideration? 

Secretary KERRY. That’s been very much a consideration, Congressman, and it’s a lot more complicated than it, obviously, 

sounds. 

56

If you’re going to have a safe zone within Syria itself it has to 

be exactly that. It has to be safe. How do you make it safe? How 

do you prevent a Syrian air force barrel bomber from flying over? 

Well, you got to have aircraft in the air. You got to take away 

their air defenses as a result. How do you prevent Daesh from coming in and attacking or the Syrian army from coming in and attacking? 

It has to be safe. That means somewhere between 15,000 to 

30,000 troops have to be on the ground in order to make it safe. 

That’s the judgement of the Defense Department. 

Now, are we prepared to put that on the ground? I mean, I’ve 

heard these calls for a safe zone. 

Mr. PERRY. I’m not calling for American troops to be on the 

ground. We’re already flying in the area, as you know. 

Secretary KERRY. Right, and who is going to make it safe? Right 

now safety is found by going to Jordan or getting to that berm 

where there are about 15,000 people trying to get into Jordan and 

trying to make them safe there or getting to Turkey or getting to 

Lebanon. That’s safety. 

Or trying to get to Europe. What we’re trying to do is make it 

safe by getting a cessation of hostilities in place, getting humanitarian assistance delivered and getting a political process that 

could actually end the violence. That’s the safest thing of all——

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield. 

Secretary KERRY [continuing]. And it doesn’t require, we hope, 

thousands of troops on the ground to be able to provide a safe zone. 

Chairman ROYCE. Ami Bera of California. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Obviously, this is a difficult time in the world. Multiple complexities, multiple challenges in the world. 

But I’m going to shift to south Asia where we certainly have 

some opportunities but also some challenges. You know, it is a time 

of unprecedented increasing relationships between the United 

States and India. So lots of positive movement there. 

One area of complexity though is, you know, the pending sale of 

F–16 fighters to Pakistan and, you know, given Pakistan’s continued support of terrorism throughout the region but certainly—you 

know, we saw recent terrorist attacks in India in January at the 

Air Force Base. 

At a time when we’re seeing progress in U.S.-India relationships, 

understanding the complexity of the region, understanding we do 

have vested interests in helping Pakistan fight terrorists. 

I’d be curious from your perspective if Pakistan is doing enough 

separating good terrorists versus bad terrorists and enough domestically within Pakistan to fight these terrorist threats that not just 

threaten to destabilize India but also, you know, our interest in Afghanistan as well. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, Congressman, thank you. 

First of all, thank you for your thoughts about India and the sensitivity there and we acknowledge that. 

We’ve been really working hard building the relationship and 

trying to advance even the rapprochement between India and Pakistan and we encourage that. I think it’s required courage by both 

leaders to engage in the dialogue that they’ve engaged in. 

57

And needless to say, we don’t want to do things that upset the 

balance. But we do believe that Pakistan is engaged legitimately 

in a very tough fight against identifiable terrorists in their country 

that threaten Pakistan and they’ve got about 150,000 to 180,000 

troops out in the western part of their country. 

They’ve been engaged in north Waziristan in a long struggle to 

clear the area and move people out and they’ve made some 

progress in that. 

Is it enough, in our judgment? No. We think that more could be 

done. We’re particularly concerned about the sanctuary components 

of Pakistan and we’re particularly concerned about some individual 

entities in Pakistan that have been supportive of relationships with 

some of the people that we consider extremely dangerous to our interests in Afghanistan and elsewhere—the Haqqani network a 

prime example of that. 

So there’s a balance. But the F–16s have been a critical part of 

the Pakistani fight against the terrorists in the western part of 

their country and have been effective in that fight and Pakistan 

has lost some 50,000 people in the last years including troops to 

the terrorists that are threatening Pakistan itself. 

So it’s always complicated. We try to be sensitive to the balance, 

obviously, with respect to India but we think the F–16s are an important part of Pakistan’s ability to do that. 

Mr. BERA. Great. Let me shift now. As one of the few physicians 

in Congress I do have a real interest in global health and looking 

at the current threat of Zika virus. 

You know, we’re grateful to have Dr. Frieden and Dr. Fauci and 

representatives of USAID in committee a few weeks ago. As we’re 

looking at Zika and as we’re gathering, you know, information I 

know the President has requested $1.8 billion. 

One thing, as a physician, you know we know and very much so 

are recommending if you’re pregnant, if you’re of reproductive age, 

to take all precautions. 

Obviously, the one thing that we do know is making access to 

full family planning services available in areas where we know 

there’s endemic Zika and, you know, within USAID’s purview, 

within the $1.8 billion request I’d be curious—again, the one thing 

that’s empowering women of childbearing age to have full family 

planning support services, whether that’s birth control, whether 

that’s—you know, we’re seeing increasing cases of sexual transmitted Zika virus as well. 

So I’d be curious and I would want to make sure that we are providing the full resources in these endemic countries. 

Secretary KERRY. We are doing an enormous amount, Congressman, and I really appreciate the expertise you bring as a physician 

and your concern about this. 

