Iran Nuclear Deal

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our Republican colleagues for reminding us that this Nation is dependent upon those men and women that serve as police officers, as deputy sheriffs, and in other positions.
Certainly, the deaths that we have seen and the murders that we have seen in recent days are a tragedy, and they cannot go without our notice. I appreciate it.

I don't, however, think it is the President's fault, so let us move on here.

I want to talk about something that is coming up here in the next couple of days, an extremely important issue for all of us. While violence in America and violence against police officers are important issues, this issue is also extremely important.

The Congress of the United States is going to take up the issue of the Iran deal, the nuclear deal between the P5+1--China, Russia, Germany, France, United Kingdom, and the United States--negotiated over the course of 2-plus years an agreement with Iran that would block Iran's ability to create a nuclear weapon.

Prior to this agreement, the Iranian Government, in secret, was rapidly moving towards the development of a nuclear weapon. They had created an infrastructure that included the various centrifuges to concentrate the uranium into low-enriched uranium and then on into highly enriched uranium, which is the uranium that is necessary for a nuclear weapon.

They are also in the process of building a heavy water reactor that would be capable of producing plutonium, the other route to a nuclear weapon. This was done in secret over many years, dating back probably 15, maybe even 20 years.

For the last 10 years, the United States has placed sanctions on Iran to try to convince them that they should not be developing a nuclear weapon, that there would be significant economic sanctions and other sanctions imposed on the country.

Those sanctions did not go successfully. The Congress of the United States added sanctions. I, together with many of my colleagues here, I think almost unanimously on the floor of the House voted to impose those ever harsher sanctions, but it didn't work until the P5+1 got together.

Secretary Clinton at that time, 3 years ago, 4 years ago, worked with those countries, persuading them to sit down at the table together with the United States to see if it was possible to negotiate an agreement with Iran that would prevent Iran from ever having a nuclear weapon. This spring, the agreements began to come together, and in June, July, the agreements were culminated.

I want to talk tonight about those agreements and what they mean to the United States, to the Middle East, and to the world. The very short way of saying this is that this agreement is the most recent and the most significant nonnuclear proliferation agreement in the last decade, maybe even longer.

Iran was very, very close to a nuclear weapon, so much so that it was believed that they could have a nuclear weapon very soon. Perhaps in 3 to 5 months, they could have material for perhaps nine weapons and be able to perfect those weapons into a bomb that could be delivered through their missile systems or through some mechanism.

Where are we today? We are going to vote. As I understand, I think there is a rule that just came across the desk a few moments ago that would put us in line to vote up or down on the Iranian agreement, and I understand that that vote will be taking place on Friday of this week--a very, very significant moment in the history of nuclear proliferation or nonproliferation.

Let's take a look at where we are. First, the agreement came about as a result of six nations, the largest economies in the world, sitting down and negotiating with Iran.

What did those countries think about the deal that they signed onto?

This isn't just the United States. This deal was signed onto by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, and the United States.

So, if the United States Congress--the House and the Senate--were to trash this agreement, what do those countries think?

We don't have to guess what they think. They actually have said, categorically, their position on the deal, and their position is clear. We signed onto it, they said. We agreed to this deal, and here is what we think if the United States Congress negates this deal.

Let's start with the French. Frederic Dore, the French Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission, said this in meetings with the United States Senate--and I understand that we will be meeting with the representatives of these countries later this week.

The position of the French is: World powers have secured the best deal possible with Iran.

The best deal possible.

All right. How about Germany?

The German Government's position is--as stated by Philipp Ackermann, the Acting German Ambassador to the United States, before the U.S. Senate and, again, in the Foreign Policy magazine, on August 6, 2015--the prospect of the rejection of a deal makes us nervous. It would be a nightmare for every European country if this deal is rejected.

Then there is the United Kingdom, again, in the Foreign Policy magazine, on August 6, in words similar to this, or, perhaps, these exact words were said to the U.S. Senate a couple of weeks ago:

If Congress rejects this good deal and the U.S. is forced to walk away, Iran will be left with an unconstrained nuclear program with far weaker monitoring arrangements than the current international consensus on sanctions, and the current international consensus on sanctions would unravel, and international unity and pressure on Iran would be seriously undermined.

The P5+1 all signed onto the agreement, and all but the United States has said categorically: Therefore, the agreement. They are not looking to renegotiate, only the United States. So it is up to us, the Members of Congress, to decide whether to stay with the agreement that was negotiated by the United States Government and five other countries and confirmed by the European Union and the United Nations.

So where do we go?

