Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, in the days ahead, we are facing one of the most consequential issues we will face as a nation--this issue of an agreement with Iran. Some people want to make this into a partisan conversation. It is not a partisan conversation. It is a national security issue, and it is a world security issue.

The Senate has already held multiple hearings on Iran and on this particular agreement with the Intelligence Committee I sit on, the Armed Services Committee, and the Foreign Relations Committee. I personally met with Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, and Secretary of State John Kerry. I have been through the agreement and the classified portion of this agreement in every detail.

I wish I could also go through the IAEA information about how the inspections will actually occur because the agreement itself gives broad statements. The IAEA agreement will be the narrow, practical version of how they will actually do inspections. I have been told over and over again by the administration and by officials that the United States will not have a role in determining how the inspections will be done and that they will not even see the methods of how we will do inspections before they actually begin.

They told me they have been orally briefed on the process, but they have not actually seen it, which means since they haven't seen it, I can't see it. It seems odd to me that the final aspect of the agreement that actually gives the greatest detail of how the inspections will occur none of us can actually see. It is difficult to have this ``trust, but verify'' attitude when we were not given the ability to verify how they are verifying it and to see how much trust is actually being given in this process.

The White House has told us over and over again that if you don't like this deal, there are two options--it is either war or provide a better solution. I am telling everyone: Let's slow down. Let's look at both of those things, and let's also back up and see where we are.

For years the United States and the United Nations said that Iran should not enrich uranium. In fact, there are six U.N. resolutions saying that Iran should not enrich uranium. Why? Because Iran is the single largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Iran has propped up the Assad regime in Syria. They are paying the soldiers to walk side by side and to fight with Assad right now and hold up that Syrian Government. Iran is paying for and propping up the coup that is in Yemen right now on Saudi Arabia's southern border. They are still chanting in the streets ``Death to America,'' and they are actively pursuing larger and larger weapons. I think there is a reason to take this seriously.

Now, back to the statement by the White House. They have said: If you don't agree with this agreement, then it is either war or you come up with a better option.

I will briefly touch on those two issues. I think in many ways this agreement actually pushes us faster to a process towards war. Why would I say that? Because the conventional weapons ban is lifted under this agreement, and Iran can freely purchase weapons from around the world that have been banned by a U.N. treaty, and that is now lifted under this agreement.

To pacify the Gulf States and Israel, the administration immediately went to the Gulf States and said: We understand the conventional weapons ban is being lifted there, so we are going to provide you greater technology and weapons, and we are going to provide you greater access to weapons and help to be able to get those weapons.

So help me understand why encouraging the Middle East to start dialing up with more and more weapons on both sides of this doesn't actually push us towards war even faster?

Then there is this statement about providing a better solution, as if this is the only option that is sitting out there. Well, the agreement itself was written in such a way that the U.N. would approve this first, the European Union would approve it second, and then the U.S. Congress would get it third. That was intentionally done to try to add pressure to this Congress to say: You can't turn away from this. The rest of the world has signed on to it, so you can't turn away from it.

This Congress should not process things under fear, and this Congress should not process things by saying: You are the last in line so you better sign up to where the rest of the world is.

We have to look at this because we are directly affected by this issue. Remember, Iran has said over and over again that the United States is the great Satan in the world. Anyone who believes that Iran wants to be able to come alongside us and be a peaceful member of the club is not listening to what Iran is actually saying, not to mention this whole theory of, if you don't sign onto this agreement, there is no better deal.

Last week Bloomberg reported that the French senior diplomat, Jacques Audibert--the senior diplomatic adviser to President Hollande, the individual who led the French diplomatic team in discussions with Iran in the P5+1 group, and the one who was in the room--earlier this month directly disputed Kerry's claim that a congressional rejection of the Iran deal would result in the worst of all words, the collapse of sanctions, and Iran racing to a bomb without restrictions.

The French senior diplomat actually said: If Congress votes this down, there will be saber-rattling and chaos for a year or two, but in the end nothing will change and Iran will come back to the table and negotiate a better deal that will be to our advantage.

I will run that by again. He said he thought if Congress votes this down, we will get a better deal. That means two things: He believes, again, that Iran will come back to the table on this, and he also believes there is a better deal out there, and that this is not the best deal we can get.

After going through the agreement, I have very serious concerns about it. I am concerned there are loopholes in this agreement that are big enough to drive a truck through. Specifically, this truck is the truck that is big enough to drive it through.

I will go through some of my concerns. This agreement assumes that the intelligence community can identify locations in a country the size of Texas--all the locations--for a possible inspection, notify the IAEA which places they should go, and that we would be able to contact Iran and get permission from them to visit those sites, which takes approximately 1 month--I will go into greater detail on that--and that we will actually access those sites and find the information we want there.

The IAEA is reporting that they can actually only track for uranium. So all of the other research that goes into building a nuclear weapon, they couldn't actually track that after 24 days, but if there was uranium there, they feel confident they could actually track that. So basically, if we are in the final stages of their assembling something, and we catch them and we are able to get permission to get in there, we could get to it. Not to mention the fact that the Iranian leaders have said over and over again since the agreement was signed that there is no way that the IAEA will get access to military sites in Iran. That is a loophole big enough to drive this truck through.

The IAEA has to give 24 hours' notice of its intent to inspect, and then Iran has 14 days to let the inspectors in. Of course, they can stall for 10 more days in the agreement itself. That is 25 days, minimum, to hide whatever they are working on. That is a lot of time to be able to move computer equipment and all sorts of installed things. At the end of it, the IAEA would say, we can actually determine if there were ever uranium there even after 25 days, but basically nothing else.