The President is extremely focused on the Zika virus challenge. 

The White House National Security Council is actually coordinating the all of government response on this and together, with 

the World Health Organization with whom we are working very 

closely in its regional offices for the Americas, for the Pan American Health Organization, we’re working with relevant international organizations and others. 

58

The President has emphasized the need to accelerate researcher 

efforts to make better diagnostic tests available, to develop vaccines, medicines, improve mosquito control measures, and ensure 

that all citizens have the information that they need in order to be 

able to deal with the virus. 

So we are using multiple lines of effort—an all out effort. We do 

not want this, obviously, to become as challenging as ebola was 

and, as you know, we mounted a response to that and the same 

kind of effort is being put into this. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Ron DeSantis of Florida. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Good morning, Mr. Secretary. 

Congress recently passed a trade authority bill that, among other 

provisions, instructed our trade negotiators to oppose any boycotts 

of Israel including persons doing business in Israel or in Israel-controlled territories. 

And yet your spokesman recently said that the State Department 

rejects that provision and does not believe that Congress can 

conflate Israel with disputed territories. 

So my question is is why won’t the administration honor Congress’ enactment. 

Secretary KERRY. Well, I’m not sure exactly what statement 

you’re referring to or what happened with respect to that. I think 

we do honor legislation. But——

Mr. DESANTIS. So you would say your negotiators—if a European 

country was saying that they wanted to boycott people or businesses that are——

Secretary KERRY. We don’t—we don’t support——

Mr. DESANTIS [continuing]. Doing business over the green line 

you think you would not fight against that? 

Secretary KERRY. We do not support any boycott efforts. We’ve 

been openly opposed to them. We opposed them at the U.N. We’re 

opposed to them elsewhere. We oppose labeling. We don’t believe 

that’s——

Mr. DESANTIS. So you—so you don’t—well, good. Well, maybe he 

was not——

Secretary KERRY. That’s why I said I don’t know what the response is that——

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. Good. Because I think that that’s great. 

Well, the labeling though I’d like to follow up on that because 

your spokesman, Mr. Kirby, said that the U.S. doesn’t oppose labeling of Israeli products from the disputed territories. 

And so State Department does not view labeling as a boycott of 

Israel. And the problem with that is, you know, once you go down 

the road of doing the labeling that’s really a precondition for countries to be able to boycott Israel. 

So he suggested that the State Department is not opposed to European efforts to require Israel to label goods that are outside of 

the green line. 

Are you saying that that’s not the position? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, labeling—we don’t do—no, that kind of 

labeling actually—I mean, we require labeling of where people send 

goods from. 

We require labeling of goods that come into the United States. 

59

Mr. DESANTIS. But if someone sends it from a Jewish community 

outside of the green line and they say made in Israel, the State Department’s position for him would be like it was fine—it would be 

fine to force them to say that that was produced in the West Bank. 

Secretary KERRY. Yes. Labeling it from the West Bank is not 

equivalent of a boycott. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But it sets a precondition for a boycott. 

Secretary KERRY. Labeling is equivalent of knowledge to people 

so that they can, you know, have the information about where 

products come from which we require also, by the way. 

You know, we have Made in America, Made in China. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But I think it sets the—but these are disputed 

territories and you have Jewish communities there where they’re 

producing goods and they label it as made in Israel. 

Secretary KERRY. I understand that, which is why we are opposed—we are opposed to any boycotts or any efforts to isolate 

Israel based on where—we’re opposed to that. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, good. I think you—I mean, I appreciate you 

saying that forthrightly because I think we’ve been getting mixed 

signals from the State Department. In terms of funding, over the last several years about $1 million 

has gone to this new Israel fund and that’s an organization that 

supports BDS. Do you think it’s appropriate that money that the 

State Department is dispensing in grants be used for organizations 

that support BDS? 

Secretary KERRY. I’m not familiar with that. It’s news to me and 

I’ll take it under advisement and review it. 

Mr. DESANTIS. We’ll get that. There’s a movement to boycott 

Israel on a lot of college campuses throughout the United States. 

Do you view that as helpful for America’s diplomatic relations 

with Israel and other nations in the world and do you think it’s appropriate that U.S. taxpayers are funding universities that take an 

official position in favor of BDS? 

Secretary KERRY. I believe in academic freedom. I believe in student freedom to take positions. It’s a time honored tradition in the 

United States of America that we don’t punish positions people 

take——

Mr. DESANTIS. What about an institutional position? 

Secretary KERRY. We, as a government, make our position clear 

that we do not believe it is helpful to be boycotting. But people 

have the right in America, thank God, to be able to make their own 

decisions and we as a government do not punish students for 

the——

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, I don’t think it would be punishing students. I think it would be if the university adopted an official position that they were going to boycott Israel would then—we would 

want to subsidize that with taxpayer dollars. 

Secretary KERRY. I also—that’s, obviously, a debate for Congress. 

