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94–306PDF 2015

NUCLEAR AGREEMENT WITH IRAN:

CAN’T TRUST, CAN WE VERIFY?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 22, 2015

Serial No. 114–38

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 

TOM EMMER, Minnesota 

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

WITNESSES 

Mr. Charles Duelfer, chairman, Omnis, Inc. (former Chairman, UN Special 

Commission on Iraq [UNSCOM]) ....................................................................... 7

The Honorable Stephen G. Rademaker, national security advisor, Bipartisan 

Policy Center (former Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Arms Control & Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, U.S. Department of 

State) ..................................................................................................................... 17

Mr. David Albright, founder and president, Institute for Science and International Security .................................................................................................. 27

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. Charles Duelfer: Prepared statement ............................................................. 9

The Honorable Stephen G. Rademaker: Prepared statement .............................. 21

Mr. David Albright: Prepared statement ............................................................... 30

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 90

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 91

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

of California: 

Letter from Members of Congress to the Honorable James R. Clapper, 

Director of National Intelligence, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, dated March 19, 2015 ......................................................................... 93

Response from the Honorable James R. Clapper to letter from Members 

of Congress received April 9, 2015 .................................................................. 96

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

Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement .............................................. 99

(1)

NUCLEAR AGREEMENT WITH IRAN:

CAN’T TRUST, CAN WE VERIFY? 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 2015

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o’clock 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 today on the 

nuclear agreement with Iran and we continue our consideration of 

the possible final nuclear accord. 

Earlier this month, the administration and our negotiating partners announced the ‘‘framework’’ of a final agreement that has to 

be hammered out by the end of June. Now, all of the essential elements of this inspections regime still need to be negotiated. 

But I will mention that it was this committee that passed sanctions originally in the Senate which brought Iran to the table and 

it was this committee last session that passed unanimously legislation authored by Mr. Engel and myself that would in fact have 

given the clerics in Iran a choice between economic collapse or real 

compromise on their nuclear program. That bill passed the House 

floor 400 to 20 but that bill was held in the Senate. 

So today, the ink isn’t even dry on this month’s announcement 

but we saw 2 weeks ago the chants led by the Supreme Leader in 

Iran, ‘‘Yes,’’ he said, ‘‘Yes, death to America’’ and then later asserted that Iran would not allow international inspectors access to 

Iran’s military facilities. 

This weekend, the deputy head of the Iranian Revolutionary 

Guard Corps reiterated, ‘‘They will not even be permitted to inspect 

the most normal military site in their dreams.’’

The administration has shrugged off such comments as Iranian 

domestic spin but the issue of inspections and verification will be 

central to how Congress judges any final agreement. 

Will inspectors have quick, unimpeded, go-anywhere, anytime access? Who can these inspectors interview? What documents can 

they review? Can they take environmental samples? Does the IAEA 

have the qualified manpower and resources to take this on? Can 

the framework’s limited centrifuge research and development restriction really be verified? 

Now, Iran’s long history of clandestine activity and intransigence 

prevents the U.S. from holding any trust whatsoever in the clerics 

who run Iran. Indeed, deception has been a cornerstone of their nuVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:19 Jun 26, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Z:\WORK\_FULL\042215\94306 SHIRL
2

clear program since its inception. So when it comes to negotiating 

and inspections regime over the next 2 months, the U.S. must gain 

ground, not retreat. 

A key piece of verification includes Iran coming clean on its past 

bomb work. We recall that the IAEA asked those 12 questions 

about their testing. They got an answer back up half of the first 

question and none of the others were responded to. That still has 

not happened despite long-overdue commitments on the part of 

Iran to international inspectors. 

The IAEA remains concerned about signs of Iran’s military-related activities; including designing a nuclear payload for a missile—a nuclear weapon for an ICBM missile. Iran hasn’t even 

begun to address these concerns, and last fall 350 members wrote 

to the secretary of state expressing deep concerns about this lack 

of cooperation. Yet, the framework agreement is vague on this critical verification step. 

Intrusive inspections are even more critical when you consider a 

recent Department of Defense study. It points out that the U.S. capabilities to locate undeclared nuclear facilities or convert nuclear 

programs are ‘‘either,’’ in the words of the Department of Defense 

study, ‘‘inadequate, or more often, do not exist.’’

And, critically, that study also reminds us that, ‘‘verification is 

principally the political judgment,’’ in the words of the study, ‘‘to 

which monitoring and other means contribute.’’

The IAEA and its inspectors will play an essential role in monitoring Iran, but it will ultimately be up to the administration and 

its negotiating partners, which includes Russia and China—likely 

acting through the U.N. Security Council or another international 

body—to decide whether Iran is complying with its commitments. 

And this is another weak link. If Iran is caught cheating, will 

this or the next administration be prepared to call them out? I am 

not confident. Why? Because during the interim negotiations when 

Iran was caught testing an advanced supersonic centrifuge it faced 

no consequences. As one witness will testify, international inspectors can be no tougher than the countries that back them. 

The history of arms-control inspections is that they are easy for 

political leaders to tout as a solution, but are difficult to fully implement. What looks good on the chalkboard often fails in the real 

world. 

Even if verified, as one witness will note, this agreement still 

puts Iran on the path to being an accepted nuclear weapons state. 

And beginning in 10 years, the administration’s lauded 1-year 

breakout period begins to fall away and Iran will be able to enrich 

on an industrial scale. At the same time, Iran’s Revolutionary 

Guard is advancing its ballistic missile capability under orders 

from the Supreme Leader to ‘‘mass produce’’ and he has been publicly quite vocal about the need to ‘‘mass produce’’ ICBMs. 

In announcing this framework agreement with Iran, the President boldly declared that ‘‘If Iran cheats the world will know.’’ 

Today, we will hear from former top weapons inspectors and nonproliferation experts to learn what it would take for that assertion 

to be true and to be credible. 

And I will now turn to the ranking member for any opening remarks he may have. 

3

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this hearing 

and thank you for your leadership of this committee. Let me also 

thank our witnesses for their insight and expertise. 

As Congress works to address the potential deal with Iran, it is 

important that we seek input from all corners of the policy arena. 

So I look forward to a good discussion. 

Before we hear the testimony of our witnesses, I would like to 

outline some of my reactions to the framework that has been announced and to outline some of my lingering questions and concerns. 

The bottom line goal of these negotiations was to extend to 1 

year the so-called breakout period—the time needed for Iran to acquire enough fissile material to build a bomb and to close all pathways for Iran to get the bomb. 

As I see it, if Iran adheres to the limitations—and by the way, 

we all know that is a big if—the announced framework takes some 

important steps toward that goal. The plan would cut by two-thirds 

the number of centrifuges Iran is allowed to operate and those 

would only be able to employ first generation technology. 

Under the framework, the Iraq reactor would be overhauled, ensuring that it could never be used to produce plutonium. A strict 

inspection regime focused on Iran’s uranium mines and mills will 

allow us to keep a close eye on Iran’s supply of nuclear fuel from 

the mines to the centrifuges and beyond for the next quarter century. 

That way, if Iran wanted to build a bomb covertly they would not 

only have to build a new covert facility, they would also need to 

find a new secret source of uranium. And the inspection and 

verification provisions of the NPT and its additional protocol remain in effect for perpetuity. 

However, is the deal perfect? Obviously not. I still have a lot of 

questions and concerns. First of all, I always said that at the start 

of negotiations with Iran we should have demanded that they stop 

enriching while we are talking. I don’t think that was a big ask, 

considering the Security Council of the United Nations has voted 

multiple times to tell Iran to stop enriching. 

But we didn’t do it. It bothers me—continues to bother me that 

while we are talking with Iran about their nuclear program at the 

same time Iran continues to be such a bad player on the world 

scene. 

We hear, just reading the papers today and this week, that the 

United States is contemplating intercepting Iranian missiles if they 

head to Yemen. To me, there is just something wrong with our negotiating with them on the nuclear weapons and they continue to 

do all these things. 

They continue not only to not release Americans from their jails 

but the bureau chief of the Washington Post is indicted and they 

are talking about bringing him up for trial and talking about the 

charges. It just irks me to no end. 

So the administration maintains that sanctions relief depends on 

Iran meeting its commitments under the comprehensive agreement. Iran is looking for sanctions relief on day one. 

Again, the Iranian rhetoric in this venture is not helpful. We are 

told that sanctions will not be removed just upon the signing of the 

4

agreement and yet we hear Iran’s leadership continuing to insist 

that it will. 

Maybe it is just spin. Maybe it is just hype. But it certainly 

seems to me that the more you spin, the more times you say it, the 

more times there is hype, it becomes more difficult to climb down 

from that position. 

That really bothers me. So when will Iran indeed have access to $130 billion in frozen assets? What will they do with those assets? 

What will they fund? Whom will they support? These are all things 

that are, obviously, important to us. 

Eventually, U.N. Security Council resolutions that impose nuclear-related sanctions on Iran will be lifted. But these same resolutions also prohibit the transfer of ballistic missile technology and 

conventional arms to Iran. 

If those restrictions disappear, then we could see even more Iranian-inspired volatility in the region and pressure on neighbors. 

We need clarity on these sanctions issues. 

In addition, the IAEA has posed a series of questions, as the 

chairman mentioned, on Iran’s weaponization efforts, the so-called 

potential military dimension, or PMD. 

What happened at the Parchin military base, for example? How 

far along is Iran in the weaponization process? If Iran were to enrich enough fissile material to achieve a breakout how long would 

it then take them to build a warhead and made it to missile? 

We must have answers to these questions. The proposed agreement would not allow Iran to use its advanced centrifuges to 

produce nuclear fuel but it would permit them to continue limited 

research and development on these advanced machines. 

What impact would this have on Iran’s breakout time after the 

expiration of the deal? And finally, we don’t know yet how disputes 

about potential Iranian violations will be resolved. 

What will happen if the U.S. determines that Iran is engaged in 

some activity that violates the agreement but Russia and China 

disagree? What will be the process for reimposing U.N. sanctions 

if Iran is caught cheating? 

If these questions are not resolved in a way that satisfies these 

concerns, concerns that Congress has outlined repeatedly, then 

there are likely to be major, perhaps fatal, flaws in the final deal. 

And that is why Congress must play a role in this process. I have 

said this from day one, again and again publicly, and last week’s 

markup in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee signaled an 

important shift in that direction. 

I look forward to reviewing what the full Senate passes on the 

floor and I hope we can expeditiously consider the Corker-Cardin 

compromise. 

And let me close by saying that even though Iran’s nuclear program poses a major threat, it is only one part of a much larger 

problem. I said that before. 

I am deeply concerned about Iran’s ballistic missile program and 

its destabilizing behavior in the region. Yet, these issues are outside of the scope of the negotiations. In my mind, it is difficult to 

separate the nuclear issue from Iran’s support for Hezbollah—the 

terrorists of Hezbollah, Hamas, President Assad, the Houthis in 

Yemen or the American political prisoners in Iranian jails. 

5

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Engel. 

We are going to go 1 minute to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chair of the 

Middle East Subcommittee, and then 1 minute to Mr. Ted Deutch, 

who is the ranking member of that subcommittee. 

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

Today’s hearing asks can we verify a nuclear agreement with 

Iran. We all know the answer to that—no, we cannot. Allowing access to Iran’s nuclear sites declared or undeclared still ultimately 

resides with the regime, and defining and then enforcing any violations becomes a political matter, not a matter of fact. 

We have already seen Russia rush to do business with Iran and 

even lifting its suspension of S–300 surface-to-air missiles before, 

as you said, Mr. Chairman, before the ink could even dry on the 

four different versions of the framework agreement fact sheets. 

Putin has announced that Russia would begin trading assets like 

grain and construction equipment in exchange for Iranian oil and 

Iran has announced that China will help build five nuclear plants 

in Iran. 

So the notion that there will be the political will to snap back 

any sanctions is as illusory as the administration’s belief that there 

will be adequate verification mechanisms in this deal—Disney’s 

Fantasyland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. 

Mr. Deutch. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Chairman Royce and Ranking Member 

Engel, for giving us this opportunity to really delve into the technical details of this deal. 

We have experts who know exactly what is needed for a 

verification regime to prevent the development of nuclear weapons 

and let me just say I would like to see a deal succeed—I have been 

clear about that—but only if it is a good deal. 

I want to see a deal that ensures Iran doesn’t walk away in a 

few years with an industrial-sized nuclear infrastructure but perhaps most importantly I want a deal that ensures that we have access to any and every possible avenue for cheating, including access 

to military sites, and that we have adequate and swift measures 

in place to act if we suspect or find that Iran is doing so. 

I have already laid out my concerns with aspects of the framework presented just a few weeks ago and I hope today will offer 

us the chance to get some clarity on whether there are technical 

ways to overcome those issues. 

And though this is not the subject of this hearing, Mr. Chairman, 

I would say that for Iran to take a step to restore some credibility 

and some belief even in these negotiations, perhaps the best thing 

that they could do now will be to ensure that Amir Hekmati, Saeed 

Abedini, Jason Rezian and my constituent, Bob Levinson, return 

home to their families. 

I thank you and I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Deutch. 

Now we will go lastly, 1 minute, to Judge Ted Poe, chair of the 

Terrorism and Nonproliferation Subcommittee, and then 1 minute 

to Mr. Bill Keating, who is the ranking member of the Terrorism 

and Nonproliferation Subcommittee. 

6

Mr. POE. Mr. Chairman, Iran will lie until the truth will suit 

them better. We cannot trust Iran and I see no convincing evidence 

that we can verify them sticking to the final deal. 

Iran is still lying about its past nuclear activities. There is no 

reason to hope or believe Iran will start telling the truth and being 

honest once sanction relief comes. This hope is delusional. 

After the deal to make a deal, as I call it, Supreme Leader 

Khamenei said there was no deal and still screams ‘‘Death to the 

United States.’’ The White House said sanctions would be lifted 

gradually. President Rouhani publicly demanded that the sanctions 

be lifted on the first day of the agreement. 

The military has insisted that there will be no inspection of military facilities. The sides don’t even agree on what this little deal 

may be. Iran could very well outsource its nuclear program to 

North Korea to avoid inspections altogether. 

We cannot trust this regime. Iran has proven time and again to 

be deceitful and a dangerous state sponsor of terror hell bent on 

lying and cheating its way to obtain nuclear weapons, developing 

ICBMs to deliver these nukes while being a threat to the world and 

their own people. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Keating. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Engel, for conducting this timely hearing. I would also like to 

thank our witnesses for being here today. 

It is an important presence that we will be able to discuss with 

your expertise the intricacies of this framework and I know that 

my colleagues will benefit from your testimony. 

The indefatigable work of Secretary Kerry and Secretary Moniz 

have helped to advance us to a historical juncture and yet the history of Iran’s actions in the nuclear arena do not inspire confidence. 

For any agreement to succeed, it is critical that Iran’s compliance 

is verifiable. This will require so-called invasive inspections and 

monitoring that, to me, are the key to any framework. 

There remain further details and questions that I am confident 

will be addressed this morning and I look forward to hearing from 

our witnesses. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. 

This morning we are pleased to be joined by a distinguished 

group of experts. Mr. Charles Duelfer was a top official of the U.N. 

weapons inspection organization. Mr. Stephen Rademaker is the 

former Assistant Secretary at U.S. Department of State for the Bureau of Arms Control and Bureau of International Security and 

Nonproliferation. 

By the way, Mr. Rademaker is a national security project advisor 

at the Bipartisan Policy Center and formerly served as chief counsel to this committee and we welcome him back. 

And Mr. David Albright is the founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, DC, and 

has appeared before this committee on numerous occasions and we 

welcome him back as well. 

And without objection, the witnesses’ full prepared statements 

will be made part of the record and members will have 5 calendar 

7

days to submit any statements or questions to them or extraneous 

materials for the record. 

