Hire More Heroes Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I come before the Senate to discuss the agreement that is being proposed between the United States, the other members of the P5+1 nations, and Iran with regard to Iran's capacity to build a nuclear weapon.

I strongly oppose this agreement for a number of different reasons. Before I get into the specifics of those reasons, I need to back up a little bit. About 2 years ago, I served on the banking committee. I don't think most people in America realize that the banking committee has jurisdiction over the sanctions legislation which deals with Iran and other sanctions legislation throughout the world.

Over the years, we have developed a very powerful and effective sanctions regime with regard to Iran. This regime involved not only the United States but the participation and agreement of nations around the globe, including sanctions that were followed by us through the United Nations.

Those sanctions--after having had four or five different versions of them, increasingly tightening them down--had worked very effectively to cause Iran to need to come to the negotiating table. I think most Americans realize that the reason Iran came to the negotiating table was the fact that our sanctions were working.

In fact, a couple of years ago, we had another version of new sanctions legislation to tighten down our sanctions even further and increase the leverage that the United States had on Iran in order to try to cause Iran to not only come to the negotiating table but also to agree to stop development of a nuclear weapon.

At that time, the President asked the banking committee--I was the ranking member at the time--to pull back our proposed new sanctions legislation.

He gave us his explanation, which is the fact that he wanted to open up new negotiations with Iran and did not want to cause an offense that would cause Iran to back away from the negotiating table. I disagreed at the time. In fact, my position was that if the United States wanted to go into negotiations, we should have Congress pushing for a new round of sanctions legislation so the President could say honestly and effectively to Iran that we needed to get a workable deal put together or we had a Congress that was ready to move forward with ever-increasing and more effective sanctions. Instead, the President said no. I understand that his party controlled the Senate at that point in time and we could not get the chairman at that point to agree to move the legislation forward, even though the chairman and I had worked together with the other sponsors of the legislation to develop it. At that time, it was my position that if the United States was going to withdraw its leverage through increasing sanctions legislation, that we should at least ask for some kind of a good-faith effort on the part of the Iranians as we were exercising the right to withdraw our sanctions legislation.

So it was my position that we at least should have asked for the release of our prisoners. Most Americans are aware that we have four political prisoners--at least four--in Iran today who are being wrongfully held. One of them, Pastor Saeed Abedini, is from Idaho. He has been held illegally in Iran now since 2012. In addition, we have Robert Levinson, who is a retired FBI agent, missing since 2007; Jason Rezaian from the Washington Post, a reporter, held since 2014; and Amir Hekmati, a former marine, who has been held since 2011. Yet the administration would not ask for the release of these prisoners as a token of good faith in return for starting the negotiations, even though we were willing to withdraw our efforts to impose new sanctions in an effort to start these negotiations. I felt that was a mistake from the outset. The United States gave up its leverage and refused to ask for a concession as we moved forward in these negotiations. Yet it has set a pattern for what has happened since.

Well, I think everyone knows the history from that time forward. We did engage in negotiations. It is important to note that at that time, the President assured--he assured us--that he would not enter into an agreement that would allow Iran to ever have a nuclear weapon and that we would have ironclad inspection and verification regimes in place to assure that.

So where are we today? We are now faced with an agreement that cements in place Iran's nuclear stockpiles, that effectively allows Iran to develop a nuclear weapon over time, even if it complies with the agreement, and does not have any kind of an effective sanctions regime. I strongly oppose this agreement.

During the remainder of my remarks, I wish to go through four or five critical reasons Congress should reject this agreement. First, it does not prohibit Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb. Second, it does not provide ironclad inspections and verification procedures. Third, it provides sanctions relief that is almost certain to result in increased terrorism around the globe. Fourth, it dangerously and needlessly lifts unrelated, nonnuclear embargoes. Fifth, it contains inexcusable and dangerous omissions. Finally, it will create instability in the Middle East and effectively a new regional arms race, dangerous to the entire world.

Let me go back through these. First, it does not prohibit Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb. Even if Iran complies with the agreement, which it does not have a very good record of doing with regard to its agreements, it will still be able to develop a nuclear weapon. The agreement fails to roll back Iran's nuclear development program beyond a 1-year breakout period.