But I would not advocate or support any challenge to the freedom 

of the university to make its own decisions and I think punishing 

them would be in appropriate. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Now, money that goes to the Palestinian Authority directly under Federal law requires the State Department to 

certify that the Palestinian authority is acting to counter inciteVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:53 Jul 19, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\022516\98831 SHIRL
60

ment of violence against the Israelis and I’ve noticed that the last 

several years the State Department has not made that certification. Is that correct? 

Secretary KERRY. I wasn’t aware we hadn’t certified the last couple of years but we are following constantly the incitement issue. 

I just met with President Abbas and raised the issue with him 

a couple weeks ago and we are working through our relationships 

and constant engagement on the West Bank to make sure that the 

incitement is not taking place in any official ways. 

Mr. DESANTIS. I think the worry is is that the certification has 

not been made so that would prohibit funds directly. But the State 

Department has been directing funds to the Israelis to pay down 

the Palestinian debts. And the question is, is that trying to get 

around the spirit of the law? 

Secretary KERRY. No, it’s trying to sustain the one entity in the 

West Bank that is committed to peaceful resolution and to nonviolence and to two-state solution. 

The fact is that there are many, many difficulties financially in 

the PA’s ability to be able to meet its needs for education, for 

health, for the standard process of trying to govern the West Bank. 

And these have been particularly difficult last year and a half or 

so, as you know, with violence that has risen. We condemn the violence completely. 

I might add, I was extremely disturbed to read today that Iran 

has agreed to pay the families of people who’ve engaged in violence 

and people who have been ‘‘the martyrs’’ of the violence that’s 

taken place. 

That is completely inappropriate and seems to lend some sort of 

credibility to that violence and to those choices and I think it’s the 

wrong choice by Iran, and we strongly urge any kind of incitement 

of any kind and that even in its own way can be a form of incitement. 

You’re going to have eternal support, the families will be fine and 

this is okay behavior. It’s not okay behavior. But President Abbas 

is committed to nonviolence. 

He is the one leader in the West Bank who has consistently, even 

in the middle of the violence, even in the middle of the Gaza war 

previously, condemned violence as a means of trying to achieve the 

Two States. 

We believe that trying to build the Palestinian Authority and 

give them greater capacity to be able to control their own security, 

be able to build their capacity is the way to ultimately move toward 

solving the problem of the violence itself. 

Chairman ROYCE. I’ll remind the members we need to stick to 5 

minutes. And we’ll go to Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary for being here with us today. 

I’d like to follow up on Dr. Bera’s questions with regard to the 

F–16s in Pakistan. Judge Poe and I recently sent you a letter expressing our grave concerns about this potential sale and asking 

you to consider stopping it. 

In our view, rewarding Pakistan with such a sale when in fact 

they have not changed their harboring and support of terrorists 

within Pakistan, whether you talk about the 2011 statements by 

61

Admiral Mullen then talking about how the Haqqani network is a 

veritable arm of the Pakistani ISI or his statements that the ISI 

played a direct role in supporting the deadly attack on our Embassy in Kabul in 2011 or to the recent release of the mastermind 

of the 2008 Mumbai attack, both for security reasons and their actions in supporting these terrorists as well as the relationship that 

you and others have focused on and recognize as important with 

India. Is this something that you would be willing to reconsider, 

given all these factors? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, Congresswoman, I’d like to talk to you 

sort of in a classified setting, if we could, because I think there are 

some considerations that I can’t go into here. 

I would say to you that I share the concern, as everybody does—

I mean, the President, all of us are deeply concerned about ISI relationships, deeply concerned about the Haqqani network’s freedom 

to be able to have operated and we’ve had very recent conversations with respect to that. 

And I think in fairness, because of the nature of those conversations I’ll follow up with you, and I will definitely follow up with you 

in a way that we can discuss this. 

Ms. GABBARD. That would be great. I’d appreciate that. 

The last time that I met with you in my district in Hawaii we 

met at the East-West Center. It’s a place that you know has been 

instrumental in creating dialogues between leaders amongst many 

of these Asia Pacific nations at a critical time when we’re facing 

potential Destabilization within the South China Sea, North Korea, 

island nations in the Pacific and the challenges they’re facing. 

The funding has been reduced this year for the East-West Center. I wonder if you can talk about why that is as well as why the 

funding was moved from its own line item into education and cultural exchanges and what impact that will have on the center’s 

ability to continue to play this important role in the Asia Pacific 

region. 

Secretary KERRY. The reason, Congresswoman, is there’s no policy shift whatsoever in reducing the importance of or the commitment to the East-West Center. 

But beginning in 2017 the funding was going to be requested 

under the ECA appropriation rather than as a separate East-West, 

you know, Center appropriation as in previous years. 

And I think the President’s 2017 request is $10.8 million. You’re 

right, it’s below the actual level of 2015 and appropriated level but 

I think, you know, it reflects just touch choices that we have with 

the budget that we have. 

Not everybody is getting as much as they did the year before. 

But it is not a reflection of some sort of downward trend. 