And, Mr. Duelfer, please summarize your remarks. 

STATEMENT OF MR. CHARLES DUELFER, CHAIRMAN, OMNIS, 

INC. (FORMER CHAIRMAN, UN SPECIAL COMMISSION ON 

IRAQ [UNSCOM]) 

Mr. DUELFER. Thank you, Chairman Royce and Congressman 

Engel, members of the committee. 

I last appeared before this group a decade ago when I was presenting the results of an outfit which was named the Iraq Survey 

Group headed by the CIA in which there were many members from 

the military and every part of the U.S.——

Chairman ROYCE. I am going to suggest that you get that mike 

a little closer. 

Mr. DUELFER [continuing]. Many members of the intelligence 

community. I thank the committee for remembering that work and 

for learning from the past because the experiences and the knowledge that we gained came at a great price. 

We lost people in that exercise. I want to note their names. We 

lost Sergeant Lawrence Roukey of Maine, Sergeant Sherwood 

Baker of Pennsylvania, Sergeant Don Clary of Kansas and Sergeant First Class Clint Wisdom, also of Kansas. 

So the knowledge that we gained was expensive and I am very 

glad that this committee is taking that into account in considering 

the issues that we face today. 

As the chairman mentioned, I spent a lot of time at the U.N. as 

the deputy chairman of the Iraqi inspection team and I am going 

to draw some points based on that experience, just a few. 

First of all, as some people have noted in their opening remarks, 

we had greater authority in those days than anything which has 

been contemplated for Iran. 

We could go anyplace anytime. We could take things into Iraq. 

We could take things out of Iraq. We operated helicopters. We had 

U–2 missions. We had sensors. We could interview anyone. We 

could seize documents. 

We could do all of that, and yet we struggled after 6 or 7 years 

and we couldn’t accomplish the task that was given us. As it 

turned out, Saddam Hussein had given, at the end of the day, more 

than we expected. But the fact was we could not confirm that. So 

even with all that access we could not do the job. 

Second point—in the current set of circumstances it is envisioned 

that the sanctions will remain off of Iran unless there is some indication otherwise as reported by the inspectors. That is upside down 

with respect to what we had in Iraq. In Iraq, the sanctions stayed 

on until and unless the weapons inspectors reported that Iraq was 

compliant. 

I would suggest that that dynamic makes it much tougher for the 

head of the inspection team to report to the Security Council and 

to the world. It is a much tougher thing to do to say something 

which will cause sanctions to come back in. 

Third point—it is a very tough position to be as a weapons inspector at the intersection of political science and physical science. 

There is a lot of pressures which are going to be put on the director 

8

general of the IAEA in the circumstances as painted out by the current agreement. 

He is going to have the Iranians on one side arguing a case. He 

is going to have the Security Council on another side and he is 

going to have individual countries, all making cases to him. 

Fourth point—evidence is always ambiguous. You are never 

going to find something that just is unavoidable. Weapons inspectors find things which are indicators that suggest certain things. 

So how the weapons inspectors report that is always flexible. The 

number of meetings we had in the 1990s with Council members, 

with the Council itself, arguing over how we would characterize the 

evidence that we found was a very, very difficult process. 

In that light, I would note from the experience we had in Iraq 

where we interviewed Saddam, we talked to his top people, we 

learned just how aggressive some other countries were in making 

sure that favorable treatment was given to Iraq in the Security 

Council and elsewhere. 

So while there may be unanimity in the Security Council and 

among the international community at one point in time, there is 

a natural tendency for that—those interests to diverge over time, 

particularly once business is going on, when people have a financial 

stake in the continuation of the lifting of sanctions. 

Finally, I would just say in Saddam’s case he took a long view. 

He took a very long view. Yes, he wanted to get out of sanctions 

in the short term. 

But it is worth recalling—and we learned this from him directly—that he had every intention of reconstituting his weapons 

programs when circumstances permitted. 

So, you know, we, in this town, tend to have a short view—election cycles, business cycles, news cycles. We tend to discount the 

future very heavily. I suggest that other countries don’t have that 

viewpoint. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Duelfer follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Rademaker. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE STEPHEN G. RADEMAKER, 

NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, BIPARTISAN POLICY CENTER (FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF ARMS 

CONTROL & BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND 

NONPROLIFERATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE) 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Engel, members of the committee. I am very pleased to be back 

here testifying on this issue. 

You may recall I testified in June of last year on the Joint Plan 

of Action so I welcome this opportunity to comment on development 

since that time in the negotiations with Iran. 

I want to note at the outset that the subject of this hearing is 

verification. However, the invitation letter I received indicated, and 

I will just paraphrase this, but I was told that the committee will 

be particularly interested in my larger analysis of what this deal 

would mean for Iran’s nuclear program, assuming it upholds the 

agreement. 

So I am taking that as an invitation to not focus so much on 

verification issues. We have two bona fide experts here on the 

panel who, I think, can do that. I will talk more to the broader implications of the deal, and I have submitted a prepared statement 

which I will summarize. 

But I want to note at the outset that I strongly agree with the 

opening statements that I heard from all the members—the chairman and ranking members—and I am very pleased to see that you 

are asking all the right questions. 

The most important point I make in my prepared statement is 

that at a fundamental level what the deal that it appears is going 

to be reached between the P5+1 and Iran fundamentally signifies 

is acceptance by the international community of Iran as a nuclear 

weapons threshold state. 

Now, let me just say that again. Fundamentally, this deal will 

represent acceptance of Iran as a nuclear weapons threshold state. 

Now, I am not saying they are going to—I am not saying we are 

accepting that they will have nuclear weapons. Because they are 

remaining a party to the NPT they have a legal obligation not to 

produce nuclear weapons. 

But to use a football metaphor, what we are agreeing to here is 

that we are agreeing to a pathway, to a process. But at the end 

of that pathway—10 to 15 years—the football line—the football is 

going to be on the 1-inch line and, you know, they are that close 

to having a nuclear weapon and that is fundamentally what is 

being agreed here. 

And, you know, this is a radical departure in U.S. nonproliferation policy because it has been the objective of the Clinton administration, the Bush administration and the Obama administration 

until now not just to deny Iran a nuclear weapon but also to prevent them from being a nuclear weapons threshold state because 

countries that are on the 1-inch line—that are that close to having 

a nuclear weapon—for all practical purposes in their international 

relations they have to be treated as if they did have a nuclear 

weapon because, you know, honestly, at any given moment they are 

18

so close to having it—a screwdriver turn away—no one knows for 

sure that they don’t have a nuclear weapon. 

So they get the deference of a nuclear weapon state even without 

having demonstrably produced a nuclear weapon and that is essentially what is being conceded here at the end of this process. 

So by any measure this is a huge retreat in U.S. policy and a 

big victory for Iran because, you know, for two decades they have 

been trying to get to this point and what they are being promised 

now is, after two decades of effort, in another 10 years they will 

have what they have long wanted. 

Now, why are we doing this? Well, I think we have all heard the 

argument. The main argument made by the Obama administration 

is that this is a very good deal because it will increase Iran’s nuclear weapons breakout time from 2 to 3 months today to 1 year. 

And that is—you know, I think Mr. Albright and his group have 

raised some questions about whether that is really true but for 

purposes of my testimony I am assuming that is true and I will 

concede that that is an important accomplishment. 

I mean, we are uncomfortable with Iran being able to produce a 

weapon—a nuclear weapon within 2 or 3 months and extending 

that to 1 year would be an important development. 

The question I ask in my testimony is if that is an important victory for us today why does it stop being important in 10 years. You 

know, and let me be clear—what happens in 10 years is not that 

we revert to the status quo, that they go back to a 2-month or 3-

month breakout time. 

No. At the end of 10 years and especially after 15 years they are 

going to go back to a radically shorter breakout time than that and 

that is basically all locked in under this agreement. 

And this isn’t just my opinion. I mean, President Obama conceded this 2 weeks ago in a radio interview. I will just read what 

he said. He dismissed concerns that there—you know, of the type 

that Mr. Albright is raising about whether the 1-year breakout 

time is real. 

But then he went on to say what is a more relevant fear would 

be that in year 13, 14, 15 they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly and at that point the breakout times 

would have shrunk down almost to zero. 

That is President Obama’s characterization of the deal, and let 

me—let me stress he is talking about what happens after year 13. 

The way this deal is structured there are additional significant restrictions that remain in place until year 15. 

So if at year 13 it is already almost down to zero for them to 

break out and produce a nuclear weapon it is even less than zero 

after year 15 when additional restrictions come off of their program. 

So if anything else—if nothing else, President Obama was actually understating the effect of this deal ultimately on Iran’s nuclear 

breakout time. 

I think another point we have to understand about this breakout 

is that when they break out after year—you know, today when we 

are talking about nuclear breakout we are talking about how much 

time would they need to produce one weapon—one nuclear weapon. 

19

After year 15, we are not going to be worried about one nuclear 

weapon. I mean, they will be on the 1-inch line for producing dozens of nuclear weapons—so, you know, an entire arsenal if they 

want and that is—that is the situation we are looking at. 

In my testimony, I characterize this as a Faustian bargain because, you know, it is similar to the German legend about the man 

who, you know, wanted magical powers and so he cut a deal with 

the Devil where for 24 years he was given magical powers but at 

the end of 24 years he loses the powers and he loses his soul and 

spends—you know, faces a life of eternal damnation. 

That is essentially what is being negotiated here. We get the 

benefit, good for 10 years, and at the end of that the other side gets 

everything that they have ever wanted and we lose the right to 

complain about it. We lose the right to reimpose sanctions. 

If we try to change the terms of the deal, Iran will be in a position to accuse us of being the lawless nation, the nation that violates its international commitments. 

Mr. Chairman, I see I am out of time. Let me just say, you know, 

I do make the point in my testimony that sometimes it makes 

sense to enter a Faustian bargain. 

If you think—if you think the Devil is going to die before he is 

able to claim your soul or if you think he is going to be radically 

transformed then maybe it is a sensible thing to do. 

And I served on the staff of this committee in the 1990s when 

the Clinton administration negotiated a nuclear deal with North 

Korea called the agreed framework, and they didn’t advertise or 

they didn’t make this argument publicly but I can tell you that the 

Clinton administration officials privately basically said, you know, 

don’t worry about this being a Faustian bargain because haven’t 

you—this is 1994—haven’t you noticed what is going on in the 

world. 

You know, communism is doomed. You just saw East and West 

Germany just reunified. So yes, we are promising all these benefits 

to North Korea but we are going to build nuclear reactors there 

and all these things. But, you know, in 15 years by the time we 

are done with these nuclear reactors North Korea is going to be 

long gone. These are going to be South Korean nuclear reactors. 

And, you know, in 1994 that seemed like a fairly persuasive argument. Now, we know with the benefit of hindsight that it was 

wishful thinking. 

I mean, the North Korean regime is still there. They are still 

pursuing nuclear weapons. The question I ask in my testimony is, 

you know, is there any reasonable basis to suspect that in 10 years 

the Iranian regime is going to be gone or radically transformed and 

I suggest that actually to the contrary there is every reason to 

think that this agreement strengthens the Iranian regime and 

makes it much easier for them to resist pressures to change. 

And I, you know, go through some financial numbers. The 

amount of cash that Iran is to get at the outset of this deal and, 

you know, quickly thereafter—with your indulgence I will just read 

the numbers. And this is according to a Wall Street Journal story 

that appeared last Friday. 

It says that the Obama administration estimates that implementation of the deal will give Iran access to $100 billion to $140 bilVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:19 Jun 26, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Z:\WORK\_FULL\042215\94306 SHIRL
20

lion—billion U.S. dollars—in frozen funds in offshore accounts with 

$30 billion to $50 billion of that to be released immediately upon 

signature. 

And, now, understand the Iranian Government budget this year 

is about $300 billion, okay, so they are being offered $100 billion 

to $140 billion, $30 billion to $50 billion of that immediately. 

Now, to put that in perspective let us—you know, relative—let 

us look at what that would mean if—you know, if it were not Iran 

but the United States. The U.S. budget in—the Federal budget this 

year is $3.9 trillion. 

So if we were being offered an equivalent amount of cash it 

would be for the United States between $1.3 trillion and $1.8 trillion with $390 billion to $650 billion of that to be provided immediately upon signature. 

So, you know, the question I ask in my testimony is if the United 

States Government were being offered, roughly, $11⁄2 trillion and 

$390 billion to $650 billion of that immediately, how much pressure 

would we feel to scale back our international commitments to reduce our defense spending? How much pressure would we feel to 

implement, you know, political reforms? 

Or would we feel like hey, we are in a much better position to 

continue doing business the way we wanted to do business. And, 

you know, and I am talking here just about the cash dimension, 

which is actually the less important dimension. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rademaker follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Well, we are going to go to Mr. Albright. But 

on that cash dimension, what they are doing with that signing 

bonus in today’s Wall Street Journal tens of millions of dollars to—

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are transferring tens of millions of 

dollars this week to the—to the Hamas brigades. 

So but anyway, Mr. Albright. 

STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID ALBRIGHT, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Engel and other members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today. 

I think Steve has outlined a future that is fairly bleak and I 

would like to return to that, if not at the end of my testimony during the question period. 

Most of the points I would like to—will make have essentially 

been made before. I mean, I think the—many of the key 

verification provisions remain unresolved. I mean, the parameters 

have been set but the details matter and there is great differences 

between Iran and the United States and its partners. 

And more important, I think the Iranians have taken the position to be extremely defiant and the United States has taken the 

position of problem solving, and I think that has put us at a disadvantage and it doesn’t bode well for finding solutions that are, 

in a sense, gain the needed measures. 

Now, where Iran has been a problem some of these things have 

been pointed out—refusing to allow the IAEA inspectors into military sites, not resolving the IAEA’s concerns about Iran’s past work 

on nuclear weapons through 2004 and possible work afterwards. 

It has refused to stop illicit procurements for its nuclear programs. I know of at least one procurement since the JPA was implemented for the Iraq reactor that was attempted. I am told my 

U.S. investigatory officials there have been others. 

Iran is resisting U.N. Security Council mandate controls over the 

procurement channel, which is an important concession that has 

been gained. But here is an example where the details matter. 

Most of us think of the procurement channel run out of the 

United States or the U.N. Security Council with IAEA monitoring 

active verification of the end use of any goods that goes to the nuclear program. 

Iran prefers a much different method, and at this point in time 

which method would be used is unresolved. And as others have 

mentioned, Iran is refusing anywhere anytime inspections. 

And I think the—at this point in time the United States is going 

to have to take steps to significantly strengthen this deal and end 

up with the provisions meeting the U.S. conditions if this deal is 

to be verifiable. 

And as I have mentioned, others have mentioned, there are legitimate concerns that the U.S. administration will not succeed and 

that concern certainly justifies Congress’ continuing strong involvement in the creation of this agreement. 

There needs to be oversight on those conditions and I feel that 

the—what I have heard the United States administration is more 

28

willing to share what is going on in this deal with Members of Congress, and I don’t just mean ranking members and chairman but 

a broader set of members and their staff so that people can see the 

details and be able to react to those details. 

Now, from my organization’s point of view, there is certain conditions that are more important than others and I think members of 

this committee share this. 

I personally think that resolving the IAEA’s concerns about past 

and possibly ongoing nuclear weapons research and development 

work is critically important and to have concrete progress on that 

prior to any key relief of economic and financial sanctions by the 

United States or the EU—that there are many other conditions 

that also have to be met such as reducing the number of centrifuges but concrete progress in this area is necessary. 

And what would concrete progress look like? Certainly, IAEA access to Parchin. But people should think of Parchin as a list of activities. It is not just a single visit. It is being able to see the equipment associated with the site. It is being able to visit the company 

that made this controversial high explosive chamber—did it make 

other chambers. It is the ability to have access to the people involved in these experiments and I would argue all of this needs to 

happen before the key sanctions are lifted. 