For 10 years, the agreement will only include IR-4, IR-5, IR-6, and IR-8 centrifuges. Now, this is getting into the weeds, but this is a level of centrifuge development that Iran has already been working on and engaging in. And the agreement says--and this is exactly from the agreement--``For 10 years will only include the IR-4, IR-5, IR-6, and IR-8 centrifuges as laid out in Annex 1.'' In other words, the only application of the agreement is to these centrifuges during a 10-year period.

During the 10 years, ``Iran will continue testing IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges, and will commence testing of up to 30 IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges, as detailed in Annex I.''

It does not dismantle any of its nuclear sites of concern, which are the sites at Arak, Natanz, and Fordow. None of them is dismantled.

It recognizes Iran as a de facto nuclear state. And with all of the centrifuges that Iran now has, is it required to destroy them? No. It simply has to disconnect them and store them in another room. Iran is allowed to keep 6,000 centrifuges and 300 kilograms of uranium. Iran is allowed to conduct nuclear research and development during the terms of the agreement, and, in fact, amazingly the United States commits to assist Iran with its nuclear research and development in developing its own nuclear technology and infrastructure.

That is not even the end. One of the provisions of the agreement which I find most outrageous is that it requires the United States Government to oppose State and local sanctions against Iran and amazingly to help ``strengthen Iran's ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems.'' In other words, if Iran develops nuclear weapons capacity, this seems to imply that the United States will need to help Iran protect its capacity.

I am sure the argument will be made that this is only to help Iran develop its peaceful nuclear weapons capacity, but the agreement isn't clear. At a minimum, these kinds of things should have been made clear in the agreement.

So let's look at the inspections. Assuming that Iran will comply with its one-sentence agreement that it will not build a nuclear bomb for 10 years, does the verification system that we have adopted prohibit that? Well, the agreement does not provide ironclad inspections and verification. I think Americans are increasingly becoming aware that not only do we not know what the inspection regime is, the United States does not participate in the inspection regime. The inspection is turned over to the United Nations. The IAEA, the committee under the United Nations that does these kinds of inspections, is in charge, and the IAEA has entered into side agreements with Iran that it will not disclose to the United States or any other country. Some of the information we are starting to see about it, if it is accurate--and we don't know if it is accurate--but it seems to imply that Iran will not even allow the IAEA inspectors onsite. It is going to provide its own samples. These are concerns that are serious. Yet we cannot even confirm them, and Congress is being asked to deal with this issue without even having all of the agreement in front of us.

Moreover, as we move forward in this process, we have identified that the sites are identified as two different kinds. There are declared sites. Those are the ones that Iran admits exists. As to declared sites, Iran must first draw up a list and tell us what they are. We don't have onsite inspection to determine that. As to undeclared sites, Iran is permitted to negotiate for at least 14 days for the IAEA to say we have a site that we think there is, but we are not sure, and Iran is allowed to negotiate whether there is such a site. If the IAEA and Iran cannot agree to a joint inspection of a suspected new site, then there can be further delays, taking up to 54 days before anybody would be able to take a look at these sites.

Again, we don't know whether those persons then required to look at these sites will be Iranians showing the United Nations inspectors what they want them to see or whether they will be United Nations inspectors, but we are pretty sure we know they aren't going to be U.S. inspectors.

The bottom line is that we have a very weak inspection regime that is almost certain to result in the same outcomes we have seen for the last 10 years, as we have tried to inspect and monitor Iran's development activities on its nuclear weapons.

That brings me to the third issue, which is sanctions relief. Iran does get major sanctions relief under this agreement. Iran is regarded as one of the top, if not the top, sponsors in the world of terrorism--the top state sponsor of international terrorism. Many have said Iran has been connected to hundreds of U.S. service personnel deaths in Iraq. Some say more Americans have died in Iraq because of Iranian state-sponsored terrorism and other activities than any other source.

We lift economic sanctions that we have been putting onto Iran. There is some debate about what the value of those sanctions are, but the estimate that I think is fair is approximately $100 billion will be released to Iran very quickly under this agreement. Just by comparison, $100 billion to Iran, in terms of the size of its economy, is approximately the same as $4.25 trillion to the United States respecting our economy. It is about one-quarter of Iran's economy. Those who say Iran will simply use these sanctions relief dollars in order to strengthen their economy ignore the reality that Iran today has a weak economy because of our sanctions and it is plowing money into sponsoring terrorism. There is no question that these dollars are going to result in an increased support of terrorism across the globe.