It reflects the difficulties of the current budget choice and, you 

know, we will maintain our consistent support for the East-West 

Center going forward. I can guarantee you that. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I’ve got a lot more 

questions. Unfortunately, we don’t have much more time. 

One issue that I’d like to follow up with you and your staff on 

is the budget request within your budget that goes toward train 

and equip programs within both Syria and Iraq and the concern 

about how those funds are being used, who they’re supporting in 

62

training as well as what coordination is occurring between State 

and the DoD program and other agencies that are using this funding and toward what objective. 

You know, the concern we’ve raised consistently over time about 

whether or not these funds are being used to overthrow the Syrian 

Government of Assad versus fighting and defeating Daesh on the 

ground there and other—al-Qaeda, al-Nusra and these other extremist groups. 

We don’t have time for this now but this is something I think is 

important that we want to examine as we look at the budget for 

the State Department. 

Thank you. 

Secretary KERRY. Look forward to working with you on it. Thank 

you. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. 

We’ll go to David Trott of Michigan. 

Mr. TROTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, the Coptic Christians have experienced some of 

the worst attacks in their modern history and we sent a petition 

to the White House urging that they designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. 

In a response to that, the administration said we have not seen 

credible evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood has renounced its 

decades-long commitment to nonviolence. 

Does the administration still believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is a nonviolent organization? 

Secretary KERRY. As a whole, it’s very hard, obviously, to wrap 

everybody into the same pot. 

There are, clearly, Muslim Brotherhood members who are engaging in violence. We know that, obviously. 

Mr. TROTT. So the administration does not recognize them as a 

terrorist organization. The State Department welcomed them on an 

official visit last year. Days after——

Secretary KERRY. No. No, that—there was a member or two who 

were part of the delegation that was that attended and nobody 

knew, you know, what membership anybody had with respect to 

that. 

Mr. TROTT. Okay. Well, days after their visit they released a 

statement calling for a long uncompromising jihad in Egypt and 2 

days later there was a major attack on the Sinai peninsula. 

What should I tell and who should I explain the administration’s 

policies and actions with respect to the Muslim Brotherhood to the 

750 Coptic Christian families in my district? How should I explain 

the actions that we’re taking to address the atrocities? 

Secretary KERRY. We’ll, we’re leading the fight. I think you can 

tell them that there’s no country doing as much to fight against 

violent extremism, to counter violent extremism as the United 

States. 

We are the ones who have put together the global initiative on 

countering violent extremism. It’s a President Obama initiative. 

He’s led it at the United Nations. We’ve had major conferences and 

meetings on this issue and all violent extremists are brought into 

the purview of these efforts as a result of that initiative. 

63

In addition, we’re leading the coalition in the fight against 

Daesh, against al-Qaeda, against anybody appropriately designated 

as a violent broadly-based organization. 

We continue to carefully assess the status of the Muslim Brotherhood writ large as to whether or not it meets the specific legal criteria as set forth in the terrorist organization with designation requirements. 

That’s—you know, while there are individual members that have 

engaged in violence and individual branches the organizations writ 

large under its overall heading has not expressed a commitment to 

that kind of activity. So it’s difficult. How do you—you know, we’re 

looking at it. 

Mr. TROTT. Thank you, sir. 

Let’s switch to the President’s plan to close Guantanamo and we 

haven’t received many detailed about that. 

We’ve heard the cost estimate is $300 million to $500 million to 

do the construction necessary to move the detainees and hold them 

here. No explanation has been forthcoming in how you resolve the 

conflict between that plan and the ban to move the detainees under 

the National Defense Authorization Act. 

Two days ago, one of the former detainees was arrested in Spain 

for apparently plotting to carry out an ISIS attack in Spain. 

So at a high level, do you believe that closing the prison in Guantanamo makes America and Americans safer? 

Secretary KERRY. Yes, I do. I’m convinced it makes us safer because I think it’s been an incredible recruiting tool and I don’t 

think it adheres to the values of our country to have people held 

in a military prison 14 years after they were ‘‘apprehended’’ without any charges or any evidence. 

Mr. TROTT. So you believe the—as far as the recruiting tool, 

someone gets radicalized and joins ISIS because they are singularly 

motivated by this terrible situation in the prison in Guantanamo? 

Is that what drives someone to make that decision? 

Secretary KERRY. Let me ask you something. Do you remember 

seeing people in orange jumpsuit in the desert having their heads 

cut off? Where do you think the orange jumpsuit came from? They 

came from Guantanamo. That was the image across the Arab 

World. 

So yes, unequivocally, it is not accident. 

Mr. TROTT. And is Guantanamo—the naval base in Guantanamo—is it going to end up like the Panama Canal? If we move 

the detainees out of there is there going to——

Secretary KERRY. No discussion——

Mr. TROTT [continuing]. Any plan to close that and give it to 

Cuba? 

Secretary KERRY. No discussion. I would personally be opposed 

to that. There’s no discussion that I’m aware of. No, that is not 

what is at stake here. 

What is at stake here is living up to our values. I mean, it seems 

to me——

Mr. TROTT. We can live up to our values without closing the prison though. We can just correct the mistakes that were made and 

make sure they don’t happen again. 