Moreover, I think there needs to be time for IAEA to make an 

initial determination of whether Iran had a nuclear weapons program or not. I mean, the IAEA has said it plans to do that. 

I think it should be done before the sanctions are relieved. Another vital area is this question of proliferation of sensitive goods. 

From my own point of view. I would like to see the U.N. Security 

Council resolution stay in force until the IAEA has made a determination that Iran’s program is indeed peaceful. That is not a 

short process, particularly under the additional protocol to make 

that determination. 

But, personally, I think that is the way it should be. The framework envisions perhaps the Security Council resolutions coming off 

quicker but a new resolution being established that would then 

control these proliferation-sensitive goods. 

Whether that is adequate or not I don’t know. Part of it rests on 

a list of goods that would be provided to Iran that represent the 

ones that are explicitly controlled. Is that list good enough? Our 

initial indications are that list is not sufficient and needs to be, in 

a sense, longer in order for it to be effective. 

Also would like to see Iran commit to not conduct illicit nuclear 

trade. President Rouhani himself has said they are proud of smuggling. Never heard a President of a country ever say that. They will 

continue their illicit procurement patterns. 

Without a commitment on the nuclear, at least, it is hard to see 

that they are committing to a verifiable regime. And then again, 

let me just end that the additional inspection provisions are critical. 

Now, anytime inspections are theoretically impossible and what 

Charles Duelfer described in Iraq could never—probably never be 

obtained. But what is envisioned by Iran is completely unacceptable. Even what is in the additional protocol is not enough. 

29

You have got to have prompt access and the administration has 

some proposals. Iran has not accepted those and I think the administration needs to be pushed to have even more prompt inspections 

and certainly they need to be pushed to press Iran to accept anywhere inspections. That, as several members have pointed out, is 

not the case today and Iran has said it has no intention to do that. 

The last thing I would like to say is that this deal, and I believe 

it probably will happen, is going to be very tough to implement and 

I would argue one of the problems with the agreed framework negotiated with North Korea in the ’90s, as Steve mentioned, is that 

the administration kind of didn’t do very much on implementation 

and Congress mostly focused on some of the budgetary issues and 

some of the compliance issues. 

But the—but there wasn’t active work to ensure that the deal 

was implemented and compliance was obtained and/or punished if 

it wasn’t going to happen. 

So I would argue that Congress will have a continuing role and 

will need to have a very important role in monitoring the effectiveness of this deal both in the short term and in the long term. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Albright follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. So if I can go back to Mr. Rademaker, as I—

as I mentioned this morning in the press is this report, and I 

talked about viewing this sanctions relief as a signing bonus, basically, what are they doing with the relief they already have? 

And the fact that the Iranian regime is so engaged right now 

with the anticipation of getting the relief—the remarks by one of 

the ministers that, you know, they control four Arab capitals today. 

He was speaking of Yemen as well as other countries that have 

fallen under the sway of the Quds Forces. 

The Quds Forces is very active and this week, according to Western intelligence, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards during the past few 

months have transferred tens of millions of dollars to Hamas’ brigades. 

Intelligence reports show that the funds have been transferred 

on the direct order of the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ 

elite Quds Force who also dedicated an annual budget to finance 

Hamas’ military operations. 

The funds, according to the intelligence report, are being used 

primarily to help Hamas rebuild the network of tunnels that were 

destroyed, and apart from using Iranian aide to rebuild the tunnel 

network the brigades are also replenishing their depleted stocks of 

medium-range missiles, according to officials. 

So the consequences of this negotiation—this olive branch, to put 

it in the words of the administration, that is being extended—is not 

an Iran that is changing its behavior. If we read anything from attitude, you know, you take a look—and I am going to quote Dennis 

Ross this week from something he wrote:

‘‘The more the Supreme Leader makes specific points about the 

content and purposes of the negotiations in public the more his 

comments are likely to tie the hands of his negotiators.’’

I think his point is that, you know, that is what has happened 

so far. The Supreme Leader insisted in public that Iran have enrichment and what happened? They got enrichment. That they not 

dismantle the facilities, which I thought was part of the original 

plan—he succeeded. 

That they be allowed to continue R&D, so they succeeded. That 

they have an industrial-sized program—on all of these points, the 

U.S. negotiators conceded. 

So when the Supreme Leader talks, whether it is on negation positions in terms of the agreement or it is on the position of death 

to America, a chant that he still leads every week, apparently people listen. And I wanted to ask your opinion and the other panelists’ opinion on that point. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Mr. Chairman, I certainly have to agree with 

you that if you look at the declared red lines on our side and on 

the Iranian side at the outset of these negotiations and you look 

at what appears to be emerging as the final agreement, the final 

agreement is pretty much consistent with the Iranian red lines and 

bears little relationship to the red lines that were declared on our 

side going in. 

So what that tells you is that during the course of the negotiations on issue after issue the Iranians prevailed and we backed 

down. And regrettably, we still don’t have a final deal and, I mean, 

51

you have watched the spectacle of the dueling fact sheets—of the 

U.S. fact sheet and the Iranian fact sheet—and the Iranians saying 

that the U.S. fact sheet is all wrong and the Supreme Leader taking issue with some of the details. 

So I think, you know, the testimony we are presenting today is 

based on what we understand and most of us are relying on the 

U.S. fact sheet. But, you know, from the outset both sides have 

said in these—in this negotiation nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. 

So I think it is a fair statement that everything remains subject 

to negotiation and I am not sure we have seen the last of the retreats on our side in the negotiations, regrettably. 

You asked about what is Iran doing with the funds and you are referring to sort of—they are getting it is around $4 billion or $5 

billion a month now—as sort of a down payment on this much larger amount of money that is—it is Iranian money but it is foreign 

bank accounts and due to U.S. sanctions that Congress enacted—

the so-called Menendez-Kirk sanctions—the Iranians are not able 

to spend that money. They are not able to bring it back to Iran. 

They are able to spend it in India or Japan or China. But anyway, you know, what we know is that as part of this deal they will 

be able to bring that money home. There are no restrictions on 

what they do with that money. That is just not part of the deal and 

what they——

Chairman ROYCE. It is funding. 

Mr. RADEMAKER [continuing]. Have been doing with the down 

payments give an indication of what they will do with the much 

larger sums that are coming in the future. 

Chairman ROYCE. And Mr. Albright, you had a point you wanted 

to make? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes, I want to make a point. I think—I want to 

emphasize that the limits for the first 10 years in a negotiation 

that is difficult aren’t that bad. I mean, it is really—there is questions—the real question is after that 10-year about what is going 

on. 

But I think that it should be recognized that Iranians had to give 

a lot on that—in that 10-year period and, again, we can—I have 

disappointments with Fordow, with centrifuge R&D. 

But centrifuge R&D in that 10-year period is pretty severely limited. I would have liked it not to happen on the—particularly the 

advanced ones called the IR6 and the IR8. 

But nonetheless, those limitations are in place. I also—but I also 

think that where Iran has been very tough is on the verification 

issues and that is where I think the real holes in this deal can 

show up that are going to affect what happens in the first 10 years. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Albright. 

Mr. Engel. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to read something and then ask any of our panelists 

who would care to comment on it to please do so. The parameters 

that the United States published in violations of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action states, and I quote,

‘‘The architecture of U.S. nuclear-related sanctions on Iran will 

be retained for much of the duration of the deal and allow for 

52

snap back of sanctions in the event of significant nonperformance.’’

I would like to ask you in your opinion what would constitute 

significant nonperformance, what would insignificant nonperformance be, who should determine whether Iran has violated the 

agreement and what obstacles should we watch out for in the execution of this part of the agreement—whoever would care to answer it. Mr. Duelfer. 

Mr. DUELFER. That gets to a point I was trying to make in my 

introduction which is that there will be no consensus on that 

among the international community. 

The pressure will be put on the director of the IAEA to make a 

judgment. At the end of the day, there is no—there is no cookbook 

answer to it. 

He will have to make some judgment about whether, you know, 

compliance exists or doesn’t exist and he is going to be under enormous pressure in that case. It is also the case that it will be very 

important, however the final agreement is structured, that noncooperation be equated with noncompliance. 

In other words, if the Iranians don’t answer the questions, such 

as related to Parchin or otherwise, then the secretary general or 

the director general of the IAEA can report to the Security Council 

that they are in violation. That is the only way you can really empower him in that—in that dilemma he faces. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. Anybody else? Mr. Albright. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes. One is I don’t think the snap back provision 

has been negotiated. 

I think it is going to be extremely difficult to negotiate, particularly if you then include snap back on U.N. Security Council sanctions. And also I think it has to be recognized that it is mostly a 

deterrent. 

I mean, if you do have to snap back and that succeeds, having 

Iran change its behavior significantly within a 1-year breakout period is going to be very difficult. I think you will be forced at that 

point to confront a military option and won’t be able to rely on the 

effective sanctions kicking in and having an effect. 

Now, another point is in the—in the JPA the IAEA has not been 

given the mandate to determine compliance. I don’t think—and I 

don’t know if it is going to be given that mandate in the—in the 

long-term deal. 

And the IAEA reports but it does not determine noncompliance, 

and so I think that is a question for this deal is who is going to 

do that and I don’t know what the answer would be. 

I would suggest it shouldn’t be the IAEA. I mean, it is not the 

best agency to determine something as important as this. Another 

issue is snap back does not touch the—I guess what Congressman 

Engel called the nonsignificant nonperformance. 

I mean, that is really aimed at fairly major noncompliance which, 

again, will have to be defined what that is. One can imagine. But 

there is going to be a whole set of probably noncompliance that is 

small and but over time could add up to major noncompliance. 

And how do you deal with that? And I am not sure that is even 

really being discussed in these negotiations of how do you deal with 

minor noncompliance except by putting—let us say the U.S. would 

53

put political pressure on Iran like what it did with the IR5 when 

Iran started to operate or feed in uranium hexaflouride gas and enrich it—and again, it is remixed with the tails afterward so no enriched uranium comes out in the process but nonetheless it does 

enrich and the Iranians see how well it works. 

But in that case, U.S. put political pressure on Iran to stop and 

it did. But is that going to work in general? And I would argue 

probably not and that there does need to be another mechanism to 

deal with these, I would almost call, minor violations. But over 

time these minor violations could undo the deal. 

Mr. ENGEL. Let me ask you then, Mr. Albright, what do you recommend for proper verification after 15 years when Iran is a signatory to the additional protocol and will the additional protocol without some of the other more intrusive inspection mechanisms be 

enough to detect breakout? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Well, I think the intrusive methods are going to 

have to last indefinitely. I mean, I think it definitely doesn’t mean 

forever but I think there has to be some kind of review mechanism 

built into this deal where the P5+1 can decide at some point in 

time to take away those intrusive measures. 

So I don’t think they should sunset. I think it is very risky, in 

fact, to have these measures sunset. And so I think the—and Steve 

raised this too, you know, this question of breakout. 

From my understanding of the deal is that at year 13 the breakout time would be 6 months. There would be all kinds of conditions 

put on centrifuge types, numbers and within that 6 month breakout criteria. 

But after year 13 all bets are off and that is probably not the 

best place to be and if it is going to be the place then there really 

does need to be some significant review of this situation so that additional action can be taken and, I would argue, should be in the 

deal—should also be in, I would hope, in any legislation that is created—that there has to be mandatory review of what is going on 

with the potential to change the course. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. 

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

As all of us know, Iran has been—has many years of experience 

playing cat and mouse with the IAEA and has learned from the 

Iraq model well enough to know that it can stifle even the most robust and intrusive inspections as the President claims that he has 

won from these negotiations. 

What makes this whole nuclear negotiations debacle even more 

rotten is that President Obama has been disingenuous at best with 

Congress and with the American public about what is really in this 

deal. 

Two of the most egregious examples are the lifting of sanctions 

and the reports that surfaced this week that the President had 

kept Iran’s estimated breakout time a secret until the framework 

agreement was announced. 

From the very beginning, most of us in Congress decried these 

negotiations because they only focused on the nuclear aspect of 

Iran’s illicit behavior and because we wanted to prevent Iran from 

ever acquiring a nuclear weapon, not just delaying that capability. 

54

The administration insisted that these negotiations be about the 

nuclear program alone. Now the administration will seek to lift all 

U.N. Security Council sanctions including those on ballistic missiles and conventional military programs. 

The rationale? Because those sanctions were implemented as 

part of the nuclear-related resolutions at the U.N. Security Council. 

So for the purposes of lifting sanctions and giving the Iranian regime more concessions and access to hundreds of billions of dollars 

to use to spread its terror and attack U.S. interests then ballistic 

missiles, Iran’s support for terror and its conventional military programs are nuclear related. But when it comes to negotiating this 

raw deal none of that was nuclear related. 

So Mr. Duelfer, there have been reports that the administration 

will give what we have been talking about—Iran essentially a signing bonus of $500 billion. How are we weakening the IAEA’s ability 

to monitor and verify Iran’s nuclear program if we already concede 

billions of dollars to Iran up front? 

And related to that, if we provide this signing bonus what leverage do we have left with Iran to force this country to comply and 

answer all of the IAEA’s outstanding inquiries? 

Mr. DUELFER. Well, therein lies, I think, the dilemma that—not 

just in Washington but the P5+1 faces—how do you compel compliance? And in the case of Iraq I have a lot of history and I spent 

a lot of time there and I should add that I think the Iranians killed 

a lot more Americans than ISIS has ever killed so that, perhaps, 

colors my views on this, you are exactly right because the director 

general of the IAEA has a limited ability. 

He can only report within the parameters of what he knows and 

makes judgements about that. He cannot cause Iran to comply. 

Only the Security Council and other members can cause Iran to 

comply. 

Once the sanctions are off, signing bonus or no signing bonus, 

the momentum is people want to get on with business. Russians, 

you know, demonstrated this in great detail with respect to Iraq 

where they——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. 

Mr. DUELFER [continuing]. Explained the last. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much. And Mr. Albright, you 

have been saying for a long time now that despite the Obama administration’s claim that Iran’s breakout time was over a year, 

Iran could actually be closer and potentially even less than the administration’s current public estimate of 2 to 3 months. 

How does allowing Fordow to remain active—what does that 

mean for a breakout time and how long would it take to test a nuclear device underground and what kind of assurances do we have 

that we could detect it in time? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. So a lot of questions. Let me—certainly, my preference would have been that Fordow wouldn’t have any centrifuges. 

So because it does you have to continue to factor that into breakout estimates—the full 1,000 that are there. You could reduce them 

as they become unavailable in some significant way but it still 

counts in the breakout. 

55

One administration idea is to—is to have any work that is done 

involving enriching nonuranium isotopes be such that it contaminates the centrifuges against use by uranium in the future and 

there is some isotopes where that is true—for example, molybdenum, and having that in the deal will mitigate some of the risk 

of Fordow but not all of it. 

In terms of testing a nuclear device, I mean, it is—the estimates 

vary. I mean, it is very tough to determine or figure out when a 

country is working on that. Part of the concern about—of the PMD, 

as the IAEA likes to call it, is that Iran, in their view, knows how 

to build a crude nuclear weapon and therefore if they were—had 

the nuclear explosive material, the weapon grade uranium, in sufficient quantity then it is probably not a long road in order to fashion it into a device that could explode underground or a crude kind 

of nuclear IED. And so that could be a matter of just several 

months. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Albright. I know my time is 

up. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Brad Sherman of California. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. It is said that no deal is better than 

a bad deal. That looks good on a political bumper sticker. I think 

our choice is between a bad deal, perhaps a very bad deal, and a 

very bad and intractable situation. 