We have incredible people who work for us in the intelligence community that most Americans will never see and never meet. There are some amazing, patriotic Americans, but they can't see everything and they can't catch every needle in the haystack that is in Iran. It would help the intelligence community, and it would help us in our inspections, if we had access to the previous military dimensions for the nuclear weapons program that Iran has had on board.

But the agreement itself only says we have to get all things from right now forward, that we don't have to have the documents previous. And if we do, Iran will actually pick the documents that we will see previous in their nuclear practice.

So now we have to find a location with no previous documents, with no way to be able to really see what research they have done and how far advanced they are. We are looking for different things, if there are different stages of their research and development on a nuclear weapon. To say in the agreement we are not going to have to get all the previous research they have done in the past is an enormous loophole and it is a definite detriment to what we are doing in our own discovery.

Iran has to dramatically decrease the number of centrifuges that are spinning and cascading to enrich uranium. That is true, and I am glad for that. They have to pull out what is a known stockpile and reduce it. I am glad of that, and that is a positive thing. But Iran can continue to enrich uranium with 5,000 cascading centrifuges, just in smaller amounts and using their older centrifuges. Again, that sounds like a win. But there is no reason, if they have peaceful purposes for uranium, to keep 5,000 centrifuges spinning--if they are only doing it for peaceful purposes.

Iran can continue testing their advanced centrifuges in small cascades--their IR-6s, their IR-8s.

Iran can continue doing research and development on their most advanced form of centrifuges. Worst of all, they can keep over 1,000 of their most advanced centrifuges still in a cascade in their most heavily fortified facility. They just have to promise they won't put uranium in there. But they can continue to do testing and development so when that time comes, they will be ready to accelerate uranium faster. So, basically, they can do everything in the process, except include uranium at that point.

We are allowing them time to increase their research, with 1,000 centrifuges in their most advanced level. Why would we agree to that? That doesn't seem to be a pathway to peaceful purposes. That seems to be a pathway to high-grade uranium and the development within country.

I have already mentioned that within just a very few years, the conventional weapons ban is lifted in this agreement, allowing additional conventional weapons to flood into the single largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world--not to mention the fact that what is flooding in before all of those conventional weapons are billions of dollars that have been held in sanctions.

Now, again, there has been no change on tactics of terrorism. There has been no change of statement from the leadership of Iran, but they are getting billions of dollars. Under sanctions, they used their money to prop up Yemen to form a coup there and to prop up Assad in Syria. What are they going to do with an additional $60 billion, $70 billion?

The administration has said they desperately need that money so they can do infrastructure. They are getting billions of dollars. No one is going to tell me a major portion of that is not going to be used for terrorism.

As the administration has said, we have built in snapback sanctions so that if Iran violates something, immediately we will snap back the sanctions. But if we actually look at the details of how those snapback sanctions happen, it is months and months in the process of getting everyone back together and forming an agreement that we are going to do that. And if we snap back sanctions, written into the agreement it says Iran can then--if we snap back sanctions--kick out their part of the agreement as well and consider it a violation of the agreement and walk away, and now there are no restrictions on them. So, basically, we are the ones that are punished if we ever snap back sanctions. If we snap back sanctions, Iran could say, see, I told you so, and then immediately kick into the normal process they were into before. By the way, their advanced centrifuges are already spinning. They are still continuing. Nothing was diminished. I haven't even mentioned that their research and development can continue on all of their weapons systems. All of that is unabated. The only limitation seems to be around enriched uranium, but everything else continues the same.

I was also appalled as I went through this agreement and saw the leader of the Quds Force, General Suleimani, who personally coordinated the creation, distribution, and installation of improvised explosive devices in Iraq designed to kill Americans. This leader personally was engaged in killing hundreds of American soldiers in the war in Iraq--hundreds. The sanctions on that general are lifted so he can have normalized relationships worldwide, and four American hostages remain. Can someone tell me why for the murderer-of-Americans general, his sanctions are lifted, but American citizens still remain hostages in Iran?

I have to tell my colleagues, I was stunned by many things that were in this agreement and how many loopholes were built into it, but none surprised me more than the part of the agreement that we made as a country, apparently, that if Iran is attacked, the United States will now come to their defense. Help me understand this. As they continue a nuclear weapons program, if a country steps in and attacks them and says no, you can't do that, that is a violation and we are going to stop that, the United States is now agreeing to come defend Iran as they are advancing their nuclear program? Have we lost our mind?

Now, the administration, when asked about this, just said it won't happen. If it won't happen, why did we put it in the agreement? Why is it there at all? There seems to be a struggle to be able to get an agreement more than it is a struggle to say we have to prevent the world's largest sponsor of terrorism from getting a nuclear weapon at any cost. This is not about slowing their nuclear program. It should be about stopping their nuclear program.

This cannot come to our doorstep. This cannot come to the Middle East. And while the Middle East further weaponizes to prepare for a more aggressive Iran, we continue to step up and say we will help you weaponize, and I don't see how that is deterring us from war.

There is a better agreement out there, and we should push to get it. We should take care of the loopholes that are big enough to drive a truck through. We should resolve this issue. We should not pretend this is a partisan issue. This is not about Republican versus Democrat. This is about peace. This is about trying to work out the differences--and the differences are strong--with all nations and Iran. Let's work that out together, and let's keep pushing until we get this resolved.

I cannot support this agreement with Iran.

With that, I yield the floor.

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