64

Secretary KERRY. I think Guantanamo now has such a imprint 

in the world and as I said, those jumpsuits didn’t come out to the 

imagination of Daesh. They came out of the images of Guantanamo. I believe we need to——

Mr. TROTT. And last question since I’m running out of time——

Chairman ROYCE. We’re out of time but the last questions could 

be in writing. 

We go to Brian Higgins of New York. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, the continent of Africa—in 55 countries, a population of 1 billion people. That population is expected to double by 

the year 2015. And a lot of failed states, particularly in central Africa. 

We see the introduction of ISIS in Libya. We see the terrorism 

of Boko Haram in Nigeria and we see the tearing apart of the newest country in the world, in South Sudan, with a population of 

some 11 million people. 

The U.N. reported that in South Sudan soldiers with government 

uniforms were entering United Nations mission in South Sudan, a 

protection of civilian camps, firing on civilians and killing many of 

them, creating great instability. 

So I think when you look at, you know, particularly the activity 

of nonstate terrorist actors—ISIS and Boko Haram, which seemingly are now moving toward—away from the traditional ways of 

gaining revenue and toward territorial control, to tax, to charge 

protection of people, the continent of Africa, I think, poses great, 

great challenges to the United States. 

What in this budget and what is the vision for the Department 

of State with respect to continuing and rebuilding that continent 

which, I think, has a lot of trouble spots right now? 

Secretary KERRY. That’s a great question and I really appreciate 

it. 

I would say just about everything that we’re doing with respect 

to our development policy, our countering violent extremism policy, 

our aid policy, our military to military assistance policy is all directed at this. We’re deeply, deeply involved. 

The President was in Africa. I was in Africa. We had many of 

our cabinet Secretaries traveling there. We’re working on Power Africa because we are trying to get electricity into communities that 

don’t have electricity so they can begin to develop and provide 

health capacity, provide education and fill the void that exists for 

a lot of young people who otherwise get their heads filled in a very 

calculated strategy by extremists to reach them. 

When I was—let me give you an example—when I was in Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa, I met with the Foreign Minister there and 

I asked him, you know, how they managed their sort of 30, 35 percent population that is Muslim. 

And he said increasingly they were concerned about it because 

what happens is an extremist cell will go out and target young poor 

kids and pays them initially and they would pay them and then 

bring them in, proselytize, fill their heads with this distortion and 

then they don’t need to pay them anymore because they’re ready 

to operate based on what’s been, you know, washed into them, 

what’s been inculcated into them. 

65

And then they go out and start replicating this recruitment process. And what he said to me is they don’t have a 5-year plan. 

They have a 35-year plan. They’re ready to keep building this. 

And so, you know, we have to think about this, I believe, and this 

is what the President is trying to embrace in his countering violent 

extremism strategy, that we’ve got to recognize that failed or failing states that have no revenue, that can’t build a school, that can’t 

provide health, that can’t organize the community, that can’t even 

build their own security structure to fight back against these radicals are going to require some help. 

Now, after World War II we had a thing called the Marshall Plan 

where we rebuilt countries that had fallen into absolute economic 

despair as a consequence of the war and even rebuilt our former 

enemies—Japan and Germany. 

Look at the difference it has made today. That is the greatest 

success story statement about why investment and why this engagement is critical. 

In Africa, we need to engage more. We need to be able to help 

them. We’re fighting—helping Nigeria now deal with Boko Haram. 

We’re fighting to push back against al-Shabaab in Somalia. We 

have a U.N. mission in Somalia. 

It needs more help. It needs more people, more assistance. We 

had al-Shabaab on the ropes last summer. But now there’s sort of 

reductions and so they push back. 

This is a long-term constant struggle and I believe that the security of the United States of America is absolutely at stake in the 

choices we make in order to fill—help fill these voids. Not do it 

alone. 

The work through these global institutions in order to push back 

against this potential vacuum that invites failure and violence and 

extremism to fill the void. And I hope people will see this budget 

in that entire context. There are so many different things, what 

we’re doing on AIDS, what we did with Ebola, what we do in terms 

of our broad based entrepreneurial encouragement, what we do 

with the program the President started for young African leaders 

in order to bring them here and help them to train and learn. 

All of these things are good solid investments for the long-term 

future and security of our country. 

Chairman ROYCE. I go to Mr. Lee Zeldin of New York. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Secretary, 

thank you for coming back in front of the committee. I wanted to 

discuss the Iran nuclear agreement. 

The President has stated that the nuclear agreement is not 

based on trust but is based on verification. This past Monday I received a letter from your talented Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs. I just wanted to discuss a couple of components of 

that. Thank you for the response. 

In the letter, it says that the Iran nuclear agreement ‘‘relies on 

the unprecedented monitoring and verification measures.’’ The letter further refers to ‘‘an unprecedented IAEA monitoring and surveillance’’ and legally binding obligations under the additional protocol to Iran’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA. 

My first question, Mr. Secretary, is have you read the Iran’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA? 