I want to thank Mr. Rademaker for making it clear just how bad 

this deal is in year 10 or maybe year 13. They will literally be on 

the 1-inch line. 

The President has acknowledged that. You have said it clearly. 

And the reason for that is during this deal they will have, roughly, 

5,000 centrifuges that are IR1s. 

Starting in year 10, maybe if we negotiate very well year 13, 

they can have an unlimited number of centrifuges and those centrifuges will be perhaps 10 times as efficient and that will shrink 

their breakout time from 1 year to 1 day. 

Just do the math—20 times as many centrifuges and those centrifuges are 10 times as powerful. So the question—you know, I 

know we are supposed to ask you questions but people are asking 

us questions—what do we do now and what do we do when a deal 

is submitted to us. 

As to what we do now, we have got to put pressure on the President to at least meet his minimum objectives, and I think you gentlemen have pointed out two very important areas. 

One is the signing bonus—the idea that if we release $30 billion 

or perhaps $130 billion while Iran keeps its stockpiles and hasn’t 

yet dismantled the centrifuges Iran could take all the benefits and 

back out of this deal by Labor Day $130 billion richer. 

The purpose of these hearings is to focus on verification. We need 

go anywhere, go anytime or almost any—or with a very short notice and we need to be able to use environmental testing. The administration has said they are going to achieve that but then I—

we saw Secretary Kerry try to argue to us that don’t worry, Iran 

won’t have a nuclear weapon because they can’t have a nuclear 

weapon because that would violate the nonproliferation treaty. 

56

That is using the word can’t as you can’t do it and still be an 

upstanding honest nation. I don’t think that is a real bar to Iran. 

We are told that the additional protocol is going to give us access, 

and I am going to get to that in a question. 

Trust me there is a question in here somewhere. The—I want to 

commend the chairman for having these hearings because that is 

part of the effort of letting the administration know that they have 

to meet at least their own stated minimum objectives. 

And finally, the administration will tell us that these inspections 

are the most intrusive ever. That is comparing these inspections to 

what we need to make sure the Netherlands doesn’t develop a nuclear bomb. 

We have to compare these inspections to what we need to prevent Iran from having a nuclear bomb. The question of what we 

do long term when a deal is—if a deal is submitted that the President submits to us and has accepted there are those who say we 

blow up the deal where does that leave us. 

It leaves us with the whole world thinking that Congress is the 

unreasonable party. It leaves us with an administration that has 

taken the military option off the table. 

It leaves us with Iran’s centrifuges all intact rather than twothirds to three-quarters dismantled. They are stockpiled, ready to 

go. They are a few months away and nobody wants to cooperate 

with us in international sanctions because the President has said 

that it is the Congress, not the ayatollahs, that are being unreasonable. 

After all, the ayatollahs will have signed the agreement and Congress will have blown it up. But the other side of this is that we 

cannot approve the agreement and leave it to a future President 

and a future Congress to decide what to do in 2 years, 5 years or 

10 years because as I think Mr. Albright has pointed out, this 

might be a good deal for 10 years, might even be a good deal for 

13 years but after that it is a deal to put them, as Mr. Rademaker 

says, on the 1-inch line. 

If I can sneak in a question—Mr. Albright, it took us 2 years to 

get into Fordow. Does the additional protocol and the NPT give us 

the kind of prompt access that we would need? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. No. No, no. It has to be supplemented. I mean, 

it can’t be—Iran could slow down the inspectors. They could use 

managed access as an excuse to cover up things. 

Mr. SHERMAN. How long could they delay us? They delayed us 

2 years for Fordow. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Well, it couldn’t—it is going to be shorter than 

that but days matter and in some cases even hours matter. So you 

want prompt access. 

You want to be able to get in the day you ask, for example, and 

you are going to need the deal to ensure that because Iran has 

been—is actively challenging the IAEA on its central mission within the—within the Board of Governors. 

And so I think the deal is going to have to include the measures 

explicitly that provide for prompt access and Iran is going to have 

to sign the line so that if it doesn’t then it is seen as a material 

breach of this deal. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. 

57

Chairman ROYCE. Chris Smith of New Jersey. 

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

again for calling this very important hearing. Welcome to our witnesses. 

As we all know, the framework is a colossal retreat from the previous internationally agreed upon benchmarks designed to deny 

nuclear weapons capability to Iran. For example, U.N. Resolution 

1929—to suspend all uranium enrichment—we now know that the 

framework would allow over 5,000 centrifuges and only limits research and development with advanced centrifuges—full cooperation of the IAEA inspectors, say the U.N. Security Council resolutions. 

The framework, we now know, and the statements that have 

come out of high-ranking people from the ayatollah to Rouhani to 

high members of the military establishment, military sites are 

going to be completely off limits. 

I mean, that is a deal breaker in and of itself. And then refrain 

from any activity related to ballistic missiles—U.N. Security Council resolutions, ballistic missiles aren’t even on the table, which is 

a gross missing element in this entire thing. 

Let me just ask a couple of questions. I met and talked to Zarif 

personally about the missing Americans and said if you want to 

show things had changed in Iran allow human rights to be respected in Iran for your own people but also for Saeed Abedini, 

Levinson, Hekmati, and Rezaian. 

And I have had two hearings myself on Saeed Abedini and they 

are still being held. That is unbelievable. You know, even when 

Reagan walked away from Reykjavik in 1986 we had a robust, on 

the United States side, discussion with Gorbachev with lists of Soviet Jewish refuseniks and other human rights. 

It was always on the table. I had Andrew Natsios, who is a leader of an NGO for a pro-human rights for North Korean NGO—and 

he said the delinking of human rights with North Korea was a 

major blunder on the part of the Clinton administration and it 

should have been. We got nothing on the nuclear side. If you can’t 

treat your people well, why should we respect your word when it 

comes to something so existential as a nuclear bomb. 

So my question is, is this a Pyrrhic victory? Are we on the 

threshold of a Pyrrhic victory when it comes to nuclear agreements? I think your Faustian bargain, Secretary Rademaker, was 

very well put. Does the Senate have the ability to deem this a treaty and treat it as such? 

I looked into this and studied extensively, you know, the State 

Department has eight criteria—very vague—that they have asserted to call this an executive agreement. It seems to me that is 

all too cute because, obviously, the threshold of stopping it is reversed. 

You only need one-third plus one to stop a treaty and even what 

Senator Corker has done, which was an outstanding effort, given 

our limited abilities, it seems, you know, he needs two-thirds to get 

it passed. 

But why a treaty versus an executive agreement? Let me also 

ask you if you could—similarities with the North Korea deal, you 

know, how many do they have. I remember the hearings in this 

58

room because I have been here a long time, 35 years, when some 

of the administration people from the Clinton administration were 

bragging how they were going to have an onsite inspection and it 

was going to be, like, 6 months down the road. 

And I said, are you kidding me—you think in 6 months you will 

see anything? If they have it, it will be moved somewhere else. 

And even the IAEA, in their report in February, they could not 

conclude there was no nuclear weapons-related activities taking 

place in the country due to lack of access, to documents, materiel, 

and personnel. I mean, there are no confidence builders coming 

from the Iranians. 

We are fools, in my opinion, to suggest that this is going to be 

a deal that they will live up to, especially with the verification protocols so egregiously flawed. 

So if you could speak to that, Mr. Rademaker. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Thank you, Chairman Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Could you add one last thing? If the Iranians procure 

a weapon from another state—they are very close to North Korea 

and we know there is cooperation going on—what does that do to 

the deal? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Okay. I will try to address all those questions. 

First, on the treaty versus executive agreement issue, you know, I 

am certainly sympathetic to the concern you are expressing but let 

me just say as the former chief counsel to this committee, you 

know, I think, you know, the legal issue is complicated. 

There is a lot of precedent that the administration will be able 

to point to for not treating this as a treaty. So I think there is no 

chance whatsoever that they will agree to submit it in that manner. 

So in order for there to be congressional review I think what 

Senator Corker and his colleagues in the Senate have come up with 

is as good as it is going to get. I wish it were a better mechanism. 

I wish—I wish the Senate-approved mechanism would require 

approval by majority vote rather than disapproval, which, as you 

pointed out, ultimately requires two-thirds majorities in both 

Houses to override the predictable Presidential veto of the resolution of disapproval. 

So it builds in a bias in favor of approval. There is no question 

about that. 

But, you know, I think as a practical matter that is what is going 

to afford congressional review and, as we all know, the administration would be happier without even that level of congressional review. 

The—on the North Korea issue I spoke to that in my testimony. 

The agreed framework with North Korea was another Faustian 

bargain. It was—it was defensible on the theory that the North Korean regime was probably going to collapse within 15 years. 

That seemed like a reasonable expectation in 1994. It was proved 

ill founded. I am not sure there is any reasonable expectation that 

we are going to see radical change in Tehran over the next 10 or 

15 years and in the end we were fortunate that we got out of the 

agreed framework because North Korea cheated on it and we 

caught then cheating. 

59

You know, we can speculate here on what the Iranians will do. 

I guess I would submit that if I were the—well, if the Iranians are 

rational the thing to do for them is to bide their time, fully comply 

and then reap the benefits in 10 to 15 years. 

Chairman ROYCE. And quit saying ‘‘Death to America,’’ if they 

were rational? Gregory Meeks of New York. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the gentlemen for their testimony. I have been running back and forth from 

different hearings. 

But I traveled to Vienna not too long ago and had a conversation 

with the head of the IAEA because for me—and I guess my question, you know, is one can frame the potential deal as one that 

would eventually roll back some sanctions in exchange for a significant reduction of centrifuges and increased transparency, transparency being the key issue as well as the IAEA getting to do the 

work that they need to do and access. 

Now, they told me that at least so far while the framework was 

being worked on Iran has lived up to whatever its commitments 

were. 

But would you say that the key is what would allow an inspector 

to be satisfied in their work in verifying Iran’s implementation of 

a deal and is that where and what we should be pushing to make 

sure that there is, in this deal, this transparency issue? Is that—

would you think that is the key here? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. One thing—when the IAEA says that Iran has 

lived up to its commitment it is talking about Iran’s commitments 

under the interim deal of the Joint Plan of Action, which are pretty 

minimal. 

And so there is some questions, you know, of whether they are 

fulfilling their obligations in a timely manner if you look at the 

issue of newly produced 31⁄2 percent enriched uranium. 

There is also issues of are they processing the near 20 percent 

LEU. I mean, they—ultimately if it is going to be a violation or not 

they have to the end of some period of time under the interim deal. 

But the—all these conditions on the interim deal are pretty 

minor and at the same time while it is complying with the conditions in this interim deal it is totally uncooperative with the IAEA 

on the big issue of the day—did Iran have a nuclear weapons program in the past, can the IAEA have access to military sites. 

So in a sense, Iran chooses when it wants to comply and will 

often choose to comply on the minor things while, you know, uncooperative or noncompliant on the big things. 

Mr. MEEKS. See, here is what my concern is and I have to rely 

a lot on the IAEA and I hope that the committee has a chance to 

go and talk again while—with some of those. I think that would 

be good instruction for all of us. 

Chairman ROYCE. I have talked to the chairman too. 

Mr. MEEKS. That would be great. But my concern is this, if we 

don’t engage for example. From what I understand, and you correct 

me if I’m wrong, back in 2003 Iran had 164 centrifuges and then 

by 2008 that figure was close to 5,000. In other words, the number 

of centrifuges increased by 30 times between 2003 and 2008. 

60

And so what other alternatives—it seems to me by engaging we 

have rolled back the program. I don’t know what the other alternative is if we don’t continue to engage and try to work it out. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes. I think engagement makes sense. I mean, I 

think that is the best way to proceed. You know, the obvious other 

option is—that Israel has exercised twice is to bomb facilities and 

I think that is one to avoid at all costs. So I think the engagement 

is the best one. 

But the issue is, and I think Congressman Sherman raised it, is 

that if you get a bad deal or less than adequate deal you are probably going to—you are just delaying the time when they have nuclear weapons. So that is really——

Mr. MEEKS. So that is why I say the transparency issue was tremendously important. So then the question would be what are the 

minimal verification measures that you believe are needed in a 

final agreement to ensure that Iranian compliance would provide 

the high level of confidence that there is not a secret Iranian program? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Well, there is a lot of them. I mean, it is a complicated deal. I mean, you need anywhere anytime inspections or 

at least approaching the anytime. You need the IAEA having its 

concerns about possible military dimensions of nuclear—of Iran’s 

nuclear program resolved. 

You need a very robust control over Iran’s imports for its nuclear 

programs and other imports of key goods that could be used in a 

secret nuclear program. 

I mean, there’s a—I could go on and on and on. They are all—

they all have been identified in the negotiations so it is clear what 

needs to be done. 

But what you have, though, is at every opportunity Iran tries to 

erode the U.S. goals in these negotiations and——

Mr. MEEKS. Well, we have got a framework. We don’t know what 

the final deal is going to be until we see it in writing on June 30th, 

correct? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Right. And that is right, and so you can’t judge 

it until you see it. I mean, I think some—you know, some trip 

wires have been crossed for some members and people in the expert community. I think I feel I have to see the deal in order to 

judge it. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Dana Rohrabacher of California. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me just very quickly, if I could—is anything in this treaty so 

far that you understand, would that prevent or is an agreement by 

the mullah regime in Iran not to purchase a nuclear weapon from 

another source? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I don’t know if that’s in there. It should be. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. You don’t know. Yes. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes, it should be and we’ve proposed language. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I understand. No—yes or no? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. I don’t see anything about that in there. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. No? Okay. Well, that is the answer 

then, isn’t it? The answer is here we are focusing everybody’s attention on a nuclear treaty with this mullah—repressive corrupt 

bloody mullah regime when in fact even if we get the agreement 

61

and even if they abide by the agreement they can buy a nuclear 

weapon from Korea or from some—how about Pakistan or some oligarch who happens to have gotten away with it as the Soviet 

Union was collapsing. 

This focus, Mr. Chairman, on this treaty has done a great disservice to the people of the United States. It is giving us a false 

sense of security that it will mean something even if it is abided 

by in terms of the mullah regime which, of course, doesn’t feel they 

have to keep their word to people like us. 

Even if they do keep their word on the treaty they can easily obtain a nuclear weapon. Thus, during this time period all of these 

years that we have spent negotiating with the mullah regime they 

were playing us for suckers because we have refrained from helping those people—those many people in Iran who would struggle to 

rid themselves of the mullah regime’s oppression. 

There are Hazars. There are Baluch. There are Kurds. There are 

millions of young Persians who hate the oppression of this regime 

but yet because we have focused—we have let them focus on this 

treaty, which won’t have any impact on whether or not the mullahs 

can get a nuclear weapon, we have been able—they have been able 

to prevent us from helping those people in their own society establish a government that will not want to have a nuclear weapon and 

will stop oppressing their own people. 

This has been a great detriment to the security of the United 

States and the well-being of the West. I am beside myself when I 

hear this because we have spent so much time and so much effort 

in this when, indeed, we could have been helping the Baluch, we 

could have been helping the Hazaris, we could have been helping 

the young Persians, we could have been helping the Kurds and we 

could have rid ourselves of this—of this problem. 

Mr. Chairman, we haven’t even been able to confront the mullah 

regime in these last few years with their oppression of these people 

in the MEK, who are a democratic alternative to the mullah regime. But yet we haven’t even been able to get ourselves to champion that cause. 

I think this whole issue has been a big loser for the United 

States and I think that it is giving us a false sense of security. I 

would hope we wake up and figure that out. If any of the witnesses 

have a comment on that please go ahead. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Mr. Rohrabacher, I will just respond briefly. I 

think if an administration representative were here they would respond to your point about possible transfers of nuclear weapons by 

saying you should relax—we don’t have to worry about that because Iran is a party to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and 

they are forbidden under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty to either produce nuclear weapons or buy them, acquire them from 

someone else. 

