Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20240622 : v

CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings June 22, 2024

Coalition. And we quite critical will be following up on a daily basis to make sure these strategies and efforts go forward. Secretary carter was recently in israel. Ady to discuss further enhancements to security assistance. We have a high degree of confidence that it is 50 billion. The reason the 100 billion figure has been out there is billion inare 100 foreign reserves that have been an excessive will. Some of that has been due to the sanctions, some of it because it is obligated, and some of it has been spent. It on the books, but it is not there. The funds that have been spent and are not there cant be recovered, even when sanctions are lifted. What remains is about 50 billion to come back to iran. With that, one needs to keep the spective that are regarding what they need. A final point that i want to add that 500 billion hole would be required to get the oil sector up and producing so they could bring the wealth into the country that they aspire to . Their oil minister has stated billion just 200 for the oil sector repairs alone. That is not to take their sector into the future. That is to take it back to the baseline. See a the economy, we seven year lag due to the sanctions. Upon sanctions relief in the middle of next year, the Major Economic sanctions are brought that it will be seven years before iran comes back to where they ought to be today. Invested theey money, it would take them that long . The oil repairs might happen in a shorter amount of time, 23 years. I need to get back to you on that. Curve,look at their gdp and has a radical break due to the international sanctions, and it only gets back in seven years to where it ought to have been today. The whole that they are in cannot be overstated. Back to themoming does not begin to meet the needs. That 50 billion is not spending money. Is there freed up foreign reserves. No country is going to exhaust their foreign reserves down to zero, risking huge and stability to do so. They will useat it for their domestic economy and will need to leave some in reserve in the way any country would. Last question. Many of us have raised concerns about the prospects of the u. N. Embargoes in iran being lifted. Of us would have preferred to retain these embargoes longer. Russia and china felt differently. Specificriefly what authorities remain in place to armst irans conventional and missile efforts. Be able to rely on other Un Security Council revolutions resolutions that levy embargoes. All of those remain in place. To work withnue over 100 countries around the world that have signed the Proliferation Security Initiative to limit imports or exports. Initial Technology Control regime also remains in place and will play a Critical Role in net regard. The missile Technology Control regime also remains in place and will play a Critical Role in that regard. We have ongoing sanctions in as adam has pointed out, executive orders which authorized u. S. Sanctions on a foreign persons that contribute to the proliferation of missiles. We will make use of those executive orders. The iran, north korea, syria proliferation act connected to iranian ballistic and Cruise Missile activities and the sanctions of the 2006 provision of the fine assistant act, iran amended in the a ron proliferation arms act, all and impose sanctions on entities. The Un Security Council resolution that was just recently passed has not let the program off the hook. Current prohibitions on the supply of Ballistic Missile and areitems in place still required to prevent transfers of missile related items. They are still required to irannt provision to technology, technical assistance, and other services. To preventred transfers of Ballistic Missile of items that happen to pass through their territory. I can go on. There are about 10 things that still requires states around the world to do. Would we have liked them to go on forever . Of course. We have kept them on far longer than iran, china, or russia wanted them to stay on. They are enforceable. We have other Un Security Council resolutions and other tools unilaterally to make sure where missiles are concerned that we can keep moving forward in every way we need to. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I think the witnesses for appearing today. I want to go back to the issue raised by senator corker. Act ofn Nuclear Review 2015 is abundantly clear that congress is supposed to receive all the documentation, all of the agreement, annexes, related materials. ,he transmission of agreements the President Shall transmit to the impersonal committees and leadership the agreement as defined in subsection hone, including all materials. Subsection hone specifies that iis agreement includes and quote the last part of this any additional materials related thereto, including annexes, implemented materials, guidance, or other understandings, and any related agreements. That thatat is clear is meant to be all encompassing. There is a secret Side Agreement , which strikes many of us as a very Important Information to have and evaluating whether or not future activities are in violation of this agreement or not. Senator corker asks why you have not given us the documents. You said he could we dont have the documents. , the intent statute of the statute, and that the letter of this law, why did you not insist that this essential to enforcement document be disclosed . Thank you very much for your question. We dont have the document. Has every single document that the United States government has. We did not insist is because we want to protect u. S. Confidentiality. Ons is a safeguard protocol of iaea protection confidential understandings and arrangements between the iaea. I know you will say this is a different situation. I grant you that this is an International Understanding to try to stop iran