66

Secretary KERRY. Yes. 

Mr. ZELDIN. And how can—how can I access that? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, I’ve been briefed on it, put it that way. 

It was read by our staff when we were there. I didn’t read the entire thing but I was briefed full on what the contents are. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Has the President read it? 

Secretary KERRY. I can’t speak to that. I don’t know. I don’t 

think so because I think it’s in Vienna. 

Mr. ZELDIN. There’s actually—if you visit the IAEA Web site they 

have a link to access the Iran safeguards agreement. When you 

click the link it goes to the next page and it says sorry, the information—it’s some type of a broken link. 

But I would be I interested in reading that safeguards agreement. Would that be possible? 

Secretary KERRY. I don’t know. I think that’s part of—what? 

Yeah, that’s the part—there’s a—the safeguards component we 

were briefed on and we worked on and we were satisfied with. But 

it is part of—it’s a confidential—it is always traditionally between 

every country including us, we have an agreement. But ours is confidential. Other countries can’t go read our agreement with the 

IAEA and that’s the way the IAEA works. 

But we, as I say, were briefed on it so that we had a sense of 

what was included, what needed to be included was satisfied because it was critical in the context of this. But we don’t possess it. 

Mr. ZELDIN. The members of your staff have read it. You haven’t 

asked to read it yourself? 

Secretary KERRY. No. I was fully briefed on it at the time. I was 

in Vienna and I was there on the last—obviously, on the last day. 

This was of high concern to us. I believe then Under Secretary 

Wendy Sherman and others went over and met with the IAEA and 

then they came back and briefed me out on it. But I didn’t feel that 

it was imperative at that point. 

Mr. ZELDIN. And you feel comfortable stating that there’s unprecedented IAEA monitoring and surveillance and verification measures——

Secretary KERRY. With one caveat, yes. With one caveat. There 

is unprecedented allowance for that full measure of intrusive oversight and access. 

The key now will be to plus up the IAEA budget. We have the 

license for 130 or so additional inspectors to be permanently in 

Iran. There’s a permanent office in Iran. But the IAEA is going to 

need resourcing to meet this. 

Now, we’ve always banked on the fact that’s got to happen and 

it will happen. But I just want to signal that that is an imperative 

component of this. 

Mr. ZELDIN. You know, I’m just—I’m concerned when there are 

reports that start coming out that says that the Iranians collect 

their own soil samples, that the Iranians inspect some of their own 

nuclear sites and we have this opportunity to have the Secretary 

here in front of the committee and these are very concerning reports. 

I would love to be able to get confirmation as to whether or not 

you’ve read that in there. 

67

Secretary KERRY. We have the right under the agreement, under 

the assumption of the additional protocol, the additional protocol 

you can read that is—that is a public document. 

The additional protocol was negotiated by the IAEA, was put in 

place as a consequence of what failed in the framework agreement 

with respect to North Korea. 

And the lesson of that was there has to be the ability to follow 

up and have access in order to investigate any suspected or suspicious sites. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Mr. Secretary, I apologize. 

Secretary KERRY. So—no, I’ll just finish quickly. 

So we have a right of access. The IAEA has a right of access for 

any suspicious site not to be collected by the others, not—that they 

themselves have the right of access. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Mr. Secretary, why don’t you ask for a signature for 

Iran on the nuclear agreement? Why didn’t you ask Iran to sign 

the nuclear agreement? 

Secretary KERRY. Well, I believe they did sign. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Well, the letter that you sent said it’s not a signed 

agreement. I mean, it specifically states, as a matter of fact, 

that——

Secretary KERRY. It was signed—it was signed—excuse me. Iran 

did sign. The Vice President of Iran, Ali Saleh, went over to the 

IAEA and signed the agreement at the IAEA headquarters. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Okay. Just——

Secretary KERRY. He signed it the morning before the implementation before the agreement was announced. 

Mr. ZELDIN. The reason why I was asking is it says that JCPOA 

is not a treaty or an executive agreement. 

Secretary KERRY. That’s accurate. 

Mr. ZELDIN. It is not—and it is not a signed document. 

Secretary KERRY. That is accurate. It’s not a treaty. It is a political agreement. But the actual agreement between the IAEA and 

Iran is signed and that is a legal obligation. 

Mr. ZELDIN. But the Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA, the 

P5+1, whatever we call it, is not signed by——

Secretary KERRY. That is a political agreement, correct. But it 

is——

Mr. ZELDIN. Well, the question is why——

Secretary KERRY. Whoa, whoa, whoa. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Why didn’t we ask Iran to sign it? 

Secretary KERRY. Because it is a political agreement with force 

of law behind it—international law—because it has been embraced 

in and fully adopted by the United Nations and the United Nations 

Security Council. So that is why it has force of law and that is why 

the snap back is a particularly forceful provision in the context. 

Chairman ROYCE. We need to go to Mr. William Keating of Massachusetts. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you for your service, Mr. Secretary. 

As ranking member on the Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and 

Trade Subcommittee in this committee, I want to focus on terrorism for the purpose of this questioning. 