Now, of course, the same was true of North Korea back when we 

had the agreed framework with them up until the point where they 

decided they didn’t want to be part of the NPT anymore. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. So, you know, I guess it comes down to how 

much you are prepared to rely on treaty commitments and we all 

62

know treaty commitments are—they can be renounced by treaty——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me associate myself with Mr. Smith’s 

questioning. If indeed you have a regime that is so brutal to their 

own people—these are their own citizens, people that they murder 

and they brutalize people and they have, of course—believe they 

have a right from God to control this territory—any regime like 

that there is no reason why—I don’t see why there is any reason 

for us to believe their word even if they write it down on a piece 

of paper that they are going to do something that is beneficial to 

us and they are going to refrain from doing something—from doing 

something that is harmful to us because they have given their 

word. 

When they murder their own people, why should we—this is an 

act—this whole effort is an act of futility. We should be doing what 

worked with Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union which is aiding 

those people through what he called the Reagan Doctrine who 

would—who will fight those people who are the enemy of freedom 

around the world. 

And we can help those people internally and we should have 

been doing it all along when it comes to Iran. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, and there is the legislation that 

myself and Mr. Engel have that will overhaul the Broadcasting 

Board of Governors, especially with a focus on transmitting information into Iran in the same fashion as was done during the 1980s 

into the former Soviet Union in order to give people access to views 

on political pluralism, on freedom of speech, on the real stories of 

what is happening inside that country as well as the rest of the 

world and that may do a lot. 

At least, it did a lot in Eastern Europe to reach audiences. But 

it is—we need to all work to go on offense in order to get that tool 

of communication so that those inside Iran can hear information 

from Surrogate Free Radio. We now go to Mr. Ted Deutch of Florida. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Albright, I want to—I would like to start by thanking you 

for the analysis, the, I think, really thoughtful and helpful analysis 

that your organization recently published and it is from that analysis that I have a few questions. 

There are a number of concerns that I have. I will just—I would 

like to drill in on a couple, though. The first is Fordow. You point 

out that the deeply-buried Fordow remains in operation but the 

number of centrifuges is reduced by two-thirds, no uranium for 15 

years. 

Both—those are good requirements. The fact that Fordow remains open is still a concern. So how do we overcome that concern? 

You point out that molybdenum would contaminate the Cascades 

so that you couldn’t enrich uranium afterward but other more common isotopes would not contaminate centrifuges so that uranium 

enrichment could be rapidly established. 

And you say unless additional limits are included in the agreement Fordow could be expected to reemerge as a substantial uraVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:19 Jun 26, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Z:\WORK\_FULL\042215\94306 SHIRL
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nium enrichment plant after year 15 with advanced centrifuges 10 

to 16 times more capable than the current ones. 

And if bans on producing 20 percent low enriched uranium sunset at year 15 then—and this is the point—this heavily fortified 

plant will be capable of producing enough weapons-grade uranium 

for a nuclear weapon within a few weeks or enough weapons-grade 

uranium for two weapons in less than a month. 

What can be included in a deal that will help us overcome these 

concerns? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. A couple. One is that the limit on the production 

of the enrichment level limit should be permanent—that they 

wouldn’t produce over 31⁄2 percent. 

My understanding from talking to people in the negotiations is 

that Iran has every intention to return to producing 20 percent enriched uranium after that limit sunset. So I think that, first of all, 

is a permanent limit. Another is that the——

Mr. DEUTCH. Wait. But hold on, Mr. Albright. Let us just—and 

it sounds—it certainly sounds reasonable. But they say they want 

to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. To enrich uranium for use 

in a civil nuclear power program that would be enrichment to 31⁄2

percent. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Correct. 

Mr. DEUTCH. So they wouldn’t need—why would they need 20 

percent enriched uranium? Just for research? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Well, they would argue that they would need it 

for research reactors. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Is there—and is there any other way for them to 

access the 20 percent enriched uranium? How much would they 

need for research reactors? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Not very much, and they could buy it easily and 

so—and they also—it is not clear when they would build a research 

reactor. So I think it is a reasonable limit to maintain at 31⁄2 percent and if they need more they can—they can acquire it internationally. 

Mr. DEUTCH. And, again, I just—just to be clear because there 

is so much information it is so hard for us to get our arms around 

because there is just so much of it. 

But the key argument that Iran make is that it wants to enrich 

uranium for a peaceful civil nuclear program and its focus primarily on nuclear power, and for that they would need to enrich 

to 31⁄2 percent. 

There is no need to enrich beyond that for their stated purpose 

to their program. Isn’t that right? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I believe so. I mean, they argue that they want 

to be able to produce their own fuel. I mean, and in fact one of 

the—but that argument is being undermined by how this deal was 

playing out. 

I mean, Iran is planning to either dilute its enriched uranium—

it has to go down from about 10 tons of 31⁄2 percent down to 300 

kilograms—planning to dilute it or sell it overseas. 

And so I think that a lot of these future plans would be at a time 

when Iran would have been able to buy reactors internationally 

and would have depended on those suppliers for all its enriched 

uranium. 

64

So looking out in the future I would see that Iran would have 

even less of a need for enriched uranium than it does now and Iran 

is shifting in the negotiations to say they have no need now. 

In fact, it is one of the ironies of this deal, that you have U.S. 

agreeing to a nuclear program involving fuel cycle activities that 

has no need, and that is expressed by diluting down the low enriched uranium back to natural or selling it overseas. 

So the idea that there would be even a practical need for an enrichment program has more or less disappeared. And so you have 

a program going forward that really has no purpose and so why 

would—and in the future it would also have no purpose and therefore it doesn’t need to be expanded and certainly doesn’t need to 

make 20 percent enriched uranium. 

Mr. DEUTCH. I understand. Mr. Chairman, just, again, Mr. 

Albright, I want—I just want to be clear and I—and I have made 

that argument in the past. 

There is ample opportunity for Iran to build out a nuclear energy 

program without enriching the uranium. We have had this discussion. The chairman has spoken about this at length. 

But in a deal—we are talking about this framework and whether 

we can get to a deal and if a conclusion is drawn that all the limitations that are otherwise contained in the deal would be beneficial. 

I just want to finish, again, by hammering home this key point 

that you make, that there is—there is no stated purpose for Iran 

to be able to enrich beyond 31⁄2 percent, there is no—nor is there 

a reason that the P5+1 should acknowledge one. Isn’t that right? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes, I agree. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Deutch. 

Mr. Darrell Issa of California. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am going to take a slightly different tack but it may look a little bit like my colleague, Mr. Rohrabacher’s, for a moment. 

Mr. Rademaker, or Secretary, let us expand the question beyond 

just nuclear for a moment. During your tenure, was Iran a terrorist 

state? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. Did—during your tenure did they in fact export destabilizing forces throughout the region, particularly to Arab states 

that were Sunni-run? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. They were an active supporter of terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas? 

Mr. ISSA. But Hezbollah and Hamas—I was going to get to them. 

So we have got that one checked off. To your knowledge today, are 

they in fact backing the Houthi in Yemen who are currently trying 

to overthrow that government and one in which we are part along 

with the United Nations in saying that that is an unlawful act 

under the U.N. Charter? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. So far as I know, the answer to that is yes. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. And you probably were not aware—we talked 

just briefly before this began—it appears as though there is effectively a stand down order coming from this administration to the 

Saudis and in fact a nuclear aircraft carrier, the Theodore RooVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:19 Jun 26, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Z:\WORK\_FULL\042215\94306 SHIRL
65

sevelt, doing circle 8’s with binoculars offshore of Yemen, not stopping that terrorist organization—excuse me, that rebel organization 

backed by Iran—while in fact Iranian resupplies are going to that 

organization as we speak? Now, are you even a little bit aware of 

that current action as of today? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. I have read reports about that, yes. 

Mr. ISSA. So as much as I appreciate the details of a nuclear program that may or may not look good when we see it, we have a 

terrorist state actively supporting Hezbollah, including backing 

Bashar Assad, a regime that this President has called for regime 

change. 

We have Hezbollah continuing to be a threat throughout the region. There is a call from Sheik Nasrallah for those Hezbollah to 

go to Yemen to fight on behalf of their Shi’a brothers. 

We have Iran shipping resupplies to ensure that Yemen falls into 

Iranian control, Shi’a control and in fact becomes yet another 

threat to Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region, all of this 

going on while we are negotiating. 

Now, I have watched the Cold War since the ’60s. I was in the 

military throughout the entire ’70s and the ’80s as a Reservist. I 

saw Reagan negotiating with the Soviets. 

What I didn’t see is this kind of active combat in which U.S. military personnel are risking and losing their lives in Afghanistan, in 

Iraq, soon to be in Yemen in all likelihood along with our allies. 

This is not a cold war. This is a very hot war in which people 

are dying in these countries including the 200—whatever the number now is, 300,000 perhaps, in Syria because of Iranian activity. 

What part of this deal—to any of the three of you, what part of 

this deal will in any way reduce the activity of Iran in these and 

other areas? And I only say one thing to caveat the question. When we give them access quickly to $100 billion or more of 

locked up funds what part of this deal is going to reduce any of 

that activity? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. I think, Congressman, you know the answer to 

that question. There are no——

Mr. ISSA. But do the American people know the answer, that in 

fact what we are going to do is take a terrorist state that is destabilizing, causing Americans to die now as they did when they provided advanced IEDs in Iraq where we had soldiers on the ground 

a decade ago? 

What part of this deal is good for America and what part are 

Americans going to die if part of our Iranian deal is not in fact to 

stop this activity? 

Nuclear or no nuclear, what part of a nuclear deal isn’t going to 

effectively say to them okay, as long as you play nice and abide by 

this 10-year before you can have a nuke, as long as you do that we 

are going to let you continue to destabilize Arab nations, to cause 

Americans to die, to cause our allies to live in fear and to cause 

our allies to want to beef up their militaries both conventionally 

and nonconventionally? That is my question for each of you. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Speaking for myself, I didn’t come here to defend the deal so I am not going to quarrel with——

Mr. ISSA. But your knowledge is a combination of nuclear nonproliferation. But it is also the reality that just not having a nuke 

66

it doesn’t solve all problems and ultimately a deal to not have a 

nuke, even if this is a good deal—and I don’t think it is—doesn’t 

it effectively imply that we will not go in and bomb them, intercept 

their military, et cetera, because right now it looks like that is 

what we are doing. 

It looks like President Obama and the Department of Defense is 

playing careful with Iran while in fact Saudis are dying, Yemenis 

are dying and America is looking impotent off the coast. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. I guess—I know we are out of time but just to 

sort of comment generally, you know, I think, obviously, the United 

States has multiple issues with Iran. 

The nuclear issue is one of them, terrorism. I mean, there are 

half a dozen—the human rights issue that Congressman Smith was 

talking about. 

Mr. ISSA. I would just like to get our Embassy back in control 

and not held by them. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. The—but the concept of this negotiation is that 

these issues can be compartmentalized and we can try and solve 

one of the issues without doing——

Mr. ISSA. So it is your position——

Mr. RADEMAKER [continuing]. Without solving others but without——

Mr. ISSA. So it is your position we could intercept and if necessary sink the weapons that are being sent to Yemen—as we 

speak will continue to negotiate a nuclear disarmament treaty with 

them, or deterrent? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. That appears to be where the Obama administration is in its policies, right. They have a ship that is threatening 

to do that. Meanwhile, their negotiators are meeting. 

I guess—but the concept is compartmentalization but, you know, 

especially like when we look at issues such as the cash transfer. 

You know, I think it is fair to ask. 

You know, in trying to solve one of these problems are we in fact 

making other—you know, the problems we have in some of the 

other areas far more serious by, you know, enhancing the resources 

available to the Iranian Government. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, could we briefly have the 

other members of the panel answer, if they could? 

Chairman ROYCE. Well, we can do that in writing. But at this 

point we are going to need to go to Mr. David Cicilline of Rhode 

Island. Thank you, Mr. Issa. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all 

our witnesses for being here to really discuss a very, very important issue and we all, obviously, will have to make an assessment 

about a deal if a final agreement materializes. But as is often the 

case, the devil is in the details and so this hearing is helpful in 

terms of understanding what we should be looking for and what we 

should be pressing for. 

And if there is any—if the public statements made by both sides 

with respect to this framework are accurate there seems to be considerable space between the two parties still. 

But I want to just start with Mr. Duelfer. You said that the—

in your testimony that you thought the sanctions relief should be 

sort of upside down from what it is, that it shouldn’t be IAEA that 

67

has to prove something but there should be compliance before any 

sanctions relief and at least in the summary that has been provided by the administration that is exactly how it does work because it says that after the IAEA has verified Iran has taken all 

of its key nuclear-related steps then sanctions relief is appropriate. 

So you can quarrel about whether or not we can verify that but 

at least the framework for the agreement is the order that you suggested, that they first determine that there has been compliance 

and that the actions have been taken by Iran before relief can be 

granted. 

Mr. DUELFER. Sir, what you describe is correct at the front end. 

The initial relief of sanctions they talk about is contingent upon the 

IAEA being able to verify some set of standards. 

But the continuing verification that Iran continues to abide by its 

obligations in that period of time it is when the leverage is flipped. 

Mr. CICILLINE. I see. So you are suggesting that that same burden shifting should happen throughout the agreement? 

Mr. DUELFER. I am just observing that the IAEA is going to be 

in a very weak position and we shouldn’t kid ourselves about that. 

Mr. CICILLINE. And Secretary Rademaker, you said in your testimony that at the end of 10 or 15 years there are no restrictions. 

At the end of the 10 or 15 years there are both enhanced protocols 

and safeguards and membership as a party to the NPT which are 

in place, which presumably Iran could violate. 

But if that were the case, are there any options that are not 

available then that would be available today? In other words, the 

agreement doesn’t restrain the United States if there is a violation 

after 10 or 15 years to take whatever action the U.S. or the P5+1 

thinks is necessary, correct? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. I think it is a little bit more complicated than 

your question is suggesting. First of all, I mean, there are under 

this agreement some restrictions on, for example——

Mr. CICILLINE. And are permanent? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. They are permanent. They are on, you know, 

plutonium production, for example, which are, you know, useful 

concessions by the Iranians. I don’t mean to downplay that. 

But I do think after 10 or 15 years we give up on—we will have 

surrendered today on our ability to implement then what has been 

the centerpiece of our policy for the last 20 years, which is to try 

and apply economic and political pressure on Iran not to be a nuclear weapons threshold state and not to, you know, put itself in 

a position where it can easily at the drop of a hat break out of the 

nuclear nonproliferation treaty and deploy dozens of nuclear weapons. 

Today, we have a whole range of sanctions in effect. What is 

being promised in this deal is if they abide by the terms for 10 to 

15 years the restrictions that are specified, at the end of that the 

vast majority of those restrictions evaporate. 

And especially in the enrichment area they can do whatever they 

want and we are giving up the right to complain about that and, 

you know——

Mr. CICILLINE. Okay. Thank you. I understand. Thank you. 

Mr. Albright, I want to ask you, you mentioned in your testimony 

the challenges of inspections with respect to any place, any time—

68

that there seems to be no agreement yet on what that inspections 

regime would look like. 

And so my question is, is any place any time the only inspections 

regime that would work or is there something between that and 

what is currently being discussed that would provide the kind of 

assurances that we need—a notice, some quick opportunity to inspect, and when you said IAEA should not be the determinant body 

for violations do you have a recommendation of who should be. 

So both can we have an inspections regime different than any 

place any time? Is that the only one that you would recommend 

that could be successful or—and who would do these determinations with respect to violations? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes. I think at this point in time I don’t see anything but the—approaching any time but, certainly, anywhere and 

I don’t see an option, given the history of the inspectors with Iran. 