Next, the agreement dangerously and needlessly lifts unrelated, nonnuclear embargoes. As we were dealing with all of these issues I have just discussed as the negotiations were moving forward, at the very end we find out that in order to complete the deal, Iran and Russia introduced new unrelated issues that the administration willingly conceded to. We lifted the existing conventional weapons embargoes on Iran and we lifted the ballistic missile embargoes on Iran. Russia is already today going forward with selling advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran, making future military action increasingly more difficult.

The next issue is that the agreement contains inexcusable and dangerous omissions. First, as I said at the outset, it does not free Pastor Abedini and the other Americans who are detained in Iran. Secondly, it does not recognize Israel's right to exist. Third, it limits nuclear research for 10 years and frankly does not assure, as I have indicated earlier, that we don't have violations of the agreement before 10 years.

It does not require an accounting of past nuclear weapons cheating by Iran, meaning it does not require them to disclose where their facilities are. It does not require disclosure of the military component of Iran's nuclear program. What this means is that Iran has given us no information about its military facilities and has said that its military sites are off-limits. Now, where would we expect Iran to build a nuclear bomb?

It does not address Iran's existing ballistic missile capacity, and it does not ban ballistic missile development. We don't know what its capacity is and we no longer ban them from developing their capacity further. In fact, we have lifted the ballistic missile embargoes. The agreement does not require Iran to stop sponsoring international terrorism. The agreement is deficient in so many different ways.

Finally, the agreement creates instability in the Middle East and a new regional arms race. One hundred billion dollars is an immediate windfall to Iran, a portion of which the administration acknowledges will wind up in the hands of international terrorist groups targeting Americans and our allies. That money will be made available to Iran shortly.

Neighboring States have already said they are going to have to accelerate their own nuclear enrichment programs to counter Iran. Recognizing the new threats to Iran's regional neighbors, the President himself wrote to Congress on September 2 to announce stepped-up security enhancement for our Middle East allies, further evidence that the agreement is destabilizing and requires increased military commitments in the region.

Having abandoned the ``no notice'' inspections requirement, the administration has agreed to permit a process for contested sites that could stretch for weeks or months before inspectors step a foot into the facility, if they are even able to do so at all. Some experts acknowledge that window is sufficient to hide or remove any kind of incriminating evidence of smaller illicit activities crucial to weapons development.

Other states in the region--Egypt and Saudi Arabia--have already signaled that they are going to embark on a nuclear weapons program, sparking a new arms race. The possibility of further instability in the Middle East does not serve our national security interests or give the American people comfort.

We cannot forget that Iran is a regime with a history of sponsoring terrorism against Americans and our allies and which continues to threaten the existence of Israel. This agreement changes the U.S. policy toward Iran but does very little, if anything, to change Iran's aggressive nature.

The Iranian leaders have already renewed their threats to Israel, and continue to call the United States the Great Satan and have publicly rejected the administration's hope that the agreement will lead to better cooperation with Iran.

So where are we?

The United States Senate passed legislation 98 to 1 saying that Congress should have a right to vote on this agreement. Twice already in these Senate Chambers within the last week we have tried to bring that legislation up only to face a filibuster that has stopped us from even being able to vote on the agreement. Ninety-eight Senators voted to let Congress have a right to vote on this agreement, and 42 of them voted twice now in the last week to refuse to let us bring the agreement before the Senate to vote on it.

So today we are facing yet another effort. Today the issue before the Senate is a provision that would say the agreement cannot go into effect until Iran recognizes Israel's right to exist and until Iran frees the four political prisoners whom I identified. Once again we are facing a threat of a filibuster.

As I indicated, this agreement is dangerous. It is dangerous to the security interests of the United States. It is dangerous to the security interests of the world. It is destabilizing in the Middle East, and it contains very, very serious potential consequences for the future security of all Americans, and, frankly, of people throughout the world.

This is a critical time. This is a monumentally important decision, and I encourage all of my colleagues to let us simply bring the agreement forward for a vote. A critical issue such as this should not be stopped from even being brought forward for a vote in the Senate.

With that, I yield the floor.

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