68

And I want to really focus on the fact that this is a budget hearing and one thing I’m aware of and I think most experts agree 

with, taxpayers get the most—it’s most cost effective for taxpayers 

and most experts will say most effective—is the work that we do 

in those areas where terrorism is likely to incubate, maybe just 

starting to incubate or moving out and metastasizing. I just want 

you to comment on a couple of things. 

Number one, we had King Abdullah here talking to some of the 

members of the committee a while ago and he identified 17 fronts, 

which we generally agreed upon in the world, where ISIL and 

other groups are a great threat. 

But if you could, I just want, if you could comment on some of 

the areas where it’s ripe for incubation or incubation in the world, 

what those geographic areas would be, whether it’s Indonesia, Somalia, Bangladesh—you know, areas that we might not think of. 

Number two, how we approach that is so important and it’s important for this hearing this morning because I think the most effective things we can do in those areas before things incubate, before they metastasize is to look at what we can do as a country 

with our resources to intervene. 

Now, I think, clearly, you touched upon some of the economic 

areas that we could do it. I also think in terms of human rights, 

if you could comment on how we’re utilizing an increased role for 

women and mothers in trying to deal with this issue in those type 

of situations. 

And also in terms of the narrative, the extremists—the counter 

extremists’ narrative that we really want to pursue with its broadcast social media, something I think we’re getting beaten on a little 

bit now globally in some areas. So those are the kind of things that 

we get the most bang for the buck. 

And those are the things that keep us the safest and are the 

most effective. So if you could take a few minutes and comment on 

geographically where you think there are some areas of concentration we may not think of first off the top of our heads and how we 

can deal with it economically from a human rights perspective and 

from a counter extremist narrative. 

Secretary KERRY. You know, Congressman, I really appreciate 

the question and I want to try to answer it carefully because I don’t 

want the speculation or statement to become the father to the fact. 

Mr. KEATING. I understand. 

Secretary KERRY. So I don’t want to run through a whole bunch 

of potential incubator locations that some people may not have 

thought about yet. 

But I think generically I would simply say to you that where you 

have a poor population, where you have a bad governance, where 

you have corruption, where you have a lack of opportunity, a lack 

of education, and you have a population that may be particularly 

susceptible to a religious extortion—distorted narrative you have 

potential, obviously. And there are plenty of places where, unfortunately what I just described is the fact today. 

Now, the key here is the latter part of your question dealing with 

the narrative, because the narrative left unattended can be very attractive. 

69

Where you have corruption and where you have lack of opportunity and if a void gets filled with that narrative without the 

truth, without, you know, facts to the contrary, it can start to take 

hold and it has and it does and we see that in various places. 

So we are now very, very focused. Part of our strategy to fight 

Daesh, al-Qaeda, and others, is to do a much better job with the 

counter narrative. 

Under Secretary Rick Stengel has been deeply involved in this, 

working with other countries, working with our best young talented 

communicators in America beginning to fight back on the social 

media, for instance. 

There is a center that is opened in the Emirates, in Abu Dhabi—

the Sawab Center—that the Emirates is engaged in and supporting, which has a bunch of young folks in there and obviously 

mostly Arabic speaking and other language speaking who are able 

to communicate the counter narrative. 

We’ve actually taken people who are disaffected from Daesh and 

put them on the social media who have told the story of how they 

were exploited, raped, or made slaves and somehow they have—by 

the way, many of those have been executed when they are disaffected and try to leave. 

But those who have made it out are powerful testimony to the 

contrary. 

So we’re doing a lot of that. Saudi Arabia is about to open a similar communication center. Malaysia will, others. So there are lots 

of places where the communications effort is as critical as anything 

in preventing future recruits from being created and we’re working 

very hard at that. 

Chairman ROYCE. I need to go to Mr. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Kerry, you seem to have an affinity for Iran that I 

don’t share. Going back to 1979, Iran has shown a strong animosity 

for America. 

They regularly chant death to America and recently tried to humiliate United States sailors. They’re the world’s largest state 

sponsor of terrorism and we just gave them billions of dollars, upwards of $150 billion which they could possibly use to continue to 

export terrorism around the globe. 

Will we ever learn? I just hope that that lesson, that incumbent 

the cost of American lives through an act of terror backed by Iran. 

I’d love to go back to something Chairman McCaul was touching 

on earlier and that’s H.R. 158, the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act. 

There were three areas that were exceptions under the law. Military service, government travel, and national security and law enforcement were exceptions for the visa waiver issue. 

During the negotiations, as the chairman pointed out, the State 

Department asked for other exemptions and they were explicitly 

denied in the law signed by the President. 

So in that, Mr. Secretary, there are national security and law enforcement waivers. Could you please define for me your interpretation of national security and law enforcement? 

70

Secretary KERRY. Sure. Let me just, if I can, with your indulgence I just want to make it clear I don’t have an affinity for any 

country that is engaged in activities that are counter to our values 

and that put our people at risk and that are supporting terror. 