The additional protocol is just not enough and so, of course, how 

that has worked out is probably going to be complicated and there 

will be some compromises but it has got to err or end up much closer to the any time. And, now, in terms of the compliance I don’t 

have a good answer. 

I mean, it just—I just think in our work on this, and looking at 

the JPA issues, the IAEA is not a good—we shouldn’t depend on 

the IAEA to make that fundamental determination. I think in the 

end the United States is going to have to make it. 

I mean, that is going to be key that there is a process where that 

can be done and Congress has a role in it. The P5+1, I think, is 

going to have to form a commission that is going to have to be able 

to make those kind of determinations. 

But the—but the IAEA is going to have to report and we are 

going to have to expect honest reporting and hard-hitting reporting, 

better than what they have done in the JPA. I mean, what they 

report on the JPA is a minimal amount and they don’t decide on 

compliance at all, and they are not even giving the information 

publicly to really determine what is going on. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you. I thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Mr. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and as chairman of the 

Western Hemisphere Subcommittee let us not forget that Iran is 

very active in the Western Hemisphere as well. 

I would like to yield some time to the gentleman from California 

to have his question answered. He was on the right track. 

Mr. ISSA. I thank the gentleman, and Mr. Albright, I think you 

were—you had your finger on the button but I would like to give 

both of you an opportunity to talk about what $100 billion and essentially an agreement not to take extreme action if Iran continues 

to do what it is doing in the other areas in which there are some 

historic sanctions. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes. My answer is probably predictable. I mean, 

my group ultimately comes out of the arms control community and 

I was active in the ’80s on arms control at other organizations. 

69

I think you do need to keep countries from building nuclear 

weapons and in the Cold War the U.S. had a vital interest in limiting the threat posed by Soviet nuclear weapons. 

So I think on its own merits arms control is worth pursuing. But 

we have to recognize that this deal with Iran is essentially an arms 

control agreement and it will have a limited duration, and so we 

should recognize that and work around that. 

Mr. ISSA. But the question—the question really was, and I will 

paraphrase—I will phrase it this way—during the H. W. Bush administration in return for support in the first Gulf War, George H. 

W. Bush essentially gave Lebanon over to the Syrians and said, we 

won’t interfere and the Syrians moved in and essentially ran that 

place for years and years until the assassination of the late Rafik 

Hariri. 

But it was Arab on Arab. It was a country and another country 

that had once been part of the same region. Today, Iran, a PersianShi’a regime with a very different view, is in fact dominating Syria, 

Lebanon, now Yemen—is effectively controlling Iraq. 

And I don’t want to take any more of Congressman Duncan’s 

time. But this deal—the important thing that I hope that I will 

get—and I will give one more chance—what is not in the deal is 

anything that says we are going to aggressively do what we need 

to do, which includes bombing weapons on the ground in Iran if a 

plane is about to take off to supply people from Yemen, sinking 

that ship that is heading in. 

Those questions are questions that will need to be resolved if you 

are certainly going to get the support of most people on this dais. 

If you have got a comment on it I would appreciate it because I 

appreciate the nuclear—I know that is what it is about. But if we give a green light to Iran and $100 billion we know 

exactly what they will do because for three decades they have been 

doing it. Please. 

Mr. DUELFER. Three quick points. One is in the case of Iraq sanctions contained Saddam. They were a tool of containment. In this 

case, as you point out, we are releasing resources to Iran. 

Second point is I don’t know where this all fits in the overall 

strategy with respect to Iran. I mean, as many people have asked 

questions along that line I have not heard that. I mean, yes, we 

can argue about access and weapons, breakout potential and so 

forth. But where does all fit in the long haul? 

Finally, I think, and related to this, you really need to hear from 

Jim Clapper. You need the intelligence community. I have been in, 

you know, the U.N. side. I have been in the intelligence side. 

But, you know, weapons inspectors can—you can learn a lot from 

that but there is other sources and methods as well and, you know, 

he is the one who is going to be able to answer the question, you 

know, what level of confidence are we going to have that we can 

see Iran breaking out. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, and I thank the gentleman from South 

Carolina, Mr. Duncan. 

Mr. DUNCAN. I reclaim my time. 

Mr. Chairman, I just don’t think the majority of the American 

people agree with the Obama administration that this—that this 

deal will lead to a nuclear bomb. The American people don’t want 

70

to see Iran with a nuclear bomb and regardless of whether that is 

next year, whether that is 10 years or 15 years down the road. 

In fact, 367 Members of Congress wrote a final comprehensive 

nuclear agreement must constrain Iran’s nuclear infrastructure so 

that Iran has no pathway to a bomb and that verifiable constraints 

on Iran’s nuclear program must last for decades. 

I stand by that today. That ought to be the position of the United 

States Congress in approving any deal that is brought before us by 

the Obama administration. The problem is, and I agree with the 

New York Times on this—hard for me to say—but their analysis 

said that the one problem is there is two versions of this. 

You have got the version that the Obama administration has 

shared with the American people and then you got a version that 

Iran has rolled out of what this framework looks like. I would just 

end with this. 

As recently as April 19th, General Hossein Salami, deputy head 

of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, reiterated this, in his 

words: ‘‘They,’’ meaning the inspectors, meaning the U.S. and the 

U.N., ‘‘they will not even be permitted to inspect the most normal 

military site in their dreams. Visiting a military base by a foreign 

inspector would mean the occupation of our land because all of our 

defense secrets are there. Even talking about that subject means 

national humiliation.’’

If that is the position the Iranians are taking in this, this whole 

negotiation of the P5+1 is a farce, with Iran hoping to enter the 

nuclear community and have a bomb. The problem with Iran entering the nuclear community is they are unlike any other nation that 

has the bomb to this day. 

They have urged and pledged death to America and death to 

Israel. That make Iran different. That is why it is imperative that 

they do not get a nuclear weapon. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. 

We go now to Dr. Ami Bera of California. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This committee and this body, Congress, has been pretty unanimous in, you know, our voice ratcheting up sanctions and in fact 

when we spoke with that voice we accomplished what we wanted, 

which is to make Iran feel the pain and bring them to the table. 

Obviously, you know, I commend the administration for taking 

the ball from there and negotiating but, you know, my big concerns 

with the framework are given our history with Iran, given Iran’s 

actions in the Middle East and around the world, we can’t use the 

phrase ‘‘trust, then verify.’’

We have to start from a place verify, and if you are doing what 

you are supposed to be doing then you will get trust over time. 

And, again, that is my perspective. 

So maybe, Mr. Albright, thinking about it from that perspective—verify and then trust—what are the minimal verification 

measures that you believe are needed in a final agreement to ensure Iranian compliance? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I think the first thing is I agree with you. I mean, 

it is—this is not about trust because Iran has been so noncompliant 

and noncooperative that it is impossible, and Iran has created that. 

71

I think the IAEA tends to give people the benefit of the doubt 

initially, and then over time becomes more vigilant and resistant. 

So I think the trust is way down the road. Now, in terms of minimal things, I think there are two parts to this. 

One is what do you want up front before the key economic and 

financial sanctions are relieved. And so I think there is a whole list 

of things that Iran has to commit to up front—anywhere anytime 

inspections would be one. Creating this procurement—verified procurement channel is another. 

But I think one of the most important is it has got to provide 

some concrete evidence that it had a nuclear weapons program or 

acceptance of that position and is open enough to the IAEA that 

they can make a preliminary determination that yes, it existed in 

the past and it doesn’t exist now. 

Again, they will have—in the longer term they are going to have 

to do even more things that are going to require Iranian cooperation. 

But I think in the short term there has to be some fundamental 

answers to whether this program is indeed peaceful and part of 

knowing whether they had a program in the past and that Iran, 

at least if it doesn’t have to do a mea culpa, at least acknowledges 

it in some way and it could acknowledge it by accepting an IAEA 

determination that there was indeed a program. 

Mr. BERA. And in your sense is there enough in the framework 

at this juncture that allows us, again, going from the framework 

of verify first that gives us unfettered access? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. No. No, no. There is too many issues unresolved. 

Mr. BERA. Okay. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. That it is just impossible to judge. I mean, I 

think—and then also I think we have to realize the—in the Washington context I think the administration has been, you know, better than I in a battle with Congress on this issue and I think they 

have rounded some edges and exaggerated some of the points 

where maybe parameters agreed but the details really matter and 

there is fundamental disagreements over some of these issues that 

have to be resolved in the negotiations. 

Mr. BERA. Again, I think if we are doing our job as Members of 

Congress and members of the Foreign Affairs Committee this does 

have to be a partnership with the administration and the administration does need to work with Congress, from my perspective, and 

it does start with having these tough measures of verification. 

I do have real concerns if there is immediate sanction relief 

based on an agreement because an agreement is not actually demonstrating what you are going to do. I would like to see them demonstrate that accessibility, that unfettered access, before you even 

start considering the sanctions relief. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. But that is—at least on the economic and financial that is the intention of the administration is that these key nuclear steps would have to be dealt with and then you could have 

the sanctions come off. So I think the administration’s position 

going into this is a pretty sound one. The question is what is it 

going to get in the end. 

Mr. BERA. It is sound but, you know, again, unless I am mistaken I have heard some rumblings that there may be some—you 

72

know, if the framework is agreed to and signed on there may be 

some immediate sanction relief, which worries me. 

Again, agreeing to a framework and actually doing what you 

agreed to are two different things. I want to see them do what is—

they agreed to, allow us or allow the inspectors unfettered access. 

As you said, have some culpability on what their past programs 

were, and then once we have verified at that juncture, you know, 

provide some relief. Again——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I think—sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. 

Mr. BERA. No, go ahead. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes. I think this—I think it has been stated here 

it is like a signing bonus. I mean, Iraq has been getting money—

some of its assets relieved all along in the interim deal. 

So I think that is—this signing bonus is a continuation of that. 

It is not the sanctions coming off, and so one should argue about 

that for sure. I mean, it is a lot of money and it is a new twist to 

arms control in a sense to have—you know, have big payoffs for 

signing an arms control agreement. 

But in terms of the sanctions themselves, Iran has to meet conditions under the U.S. position and my understanding is Iran is obviously balking at that. 

But the U.S. position and the P5+1 position remains firm that 

those conditions have to be satisfied before there will be sanctions 

relief. 

Mr. BERA. And I would urge that the administration take a 

tough stance here——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes. 

Mr. BERA [continuing]. On that and not back down from that. I 

yield my time back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Okay. We go to Mr. Lee Zeldin of New York. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank our witnesses for being here today. 

First, with regards to a treaty, I am someone who believes that 

the President is negotiating a treaty it should be treated as such. 

I believe our Founding Fathers would agree with that. The President would try to argue precedents. We have the Constitution of 

the United States which I believe has a process in place that 

should be respected. 

As far as sanctions, the President talks about snap back. For a 

sanction, that may take several years to put into place. I think in 

reality it is Fantasyland if you think you can just click your heels 

back together and sanctions that take that long to put into place 

if Iran has a violation that all of a sudden they are just going to 

be snapped back. 

And I think that my constituents, the American people, are starting to catch on to that. It is important to understand where we are 

right now. 

The President, just 3 weeks ago, he announces a framework 

agreement. He puts out a fact sheet. Within 24 hours, the Iranian 

foreign minister is on his official Twitter feed calling it just a spin. 

The ayatollah is on the streets chanting ‘‘Death to America.’’

In order to have an agreement, both sides have to agree to material terms. We are talking about a framework as if the Iranians actually agree to it. 

73

I think that one of—one thing that might have been agreed to 

3 weeks ago at the table is that both sides were agreeing to go back 

to the their home countries and spin wherever they thought we 

were at that moment—this moment in these talks to whatever best 

serves their own domestic politics. 

I have concern about critical components where if there is no 

agreement that it can be worded in a broad vague way for each 

side to interpret the agreement differently. And we may be presented an agreement in English that may not be accurately translated. 

So there are multiple levels to the complication. So we may be 

interpreting an agreement that the Iranians interpret completely 

differently. We already know what the President is going to say. 

If he reaches an agreement, no matter what the agreement 

says—he may say this agreement is good for the United States, 

good for our allies and good for the safety of the entire world, he 

may say compliance will be certified by the International Atomic 

Energy Agency. 

That sounds familiar? Those were Bill Clinton’s words in 1994, 

October 18th, announcing a nuclear agreement with North Korea 

and we all know how that turned out. What else will he say? 

He will tell us this is a good deal that prevents Iran from having 

a nuclear weapon. Well, what isn’t included in this deal? We aren’t 

talking about Iran, state sponsors of terrorism. 

We are not talking about their work to overthrow foreign governments, pledging to erase Israel from the map, chanting ‘‘Death to 

America.’’ This doesn’t include their development of ICBMs or their 

unjustly holding and imprisoning United States citizens. 

Right now, a lot of people—a lot of our constituents are watching 

the playoffs. Basketball is going on and hockey. These are sevengame series. The first team that wins four wins the series and you 

move on. 

The President is—I mean, this is like the number-one seed—the 

United States of America—we are going up against a mediocre Division II basketball team and we decide to give up our first three 

games. 

We are now trailing in the fourth game. The President should 

call a time out. He should take a walk, take a breath and come 

back with a stronger hand. 

This is the United States of America. There is no reason that we 

should be playing as if these are our equals and it is not that hard 

for him to do that. 

My question for our witnesses here this morning is this. There 

was some chatter about legislation and one proposal that these 

talks require Iran to recognize Israel’s right to exist. 

With the ayatollah in the streets chanting death to America 

while these negotiations are going on, blowing up mock U.S. warships and everything else they are doing wrong, should these talks 

include Iran recognizing America’s right to exist? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. I mean, I have not heard that they dispute 

America’s right to exist. So, you know, I don’t know that that needs 

to be established as a precondition. You know, on the question——

Mr. ZELDIN. With all due respect, they are in the streets chanting ‘‘Death to America.’’

74

Mr. RADEMAKER. Right. 

Mr. ZELDIN. I mean, they are—I mean, they are blocking—blowing up our warships. I mean, there is plenty of evidence that they 

are not recognizing our right to exist. When they are chanting 

‘‘Death to America’’ that is pretty much—when it is coming from 

the ayatollah indicating that they are not recognizing our right to 

exist. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. This goes back to the issue of 

compartmentalization that we discussed with Congressman Issa, 

that—I mean, the philosophy of this negotiation is we can, you 

know, okay, set aside the issue of Israel, set aside the threats 

against America over political issues. 

We are just going to focus on the nuclear issue and try and solve 

that and hope that in solving that we don’t compound the problems 

in these other compartments. It is a legitimate question whether 

that is doable. 

On your point about the—you raised the question about the treaty, whether this is a treaty, and I had spoken to that earlier and 

let me just say, you know, the political reality is the President is 

not going to submit this agreement to congressional review unless 

Congress passes a law requiring him to do so. And that is what 

they are working on over in the Senate and hopefully that is what 

this committee will be able to work on at some point in the future. 

But, you know, absent the enactment of legislation I don’t think 

you are going to have any meaningful congressional review at all. 

Mr. ZELDIN. And just with the sake for of my time because it is 

expiring, I don’t believe that Congress has to because you just hold 

out the Constitution of the United States. This is a treaty, in my 

opinion. 

This is a treaty. We don’t have to pass something that requires 

the President to do that. Just because the President is going to 

play by his own set of rules and he is going to get played at the 

negotiating table doesn’t mean that we and I need to play along—

that my colleagues need to play along as well. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

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

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and welcome 

to our panel. 

Mr. Rademaker, does Congress get to declare what is and it not 

a formal treaty pursuant to the Constitution, in your experience? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. The Congress can express opinions but, you 

know, there is a formal process that involves the submission by the 

President——

Mr. CONNOLLY. Correct. 