Let's assume for a moment that the Senate and the House reject the deal. Will these countries come back to the negotiating table?

The information we have from the meeting with the United States Senators--and all of these countries were there--was, no, they are not going to go back to the negotiating table. I think I said ``all of these countries.'' I don't think China and Russia were at that meeting. Yet the word is that they are not going to go back to the negotiating table, so we would have to negotiate by ourselves. Keep in mind that we attempted to do that for many, many years without any success. It was only when all of these countries got together that the sanctions really hit Iran in such a way that they decided to come to the table and to make the agreement which is now before the Congress.

Let's go about that deal. What is it? This is basically what it is here.

The deal blocks for at least 15 years--and, quite possibly, indefinitely into the future--Iran's ability to develop a nuclear weapon.

I am going to come back to this timeline, but I want to go here first.

So no deal. Without a deal. If the United States Congress this week and next week vote to do away with the deal, then where are we?

Iran has sufficient low enriched uranium and the ability to further enrich that uranium to highly enriched uranium--in other words, weapons grade uranium--for approximately nine nuclear bombs. The number of centrifuges that they presently have are some 19,000 centrifuges, and that would be used to complete the enrichment process. Then the time to produce a bomb's worth of material--highly enriched uranium--is a couple of months, 2 or 3 months.

Presumably, under the present situation, with no deal, Iran would be able to move forward, as they have been in the past, for the full development of nuclear weapons within a matter of months. That is not a good situation.

However, with a deal, where are we?

Iran's low enriched uranium and what amount of highly enriched uranium they have would be significantly reduced to an amount that would be insufficient to make even one nuclear weapon, and there would be verification procedures to assure that they would not be able to make any additional nuclear weapons. The number of centrifuges that they would be able to have are old, antiquated, and would be some 6,000-plus, and all four pathways to a nuclear bomb are blocked. That is the choice we have. That is the choice we have.
Now, what does this mean over time?

Over time, for a long time--25 years or more--the implementation of additional protocols, commitments to reprocess plutonium, and the nonproliferation treaty obligations remain in place indefinitely into the future--way beyond 25 years. So, as for the nonproliferation treaty, they have upped it once more. They have agreed to it again. Now, granted, they weren't paying attention to it in the past, but now we have verification procedures.

Secondly, there would be continuous surveillance of uranium mines and mills so that we know what they are doing. Are they mining uranium? What are they doing with it? What are their mills doing? That would continue for 25 years.

There would be continued surveillance of centrifuge production for 20 years. Now, you don't make highly enriched uranium in procedures other than centrifuges unless you go to some very, very advanced procedures, which we do not believe Iran can do, and those procedures that are currently available to Iran and would be into the future are monitored for 20 years.

The low enriched stockpile, which is several thousand kilograms, would be reduced and capped at 300 kilograms, and there would be no further enrichment for new highly enriched uranium beyond a very, very small amount for research purposes; and the heavy water reactor that could produce plutonium within a matter of a couple of years would be, basically, decommissioned and be unable to produce plutonium, and that would go for the next 15 years. In the short period of time, 10 years to 15 years, these other procedures that prevent the operation of the centrifuges would be in place.

This is how you block the path to nuclear weapons. All of these procedures are in place. Scientists, physicists, generals, and others have all looked at this and have all come to the conclusion that, hey, this works. This will block Iran from developing a nuclear weapon for a minimum of 15 years, probably 20 years, and assuming that we are able to hold them to the agreement, 25 years and beyond. That is the nonproliferation treaty.

Now, all of this, of course, is dependent upon verification. We don't trust Iran. We don't need to trust Iran. In fact, we should go into this not trusting

Iran. Therefore, do we have sufficient verification procedures in place to hold Iran to the deal?

The answer is yes.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, is and has been for decades the United Nations' watchdog for the nonproliferation treaty. They have been in Iran in the past. They have observed cheating. They have observed obfuscation. However, under the new agreement, the doors are open to all of the facilities that are known to be involved in the nuclear production and the nuclear bomb activities. There is an additional procedure that, within 24 days, should there be an indication of a site that is not now known to be involved in nuclear activity, the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, would be able to observe what is going on at that site. As for the other sites--the secret sites of the past--we would have the IAEA observing, monitoring, and verifying that the agreement is being held to its standard.

We also have other methods of knowing what is going on in Iran. Nuclear material leaves a radiation signature. We have the capability of reading those signatures and understanding in detail what is going on at any particular site--past, present, and into the future.