There’s no affinity whatsoever. My job as the Secretary of State 

and as a diplomat is to try to find solutions to problems that don’t 

involve, if at possible and we can achieve our goals, sending young 

people into conflict—going to war. 

War is the failure of diplomacy to solve a problem. So we looked 

at Iran and we saw them about to be putting us in a situation 

where they may have the nuclear weapon, which would be bad for 

everybody in the world, particularly our friends closest to them. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Secretary, I appreciate you making that clear. 

Secretary KERRY. So I just want to make clear——

Mr. DUNCAN. But I also understand you sent a letter after the 

visa waiver program law was passed——

Secretary KERRY. Explaining that it didn’t violate JCPOA. 

Mr. DUNCAN. So explain to me—define national security and law 

enforcement, if you don’t mind. 

Secretary KERRY. Sure. We have an interest, obviously, in being 

able to guarantee that Iran, over a period of time, or any other 

country may be able to change—may be able to move to a different 

posture and our belief is from a national security point of view that 

if people are able to do legitimate business that over a period of 

time that changes things. 

We look at what’s happening in Vietnam today, for instance, or 

we look at what’s happening in Burma, other countries. Transformation takes place and we believe that transformation is in the 

national security interests of our country and some of it comes from 

entrepreneurial activity being able to take place where people 

begin to feel better about life, see that they’re not threatened, do 

better, travel, see the world and so forth. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Right. 

Secretary KERRY. So in terms of travel, in terms of travel——

Mr. DUNCAN. Reclaiming my time. That’s a good answer, sir, but 

let me—let me reference a——

Secretary KERRY. We have—we have people—we have 

friends——

Mr. DUNCAN. Reclaiming my time. 

Let me reference a white paper that State Department put out, 

sir, that says as discussed in the legal paper, which we’ve asked 

for a copy of the legal paper referencing this white paper and have 

not seen that yet. 

But it says as discussed in the legal paper this is a lesser standard. National security and law enforcement is a lesser standard—

the department’s words, not mine—than was imposed by other 

statutes that require a finding that a waiver is vital to or essential 

to the national security interests of the United States. 

Furthermore, there are no findings of fact or other determinations required to be made before an exercise of the waiver authority. 

Additionally, as discussed in the legal paper yet to be seen, the 

national security waiver can be exercised by category, not just individuals. 

71

So you’re going to broaden this to humanitarian and other categories that you all asked for during the negotiations which were 

explicitly denied by Congress in the law. 

Secretary KERRY. What we’re doing, Congressman, we’re not—I 

think we’ve adhered to the discussions that we had because we’re 

not doing a blanket waiver. 

We’re doing—these are individual case-by-case basis. So we’re 

not doing some blanket waiver and I think that’s, frankly, not only 

adhering to the standard but it’s in our interest. 

I mean, we have people—you know, the principal threat that we 

are concerned about of terror from Daesh is not coming out of Iran. 

It’s coming out of other places, and if some European business 

person or an NGO that happens to be advocating human rights 

travels to Iran and they have a visa waiver with us, which by the 

way has an extraordinarily rigorous standard before it’s given, we 

don’t lose any—in fact, we have greater insight on somebody with 

that than we do in other cases necessary. 

Mr. DUNCAN. I’m on Homeland Security. I’ve followed this issue 

for a long time. What this white paper looks like, and maybe I’d 

have a better understanding if you would provide to us a copy of 

the legal paper—Mr. Secretary, this looks like you all were trying 

to find wiggle room to work around the intent of Congress and the 

actual wording of the law. 

My time has expired and you can keep talking if the chairman 

will let you. But I appreciate it. 

Secretary KERRY. Where did the white paper come from? I’m 

sorry. I missed that. 

Mr. DUNCAN. It’s called the Visa Waiver Program Waiver Recommendation Paper and it’s a State Department document and it 

references in there twice that I know a legal paper which helped 

to determine your findings here. 

Please provide us a copy of the legal paper and maybe this will 

be a nonissue. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Secretary KERRY. Yes, sir. Will do. Okay. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and we 

will continue looking at your budget. Your department has many 

good programs that need to be supported. 

But as I said in my statement, even good programs may not be 

able to get the level of support we’d all wish, given our deficit. 

We will work at doing the best job we can with Embassy security 

a priority and I for one am particularly supportive of your initiatives promoting women’s education and social status in the developing world. 

On the Iran deal, I’m afraid the dam has been broken with foreign investment rushing in and in the real world it will not be reversible if and when Iran cheats. But that is a continuing discussion. 

Mr. Rohrabacher had a question for the record, which will be 

submitted without objection. It’s on the subject of the release of Dr. 

Afridi. We all hope and want to see Dr. Afridi released immediately. 

72

The problems and threats but also the opportunities we face are 

great. The committee looks forward to its continued work with you 

to strengthen our nation’s security and thank you again, Mr. Secretary, for being with us today. 

Secretary KERRY. A pleasure. 

Chairman ROYCE. We stand adjourned. 

Secretary KERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[Whereupon, at 12:44 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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