Mr. RADEMAKER [continuing]. Of the text to the Senate. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Correct. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. And if he doesn’t do that there is nothing before 

the Senate to reject. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Correct. Thank you. So my friend from New York 

can decide on his basis that something constitutes a treaty but actually the Constitution is kind of vague about that. I mean, we 

don’t have a formal definition. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Yes, and can I just add? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes, sure. 

75

Mr. RADEMAKER. So then the in between thing that Congress can 

do is it can sue the President. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Of course. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. And it happens all the time and pretty consistently what the courts say is, you know——

Mr. CONNOLLY. You work it out. 

Mr. RADEMAKER [continuing]. It is interesting but Congress 

needs to stand up for itself. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Correct. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Don’t ask us to do your work for you and so 

that is—then you come back to the question of legislation. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Now, with respect to that issue, are there in fact 

lots of executive agreements with foreign countries not formally 

ratified by the U.S. Senate? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Lots? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Many, yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Many? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. There is a formal—you know, there is a law 

that requires executive agreements to be transmitted to Congress 

and, you know, Case-Zablocki Act and every few months——

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. 

Mr. RADEMAKER [continuing]. We will get a long list of treaties 

or—I am sorry, of executive agreements with their text. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Correct. So it is hardly unprecedented. We might 

all express an opinion about the desirability of it being submitted 

to us for formal approval as if it were a treaty. But that is a different matter. 

So to assert that it is violation of the Constitution is in fact on 

its face false because the Constitution is silent as to what constitutes a treaty and I think—I thank you for your answer. 

It really requires the President to take an action to submit as if 

it were a treaty to trigger that provision and I might even agree 

with my colleague that it ought to be considered as a treaty but 

that is, frankly, immaterial and it is not a violation of the Constitution, though we might say otherwise. 

My colleague—another one of my colleagues said a little earlier 

in this hearing, ‘‘The President is doing the U.S. a great disservice 

engaging in negotiations.’’ Mr. Albright, is it your position that be 

are—we have made a mistake just to even engage with them? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. No. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Rademaker? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. No. I don’t think that is a mistake. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Duelfer? 

Mr. DUELFER. Well, I don’t how long you continue in them if you 

don’t—if you are not getting what you want. But no, to talk to your 

enemies makes perfect sense. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay. Thank you. 

One of the criticisms, and I am not unsympathetic to it, is that 

the agreement in front of us or the framework of the agreement 

that will be in front of us does not address a whole panoply of 

issues we care about with respect to Iran. 

So everything from human rights violations to intrusive insurgent support for elements we don’t support in the region to internal 

76

democratic issues to freedom of the press, freedom of expression, on 

and on. 

Is it your position, Mr. Albright, that a nuclear agreement ought 

to be all inclusive with respect to bilateral issues? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. No. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Rademaker? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. I think as a practical matter it will be impossible to resolve all issues at one time in one negotiation. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And yet, I would just say to you I couldn’t agree 

with you more. I think in an ideal world I would love to work out 

all those issues. 

But right now the big issue on the table is we don’t want a nuclear Iran and we got to start somewhere. We haven’t talked to 

each other, virtually, since 1979 and well, it is a matter of opinion 

whether we are better off with this agreement than no agreement 

and that is a perfectly legitimate subject for debate. 

But the idea that it ought to be all inclusive, which seems to be 

some of the criticism one hears from the critics, I think, you know, 

in an ideal world, yes. In a practical world, no. I mean, we can’t—

I wish we could do that but we can’t. 

Mr. Duelfer, would you agree or not? 

Mr. DUELFER. Well, I just—I haven’t heard what the overall Iran 

strategy is and I think that is—you know, if somebody could articulate that well I think that would benefit everyone including the nuclear negotiations. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Do—and final question because I am going to run 

out of time, the interim agreement that is still operative right now 

are we better off with that or would it have been better not to enter 

into it? Mr. Albright, Mr. Rademaker, Mr. Duelfer? And I yield 

back. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. No. It was a good—I think it was a good way to 

start the negotiations and grab some quick restraints that deal 

with the things that bother us most and then—and then move on 

to the long-term negotiation. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. Mr. Rademaker. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. I, largely, agree with that although I think I 

would add that we would be better off leaving in place the interim 

agreement than entering into what seems to be about to be signed 

onto. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Duelfer? 

Mr. DUELFER. I think the end deal drives everything. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I can’t hear you. 

Mr. DUELFER. The end deal will drive everything. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes. But I mean—but if we hadn’t—but nonetheless are we better off with this interim agreement than if it had 

not come into existence? 

Mr. DUELFER. In other words, the option would have been walking away and assuming that sanctions would stay on? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes. 

Mr. DUELFER. It is a tough call. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Tough call. And finally, Mr. Chairman, before I 

yield back I just want to note—we haven’t had a chance to get into 

this but that is another question. How do we hold together the coalition to enforce sanctions if we walk away from this agreement? 

77

I have grave reservations about whether we can hold P5+1 together. We may want to keep the sanctions and even double down 

on them. I am not sure our partners would. Mr. Chairman, thank 

you. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now—thank you very much, Mr. 

Connolly. 

We go now to Ted Yoho of Florida. 

Mr. YOHO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen. 

I want to start with a quote from John Kerry in the Washington 

Post. It says,

‘‘If Iran’s nuclear program is truly peaceful it is not a hard 

proposition to prove. The only reasonable conclusion for its 

stonewalling of international investigators is that Tehran does 

not—does indeed have much to hide.’’

And then President Eisenhower back in the late ’50s, early ’60s 

said Atoms for Peace program, one lesson is clear—civilian nuclear 

programs flourish only through cooperation and openness. Secrecy 

and isolation are typically signs of a nuclear weapons program. 

And I think it is very evident that they have been very—not willing to be forthright and allow the inspectors in there, and then my 

question is this. Without the sanctions, in your opinion would Iran 

have weapons now or eventually? Yes, all three of you real quick. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I think they would have had them by now without 

all the——

Mr. YOHO. Are we all in agreement with that? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT [continuing]. Negotiations and sanctions. I think 

the negotiations by the Europeans in the early 2000——

Mr. YOHO. Okay. I just—I need a quick answer here. 

Mr. DUELFER. Yes. 

Mr. YOHO. Mr. Duelfer? All right. With the sanctions in place, in 

your opinion would Iran have nuclear weapons eventually? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. I think they have put themselves on a trajectory where—yes. 

Mr. YOHO. I have sat here for 2 years and I have heard experts 

like you—not saying you—saying that Iran was 6 months to 1 year 

from having enough fissile material for five to six weapons. So with 

the sanctions in place we have already moved to this direction. 

And then my last question for this is with the U.S.-Iranian nuclear agreement will Iran have nuclear weapons eventually? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I don’t—I think it is an open question. It is a 

challenge. I mean, this isn’t over when there is a deal. It is going 

to require lots of work. 

Mr. YOHO. But we know the sanctions—we know the sanctions 

go away in 5 to 10 to 15 years because I have heard all kinds of 

numbers. How about you, Mr. Rademaker? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. I think we don’t know what their ultimate intentions are but as I stated in my prepared testimony this agreement puts them on the 1-inch line so that it is purely a decision 

on their part whether—you know, if they decide they will almost 

automatically have them. 

Mr. YOHO. Mr. Duelfer, what is your——

Mr. DUELFER. If they want one they can have one. 

78

Mr. YOHO. And the point I want to bring out here, if we had no 

sanctions they would have one. If we had sanctions and they had 

been working here why else would you have the secret—all the secrecy that they have done, all the development that they have 

done? 

They have moved in this direction and the experts again have 

told me they are going to have them, and then with this agreement 

we are pretty much saying you can have one in 10 to 15 years. And 

what I don’t hear is why are we not preparing for the day that they 

have one. 

We are spending and wasting time trying to prevent that which 

we can’t instead of preparing that which will be and I think the 

American people and our national security would be better served 

if our focus was on the day that Iran has a nuclear weapon and 

talk about the responsibility of a nation that has nuclear weapons. 

I mean, I can’t think of a more rogue nation than North Korea 

and I think our focus in time should be spent for that day because 

they are going to get it. And I would hope they don’t but, again, 

I see them getting that and, you know, the whole idea—and Mr. 

Zeldin brought this up—of the snap back. I think that is a joke because if I were to ask you to take us through a snap back process 

when that times comes, when you look at what Iran has done over 

the course of the last 30 years—lie, deceit, deception—we know 

that snap back is going to have to be put in place. 

How long of a process would that be to say all right, you have 

broken the—you have violated the agreement. How long of a process would that be for snap backs to go in place to stop their development? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. I think that will totally depend on the deal—

I am sorry, on the terms that are worked out. But let me just say 

to the extent we are talking about U.N. sanctions, I will be astonished if the mechanism doesn’t require an affirmative vote of the 

U.N. Security Council to implement the snap back. 

Mr. YOHO. I mean, we are talking months if not years to even 

say all right, they broke that. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. And it is also requiring, among others, the consent of Russia and, you know, as a country that is under U.S. sanctions today their appetite for imposing sanctions on others is, I 

think, much diminished from what it was in the past. 

Mr. YOHO. With the sanctions already in place you got continued 

illicit procurement. China, the UAE, Turkey are supplying with 

stuff they are not even supposed to be buying. So to think that they 

are going to abide by an agreement I think is a joke and that our 

nation would be better served to prepare for that day and change 

our policy in that direction. 

I yield back and I thank you for your time. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Mr. Alan Lowenthal of California. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the witnesses for your testimony. I have learned a lot. 

I would like to kind of zero in a little bit more in depth in terms 

of what really the purpose is. We are not—I am not concerned from 

the panelists about the contents of the framework of the final deal 

but of the verification process—can we verify. 

79

And so my first question is the inspection is being done primarily 

by the IAEA. Is that not correct? The question is do they have the 

resources to do what we are going to be asking them to do and who 

will provide these additional resources and if it is not in terms of 

the inspection how would you verify? 

I don’t want to hear about whether it is a good deal or not. The 

question is how would you propose to verify that the Iranians are 

not complying with the deal? 

Can the—first of all, can the IAEA do it and if not what resources are they going to need to do it and who is going to provide 

those resources? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes. They are certainly going to need a lot of resources and sometimes the inspection requirements aren’t rational 

and so but they still would have to do them and it would cost them 

money. 

So the member states of the IAEA including the United States 

are going to have to provide money. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Has that been provided already? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I think it would be. But it is—they are getting 

more money to implement the monitoring of the interim deal. But 

I think, more importantly, is they are going to have to get some 

clear mandates of what they can and can’t do and in this case that 

they are going to be able to do more and that is going to have to 

come probably from the U.N. Security Council. It will have to have 

support from the member states. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Well, what mandates would you give? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. One is I would give a much stronger mandate to 

look at Iran’s illicit procurement and to verify that they are not—

they are not buying things illegally that could be used in a covert 

nuclear program and that there is—they are limited in doing that 

and Russia, in the negotiations, has opposed giving the IAEA more 

mandates. 

But I think that needs to be overturned or resisted by the United 

States and have the IAEA being able to do more. And a lot of it 

is it bolster their ability to investigate. 

I mean, finally, the U.N. experience in Iraq in the ’90s was to 

create investigators, not verifiers, in a sense—that you have a more 

aggressive, more analytical capabilities to be able to ferret out covert activities. 

And while, I think, Charles said it right they couldn’t show that 

the compliance was there it sure made it very—it created an incredible deterrent against cheating. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Mr. Duelfer, you were the one that said that 

in—you know, the difficulty in the—what would you do now? Let 

us say we are—we kind of come to agreement on kind of ultimately 

what he agreement will be, how are we going to verify it? 

Mr. DUELFER. The way we thought about this when we were designing and monitoring a system for Iraq was sort of in the notion 

of a simple equation. You have designed some array of sensors, visits, overhead surveillance—an array of things which gives you 

some kind of a probability of detection. 

But you can’t look at that independently of other elements, I 

mean, because if the goal is to deter Iran from going down the nuVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:19 Jun 26, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00083 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Z:\WORK\_FULL\042215\94306 SHIRL
80

clear weapons path then the weapons inspectors only control one 

part of that equation. 

The other part of the equation is the consequences and in the 

case of Iraq and in the case of what we are talking here presumably that is largely going to be the Security Council. 

So there has to be, in Iran’s assessment of the circumstances, 

they are going to make a judgment well, am I going to get caught—

what is the probability of me getting caught and what happens to 

me if I do get caught. 

It is that part of the equation which is also important and to look 

at one separate from the other, you know——

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Got it. I got it, and you learn that in terms of 

that it is not just the inspection but the consequences. I want to 

get back to that. 

Is there a difference between trying to inspect and finding out 

whether you get caught or not on looking for weapons of mass destruction and in this case the development of a nuclear bomb? Is 

that the same process, same risks involved or same difficulties? It 

seems to me that they are different issues. 

Mr. DUELFER. What the administration has designed is the system aimed at what they call the nuclear supply chain, which, to 

me, is defining the problem kind of narrowly. 

When we were designing inspection systems we had—we needed 

a baseline. We wanted to know in detail what was the infrastructure that existed before we started so we could calculate where the 

deviations were. 

This is why when people talk about the possible military dimensions that is a critical point. You know, if John Kerry can’t get up 

and stand and say exactly where the Iranians were on 

weaponization then, you know, we don’t know if we are going forwards or backwards. You need that kind of a baseline for designing 

an inspection system. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. I know I have to yield back because I have used 

my time. I am just wondering, Mr. Rademaker, do you have anything else to add in terms of the verification—the actual process 

itself? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Well, I think maybe just to echo what Mr. 

Albright said. You know, I think for verification to be effective it 

is a question of both the authority and the resources and hopefully 

there will be ample authority and ample resources. 

But whether there is sufficient authority depends ultimately on 

the details of the agreement. If there was not——

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Do you believe if it was sufficient—if there was 

sufficient authority and sufficient resources that this would be appropriate? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. What would be appropriate? 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Going down this road of using the—you know, 

this kind of inspection regime, that this can work? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Well, I am in favor of the most robust inspection and verification mechanism that can be achieved. But the 

point I wanted to make was that even if the authority is, in the 

judgment of myself and every other expert inadequate, that is still 

not a reason not to provide the resources necessary to make the 

best use of those authorities and so hopefully both the supporters 

81

and the critics of this deal will support making the resources available to do the best job possible of verifying it. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Thank you, and I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. 

We are going to go to Mr. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania followed 

by Lois Frankel of Florida. 

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen. 

Just curious, Mr. Rademaker, of the executive agreements that you 

have cited—there are many—are there any that provide for nuclear 

nonproliferation? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Truthfully, I think the answer to that is probably yes. I mean, the—well, yes. I mean, first of all, the agreement 

with North Korea—the so-called agreed framework—was not submitted to Congress for approval. But, you know, I think we 

have——

Mr. PERRY. And something as it is, right? I mean——

Mr. RADEMAKER [continuing]. Similar agreements with the IAEA 

about inspections and those are not submitted as treaties. But, you 

know, I didn’t—I didn’t a chance to make the fundamental point 

which is, you know, the President triggers the treaty process with 

his decision whether or not to submit something as a treaty to the 

Senate. 

If he chooses not to, you know, he can use what authority he has 

to try and implement that. But one thing is clear—that agreement 

does not achieve the force of law. I mean, this was the subject of 

the Tom Cotton letter in the Senate. 

Mr. PERRY. Sure. And it seems to me that, and it is obvious to 

me and I think many of the American people that this is—this is 

orchestrated by the administration specifically and expressly because getting the two-thirds approval of the Senate was—it would 

be nearly impossible and because this is a horrible deal for the region, for Israel, for America and for the world. 

That having been said, it seems to me that the whole thing—I 

am going to call it a treaty because that is what it is to me, it binds 

the American people—the whole treaty is predicated on inspection 

and verification. 