The verifications that are in this treaty are built upon the fact that we do not trust Iran, and, therefore, these verification procedures are the most robust, comprehensive, and extensive in any proliferation treaty with Russia or anybody else. So that is in place.

Now, what if they do cheat?

If they do cheat and if they do not honor the agreement, we will know. That is what the verification is all about. It is agreed by the P5+1--that is the United Kingdom, which is Britain; France; Germany; Russia; China; the U.N.; and the European Union--that should there be a breach of the procedures in this deal that the sanctions--the toughest of them--would automatically snap back into place and would continue to apply the kind of economic-social pressure on Iran that brought them to the negotiating table in the first place.

Can we trust these countries to snap back?

I believe we can. It is an agreement that they have made not just with the United States but with each other.

Now, if they don't, we still have our own sanctions, which are tough, which provide us with an ability to put a lot of pressure on Iran, even though not as much as the other countries together with us could do; but, nonetheless, those sanctions are always available to us now and on into the future should Iran renege in any way on this deal.

There are a couple of other things about this that we need to consider.

There is a lot of talk that this deal would free a vast amount of money that Iran has had sequestered--having been known to get their hands on a vast amount of money. The numbers bandied about are $150 billion. It has been said by the Treasury Department and by the Secretary of State that the amount is actually closer to $100 billion. That is a lot of money. There is great fear--and, I think, appropriately--that Iran would use that money to advance, enhance, and increase its support of terrorism around the world--specifically in the Middle East--and against Israel.

I suppose that is a possibility. But when an analysis is done of that money, about $40 billion of that $100 billion is owed to other countries and other entities outside of Iran.

So as soon as that sanction is removed and that money is available, then $40 billion of the $100 billion is not available to Iran. It is in some other country's hand.

The remaining money presumably could be used for support of terrorist activities. However, we should keep in mind that Iran has been heavily hit by the existing sanctions, so much so that their economy is in terrible condition.

Their infrastructure, specifically in the oil arena, is woefully old, inadequate, and not capable of significant production. So they are going to need to invest a lot of money in that and in other infrastructure.

How much money would be available for terrorism? Far more than we would want. And, therefore, we need to be certain that our support for those countries that are fighting the terrorist activity in the Middle East and beyond have the full support of the United States Government, people, and our Treasury.

It is going to cost us some money, but this is something we are going to have to do. We must make certain that Israel has whatever it needs to counter whatever terrorist threats there may be and whatever threats there may be in the more conventional military sense.

Already we are preparing to ship to Israel our most advanced fighters, the F-35, which is just now coming off our production lines, and there will be a lot of other equipment made available.

Certainly, with regard to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, we will continue to work with Israel very closely as we have for many, many years, in fact, decades. All of that is there.

We also need to be aware that the other Gulf state countries and other countries in the area that have been subject to Iranian attacks and trouble need our support.

We should also be willing, as we have in the past and as we are committed to now, to provide them with the support that they need to push back not only on terrorism, but on overt Iranian military activity.

So here we are. Deal? No deal? No deal. Is there a better deal? Highly unlikely that the P5+1 will ever come back together again to negotiate a better deal.

So we would probably almost certainly have to do it by ourselves. We have already proved in the past, before the P5+1 went into existence, that we were not successful alone negotiating a deal with Iran.

The sanctions by our country alone were insufficient. But, as a global community, we were sufficient. And that is where the P5+1 comes in. Listen carefully to what those countries are saying about a renegotiation, ``not likely.''

So where are we? I believe we have to support this deal that was put together by these six major countries, supported by the European Union and the United Nations. This is the path that would block all paths to a nuclear weapon that Iran might be able to pursue for at least the next 15 years and beyond.

I ask my colleagues to look hard at this. Unfortunately, a lot of the newspapers are portraying this as a partisan fight. I don't believe it is. I know that many of my colleagues on the Democratic side and certainly what appears to be most Republicans, if not all, are opposed to the deal. I am certain many of them have their own reasons for that opposition.

But I think, when you take a comprehensive look at this deal, when you look at all of the elements, that is, what happens if there is no deal and Iran can immediately restart its nuclear weapons program, you go, ``Whoa. That is not a good thing.''

On the other hand, if this deal holds, then Iran will be prevented from having a nuclear weapon for at least 15 years, quite probably 20 years.

Should they continue to honor the nonproliferation treaty, then it would go on indefinitely. That is a good thing. And, therefore, I support this negotiated deal and I ask my colleagues to do the same.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I have completed my time on the floor.

I notice that two of my colleagues are here to speak to the passing of one of our Members of this House who served here for many, many years.

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