from having a Nuclear Weapon, and that is a different circumstance. In the development of where the iaea is going is that they came to us for technical expertise, as they came to every other member, and in a classified briefing this afternoon, i will share everything i know about this. Also grateful that the director general on his own cognizance is meeting with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in an informal setting. It is extreme he on usual, because every other country wonders why he is. You did not see the final document . I was shown documents, but whether there were other discussions you know, what is about the technical modalities that the iaea uses, and i will share with you this afternoon in a classified setting every single thing i know about that, and i think it will give you great confidence that the iaea is doing what it needs to. I look forward to that. Me. S still disappointing to we are being asked to vote on an agreement in which the enforcement of tens on a very important document that we are not allowed to see. It is not clear to me that you have read the final document, or anyone else in our government. You do not have it your possession. I have seen the document, as i said. As we were going to the technical discussions with the iaea, but what is important here is that ultimately what we are talking about is the credibility of the iaea, whether in fact we believe they are credible, independent, verifiable organization, which it is. They have done a support superb job on the joint plan of action. All of those reports have come up here. They have done a very fine job. I have trust and confidence in their ability to do a fine job on the joint conference plan. Im glad you do. I think that is a document we ought to have. Paragraph 36 grants authority. Either side can object to the other. If this objection is not result to the satisfaction of the complaining participant, then the complaining participant can submit walk away, either side. So i ran for any reason that iran deems sufficient can walk away from the agreement, after they have their 50 billion or 100 billion, or whatever the figure is. I am concerned that this dynamic this fact creates a very dangerous dynamic, one in which the administration will have a hard time enforcing anything other than a massive violation. State scholzary of and kissinger wrote a widely read piece with a suggested that most likely if a violation occurs, it would not be a clearcut event, but the gradual accumulation of ambiguous evasions. Lets say we start to discover the gradual accumulation of ambiguous violations. If we were to take any measures at all, any enforcement mechanism of any kind, iran 36 andnvolve invoke say this is unacceptable. Since this administration has told me that the alternative to this is war, and so we have to have this agreement, and we have to make all these concessions after concessions after concessions to get this believet, why should we that in the face of the accumulation of these small but accumulating evasions that the administration is going to risk iran walking away from the table, because i suspect that that would be there threat. I appreciate that you believe irani ran will have will have gotten enormous sanctions relief and will be sitting in the driver seat, but you forget the other half of the equation. They will have to reduce their thirds,ges by two eliminate 98 of their stockpile , made the reactor and operable, allowed inspectors in their country to have 24 7 access to the facilities. 24 day access. , ther declared facilities iaea has 24 7 access every day of the week. The military sites. If the iaea believes there is justification for them going to a site, the Additional Protocol allows them to give 24 hours notice to get into that site. Says we think you should go to the site or we think you should have this document, under the Additional Protocol they are allowed to suggest alternatives. However, that debate about what the iaea can do can go on for quite some time. ,ith this agreement did different than any other arms control agreement ever negotiated, we put a clock on that debate. The iaea under the Additional Protocol wants to go to a site, it has to have access to that site. We said that you can debate with iran for two weeks, at the end of two weeks, the joint commission made up of all of us looks at that. Onee believe that on day that they ought to give access and we believe we were always have europe and the European Union representative with his, iran has three days to provide access. It could be as short as 18 days. As has been testified again and again, Nuclear Material cannot be cleansed away. It will be found if it is there. Quite frankly, senator, what we have negotiated in this agreement is unprecedented access when ever the iaea believes that it has a suspicious site that needs access to. Permissible to address the snap aspect. At the discretion of the chairman. Your next. You want to read . I will take my time and as quickly. Ofi wanted to speak to one the premises behind your questions on the snap back. The more likely scenario we see his small breach, testing, sticking a toe across a line. What we need to do is show them that those breaches have consequences, otherwise we are asking for larger breaches. We have to be very serious about that. We have been very clear with our partners about that. That i haveremise heard circulating that after the initial sanctions relief, iran can immunize itself to further pressure. Therefore it will care about snap back. That is simple enough the case. Irans foreign reserves cannot be put in a vault in the form of gold or bills. What iran needs with its foreign reserves is to have them in centers,ancial imports, boost currency, a whole host of things. Will have toey keep them in foreign jurisdictions where they are subject to snap back. If anything, the more iran begins to benefit from the deal, the more vulnerable they are to this