And with that having been said, just to set the framework or the 

context up, Iran is party to the NPT, right? You would agree with 

that, right? They are party to it, and in so they also in signing it 

they have signed or agreed to the safeguards agreement as a component of being signatory to the NPT, correct? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Yes. 

Mr. PERRY. That is correct. So and have they already violated the 

safeguards agreement that the themselves signed? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Absolutely. 

Mr. PERRY. They absolutely have. So that kind of sets the context. Now, of who we are dealing with and past performance we 

keep on hearing that they can—the administration can compartmentalize, telling us that somehow that we are dealing with a convicted murderer, a rapist, someone that has been involved in 

human trafficking but right now we are going to discuss petty burglary and just disavow those other things even though they are on 

the table. That is not important. We can handle this. 

82

Let me ask you this, Mr. Albright. Who provides intelligence for 

these suspected sites? Who provides the intelligence for the IAEA? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Member states provide information and so a 

member state could decide to provide the information——

Mr. PERRY. Or not. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT [continuing]. On suspect sites. 

Mr. PERRY. But the IAEA needs to get its information somewhere. It doesn’t have an intelligence wing that is out looking at 

the satellite photos of Iran? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. No, it looks—it has—it looks at satellite photos. 

It uses what they would call open sources. 

Mr. PERRY. Oh, it is open. I can be looking with Google Earth, 

right? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. That is right. 

Mr. PERRY. Okay. Yes. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. They also—but they are also in the country and 

so they can see indicators of violations. 

Mr. PERRY. If they are freely roaming the country do they——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Well, no, just even in interacting——

Mr. PERRY. Sure. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT [continuing]. In their normal verification exercises 

under the NPT. They also—the NPT does require declarations and 

they can—and they scrutinize the declarations for inconsistencies 

and in fact some of the new arrangements under the deal would 

be that there be much broader declarations that then would provide even more ability to look for inconsistencies. 

Mr. PERRY. Let me ask you this. Are the U.S. capabilities to locate undeclared sites adequate? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I am not—I can’t independently just that. I mean, 

some of the studies have said no. I mean, but at the same time——

Mr. PERRY. That is—that is the answer I get is no. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT [continuing]. But they found—in conjunction with 

allies found Fordow——

Mr. PERRY. Right. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT [continuing]. Found Natanz, found——

Mr. PERRY. But they are being hidden. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT [continuing]. Physics research center. 

Mr. PERRY. Actively being hidden. They are not being offered up 

to us. We have to go find them and that is who we are dealing 

with. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Right. 

Mr. PERRY. Let me ask you, Iran has refused to allow IAEA inspectors from the United States, Britain and France in the past because, of course, we are all spies. Is this going to—is that circumstance going to change under this agreement, as far as you 

know? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. It should change. 

Mr. PERRY. It should, but is it going to, as far as you know? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Well, if once Iran ratifies additional protocol I 

would imagine that at least British inspectors could go back in 

and——

Mr. PERRY. Oh, well, that is good to know. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT [continuing]. But on the U.S. side, I mean, it is 

anyone’s guess. Anyone’s guess. 

83

Mr. PERRY. We are dealing with nuclear proliferation and potentially nuclear war so I would rather not guess. Let me ask you this. 

The IAEA—you have all professed that it is not the best vehicle 

for determining violations necessarily from a political context and 

so it would go to the U.N. Security Council at least is one of the 

possible avenues, right? Which we have already alluded to including China and Russia. Russia is now selling S–300 missiles to protect these sites. 

Is this something that the American people should feel comfortable with knowing that Russia—the likes of Russia and China 

will be determining whether Iran is in violation of a treaty that allows them to produce nuclear material, potentially nuclear weapons? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I think the U.S. has to have it very clearly recorded in this deal that it can decide on compliance and noncompliance. I mean, you want others—also you want some kind of authority created in this deal that could also decide. You don’t want it 

just to be the Security Council and you don’t want it just to be the 

IAEA. 

Mr. PERRY. I concur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Okay. Lois Frankel, Florida. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

First, I just—I want to just state what is obvious to all of us 

here, which is that Iran should not be allowed to get a nuclear 

weapon. They are the leading state sponsor of terror. 

They remain the most destabilized actor in the region and nuclear weapons would allow them to play an even more dangerous 

role and spark a nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East. 

So I think we all agree on that. 

Do you all agree that a negotiated agreement would be a better 

solution than a military action? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Yes, although I would add to that, you know, 

an acceptable negotiation. I mean, we could always negotiate that 

they can have everything they want but——

Ms. FRANKEL. Some say a good agreement——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. No, I would agree and——

Ms. FRANKEL. Okay. I understand that, yes. Mr. Duelfer? 

Mr. DUELFER. Well, you know, I am a little bit reluctant to say 

because, you know, a negotiated agreement that gives you a false 

sense of confidence could be worse than all the horror that goes 

with a military strike. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Okay. So now, let me now take you back 11⁄2 years 

ago, which is when we entered into the Joint Plan of Action. 

I believe that—I forget which one of you said that under the—

that under what you see is the parameters of a new agreement, 

which we don’t know the details yet but that—I think you said that 

Iran would be on the 1-inch line under that agreement to have a 

nuclear weapon. 

So I want to take you back 11⁄2 years ago. Tell me what line were 

we on then. I mean, how—had we not—had we not had the Joint 

Plan of Action how quickly was Iran or how close on that inch line 

or foot line was Iran to not only developing a nuclear weapon but 

having the ability to deliver it? 

84

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I think—it is hard for me to use a football analogy but the breakout times——

Ms. FRANKEL. All right. Well, use whatever one you want. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes, the breakout times were shrinking dangerously. I think our estimate at that time, given the large stock 

and growing stock of near 20 percent was about a month from 

being able to have enough weapon-grade uranium for a bomb if it 

chose to breakout. 

Implementing the JPA pushed that back to about 2 months and 

so that was a valuable gain, and their inefficiencies in their centrifuges would probably buy you—maybe make an estimate of 2 to 

3 months. 

Ms. FRANKEL. And then what about being able to actually deliver 

it? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. And I should add too they were headed—and this 

is what Mr. Rademaker is referring to—by the—I think we were 

estimating by—based on their plans to deploy centrifuges but the 

summer of 2014 the breakout times would have reduced down toward a week or two. 

And so the—now, in terms of their deliverability, I there is two 

parts to that. One is a crude device that can be used to test underground or delivered by crude methods. I think you would have to 

conclude that within 6 months or so they could—they could cobble 

together something. 

If they wanted to put it on a Shahab-3 missile I think I would 

refer to the IAEA findings in their internal reports—that they still 

had a ways to go and I think U.S. estimates are probably greater 

than 1 year. 

Ms. FRANKEL. But it could have and may have, would you agree, 

sparked a proliferation had they—had they enough material to create a nuclear weapon, that that could have sparked a proliferation 

in the Middle East? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. It certainly could. You know, unfortunately, one 

of the things that this deal is sparking, though, is spreading of nuclear technology in the Middle East and in fact it is—there is some 

very good things in this deal and there is some good norms. 

One of the norms that isn’t good and we are going to have to 

wrestle with is that you can an uranium enrichment program with 

zero purpose and it can be in the hands of a U.S. adversary. So 

how do you say no to Saudi Arabia? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Could I just interject? I am the one responsible 

for this football analogy. 

Ms. FRANKEL. All right. Okay. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. And, you know, Dave was talking about how 

the football has moved up and down the field. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Right. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. But let me just say, you know, where the football has been and where it is now, wherever it is on the football 

field the one thing that is clear is that today their—Iran’s nuclear 

program is illegitimate. 

Its very existence violates U.N. Security Council mandates. We 

are entitled to sanction it. If it came to the point where we felt we 

needed to use military force against it we would be able to point 

85

to U.N. Security Council resolutions and say this is an illegitimate 

program—we had no choice but to take it out. 

One of the critical things this agreement does is it is going to legitimize the program and one of my—my point about them being 

on the 1-inch line—you know, I guess I didn’t emphasize this—they 

are going to be on the 1-inch line and it is going to be legitimate. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Okay. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. We are going to have no right to complain 

about it. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Is it on the—is it on the 1-inch line or you say it 

is going to be on the 1-inch line in 10 years? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. The latter. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Okay. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. But today, wherever the football is on the field 

it is—it is an illegitimate program. It is subject to—you know, its 

existence is in violation of U.N. Security Council mandates and 

that is not going to be the case at the end of this deal or really 

on day one of this deal, you know, because the Security Council 

will act very quickly to repeal those resolutions that forbade Iran 

to do this. 

Ms. FRANKEL. All right. Well, may I ask—Mr. Chair, may I ask 

one more question? I think I am the—as usual, I am, like, one of 

the last people standing here, or sitting here. 

I am trying to—I guess I am going to try to get back to Mr. 

Connolly’s question because—I mean, more specific because he 

asked whether or not by entering the Joint Plan of Action we actually gained anything and so I think, if I am hearing what you said, 

that before the Joint Action Plan they were maybe a month from 

breakout so——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. It could breakout—could break out in a month. 

Ms. FRANKEL. It could break out in a month. So at least we know 

had we—if there was no Joint Action Plan they could have a nuclear weapon today. That we would agree on, correct? So——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Well, maybe not. I mean, again, U.S. policies prevent Iran from getting—U.S. policy has been to prevent Iran from 

getting a nuclear weapon. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Right. But——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. If they move to get it, one would have expected 

the Obama administration to try to stop them. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Okay. So maybe with a military action or whatever. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Whatever. 

Ms. FRANKEL. With all the options on the table. So just right 

now, with the Joint Action Plan in place, how would you compare—

is the breakout time greater or less than when we started? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. It is greater and so it is 2 to 3 months. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Okay. So we went from a month to 2 to 3 months? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. And that is—and that was a valuable gain and 

it also reversed the trend, which was to go down toward 1 week. 

Ms. FRANKEL. All right. All right. Well, I hope—I thank you for 

your time. You know what? Mr. Sherman said, I think, what we 

are dealing with what is—what is the best of the worst solutions 

here and maybe somebody will come up with the best of the worst, 

I hope. 

86

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. 

Now we go to Mark Meadows from North Carolina. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to each of 

you for your testimony today. 

My staff has been working on a number of issues that really are 

perplexing and, Mr. Rademaker, you kind of alluded to it just a few 

minutes ago. 

You know, five executive orders, over 10 codified laws that required Congress to act to remove the sanctions in some way, form 

or fashion from Iran. 

And yet here we are today discussing this particular deal of a 

new deal when Iran is violating not only outlined codified law on 

our behalf but, according to your testimony just now, U.N. sanctions. 

Is that correct? Are they violating U.N. sanctions by having a nuclear program? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. You know, that is one of the mysteries of the 

Joint Plan of Action because yes, those U.N. mandates remain in 

effect yet you have got this agreement that sort of takes a wink at 

that or gives a wink to that and says——

Mr. MEADOWS. So we have——

Mr. RADEMAKER [continuing]. We are going to—I mean, in a way 

we have sort of delegitimized the authority of the U.N. Security 

Council by winking at these Iranian violations of U.N. mandates. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So what this administration is saying is that it 

is okay if you violate some of the U.N. sanctions and some of the 

U.N. guidelines that are out there today as long as you enter into 

a new agreement where you promise not to violate them. Is that 

correct? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. I would say that is correct, yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, if that is the case, if they are not willing 

to adhere to existing laws that are in place, existing guidelines by 

both the United States and the U.N., how do we expect them, just 

because 18 months has transpired, to be any more, I guess, legitimate, to use your words, with regards to compliance? How can we 

expect a different result based on this new agreement? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Well, I will give you two answers. The first is 

a flip one—you know, hope springs eternal—but the second one is 

more serious and that is it is the Faustian bargain that I referred 

to in my testimony. 

I think the calculation is we are going to offer the Iranians a 

really sweet deal. They behave for 10 years and we are going to 

incentivize them to behave for 10 years because at the end of the 

10 years they get everything they want. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So——

Mr. RADEMAKER. And so, you know, maybe they cheat during the 

10 years but then they get—then they lose the really sweet deal. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So we are legitimizing their nuclear program 

today in exchange for them to have a bona fide nuclear program 

10 years from now? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. That is fundamentally the bargain that is being 

offered to them. 

87

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, if it takes Congress to act to remove these 

particular codified laws, if it takes the U.N. to act to remove U.N. 

sanctions, how in the world does a snap back really happen? 

I mean, this new snap back is part of the framework. I have 

never known sanctions to ever snap back and ever be effective 

quickly. 

Mr. RADEMAKER. Well, you know——

Mr. MEADOWS. Can you show—can you point to a point in history 

where that has ever had immediate impact on a snap back kind of 

situation where a sanction had an immediate effect and changed it 

overnight? 

Mr. RADEMAKER. I would have to think about that but let me just 

say, you know, for the domestic side of it, you know, where it is 

a matter of U.S. law, you are going to be writing the law and, you 

know, you can write a law that will snap back U.S. sanctions. 

You can write that. Now, it may require the President to implement that law in good faith but—and that may or may not be an 

obstacle. But, you know, you can——

Mr. MEADOWS. So what about the U.N.? 

Mr. RADEMAKER [continuing]. Construct a domestic snap back. 

Yes, the U.N. much, much harder and I would say, as I said earlier, I would be astonished——

Mr. MEADOWS. Harder or impossible? Well, close to impossible? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. You should wait and see, though, because they—

there is another challenge. It has to be automatic and so you 

can’t——

Mr. RADEMAKER. Well, I——

Mr. MEADOWS. And therein is my thing. In the framework analysis that we have, gentlemen, it talks about mitigation and how we 

mitigate differences and if we have a 2-month window or even if 

it grows to 1 year, as the talking points have, can you mitigate 

something longer enough to allow Iran to get to a nuclear bomb before we could actually take action, according to our own framework? 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Yes, but there are two issues. One is can you create a snap back mechanism and I am told that they are seriously 

looking at ways to do that. It is not resolved and I couldn’t give 

you an answer in any case because——

Mr. MEADOWS. Can you point to anywhere this has——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Well, I think this is on precedent. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I am not aware of any. 

Mr. ALBRIGHT. But the other part is can it work. I mean, in that 

I think we should be clear on. I think that using sanctions to stop 

an Iranian breakout is probably not possible. 

I mean, it just takes too long for the sanctions to really have an 

impact and so more is going to be needed and I think that has to 

be thought through by the U.S. Government and by Congress of 

what else is going to have to be put into, in a sense, the implementing U.S. legislation that would trigger reactions if Iran isn’t 

in compliance. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So let me—let me clarify. A snap back will not 

stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. Is that——

Mr. ALBRIGHT. I don’t think so, not even if you had a year breakout time. It is hard to see how that alone would do it. Just, again, 

88

that if it is—if you create, you know, go much, much further on the 

impact of sanctions. 

But I think in the end you are pushed to the point of are you 

going to respond militarily. I mean, I think that is a horrible place 

to be but I think that is ultimately where you end up. 

But if you want to stop them before they get enough material for 

a bomb you probably have to have some preauthorization or something in law that would—that would authorize the U.S. to respond. 

And this would also help address what Mr. Rademaker has 

brought up about the legitimization of the program and so I think 

it is going to require some real thought about how the U.S.—how 

it implements this deal. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I am out of time. I will yield back. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, and let me just express our appreciation for our witnesses for being here today and for the time they 

have given us and also on this issue of inspections, this verification 

component and the other parts of this program that we have talked 

about today. 

An understanding of that is going to be critical to Congress as 

it judges any final agreement. So we are going to have a series of 

additional hearings on different aspects on the agreement. But it 

is clear when it comes to the issue of verification that the administration has a long way to go. 

So this hearing for now is adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:52 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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