pressure. I agree with your question in that respect, that the consequences to iran will remain very serious, very severe, throughout this agreement. Thank you very much. Time, youallotted have testified that you dont expect iran to stop funding has lot has a terrorist groups, so what do you expect . I do expect them to continue funding their violent proxies. Of myne of the goals career. We have a lot of that our disposal. One of the most powerful is the one that congress has given us, which is when we sanction iranian terror supporters, our designation is amplified internationally. Namei mean is that when we a financier, a money launder, any bank worldwide, that facilitates transactions for that designated entity, it faces very severe sanctions from the United States, sanctions that no bank once the face. What we have seen as a practical matter thanks to those congressional sanctions is that our sanctions against their proxies carries international weight, and those designated entities come become pariahs worldwide. We have to do more. It is incumbent upon us to do more. To identify the money launderers, facilitators, and funders, and muster a coalition of countries to cut it off to shut it down. Thank you. Let me go to a very critical point here. Regime is in place today. If we reject this deal, some have argued that it will make a difference, the sanctions will stay in place. You have been working on this for 10 years. How would our partners react if we said we walk away from the deal . From my perspective, and i would certainly defer to ambassador sherman on the domestic aspect, we have tremendous clout and influence as the worlds most awful economy most powerful economy. Been a privilege of exercising that for the last 10 years and i have seen how effective it can be. As i mentioned in my opening statement, it is not all powerful. We do not get to dictate to dictate the Major Economies whether Foreign Policy will be. We need to harness shared concerns. When it comes to iran, we have a shared concern, for you and resolutions have called out their program as being a threat, so when we went to china, india, japan, india, we want you to work with us. You agree with us that Irans Nuclear program is a threat. They said yes, we do agree. We said here is the way to address it. Join us and lets test it. To use our sanctions leverage to obtain the concessions we need from iran. They worked with us and it succeeded. In the event that we walk away, it is a very different and much bleaker scenario. International consensus is behind this deal, 90 countries have endorsed this deal. We would be alone and walking away from it. Asking them to take costly economic sacrifices in the hope of a future better, tougher deal, i think we would have a weak prospects for that. Thank you. I will stop. You, mr. Chairman. Good morning to the witnesses. Thank you for being here. I am concerned about this deal, not supportive of it whatsoever. The more i read of the deal, the less i like it, and that does not include the site agreements. Said ador, you have couple of conflicting things this morning. I can see your notebooks. I cant read what is in it. , have you seenal it and read it . Let me be very clear. Seen the documents that the iaea and iran have discussed to create the final arrangements for the modalities that underpin the roadmap document, the Public Document that congress has a copy of, but i was not allowed to keep any of the documents arrangements on the modalities that underpin the public roadmap. However, i told the iaea that given our constitution that if to brief oned me the details that i understood, i would do so in a classified session, and i will do so this afternoon in a classified session. I will give you all the details of which i am aware. Have you read the final agreement . Arrangements. Of have you read it . I have. Theou stated earlier that regime continues to Fund Terrorism and bad behavior. At the same time, we are that the more money the Iranian Regime has, the more they will fund terrorist activity. In spite of the fact that they have a crumbling economy, infrastructure needs, ability to sell more oil, yet they are still fighting terrorism. It seems like to me that you would agree with susan rice when she says that we should expect so portion of the money from sexed relief from sanctions relief will go to the military and will be used to fund more bad behavior and terrorist behavior in the region and spite of the state of their economy. I do agree with the premise of your question. I do agree with the statement t you quote from former susan rice. Groupsthem fund these during the iraniraq war. I expect we will continue to see that. The question is, what do we do about it . Responsibilityd is to ramp up our effort and go after this funding streams. The alternative that is put out there does not make sense to me strategically, which is we dont interinto a Nuclear Agreement, thenhem back their money what . We will continue to combat their support for terrorism, but we will have the prospect of iran to to three months away from breakout. When you talk about a state sponsor of terrorism, that is a terrifying prospect. Strategically speaking according to the agreement, five years from the start of the agreement, more access to weapons, eight years, Ballistic Missiles, and they will be able to move ford with advanced research on nuclear technology, and then we know for certain at the end of the 10th year that we are looking out a breakout phase. The reality of the agreement is that we will be able to mark on a calendar when the iranians will have an opportunity for Nuclear Weapons . Know, as ambassador sherman has said, at no future date does iran have the ability to pursue a Nuclear Weapon. In fact, the agreement locks in the contrary. It has varying durations with respect to enrichment limits, 1015cted in the first years and then reduce, but at no point do they have the right to pursu

© 2025 Vimarsana