Hire More Heroes Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. RISCH. Madam President, I am here to make a few remarks about the proposed agreement between the United States--our participation in the agreement with the Government of Iran. I am going to speak briefly because we have been through this. I just want to underscore a few points that are very important to me as to why I am going to be voting the way I am voting.

I think, first of all, one of the things you always want to do when you are entering into an agreement is weigh whom it is you are making an agreement with. I always told clients when I was practicing law that more important than the words on the paper were the people whose signatures appeared at the bottom. I think, in this particular instance, we could not have a worse situation than what we have.

The Iranians have shown us what they are made of for decades. We all know what they are made of. This is not going to be a good time as we go forward. Generally, when people make an agreement, and people make agreements every day, they agree on an objective and then both cooperate as they move forward toward that objective. That is not going to happen here. We have seen before the Iranians operate under similar circumstances. They cheat, to begin with, on a regular basis. But just as importantly, they will stiff-arm, they will drag their feet, they will misinterpret, they will challenge, they will do everything possible to avoid meeting the objective of the agreement.

How did all of this start? You remember when this whole thing started, everyone was cheering about what a wonderful thing this is, and we are going to go forward with this, but we do not trust them, and no agreement is better than a bad agreement. Well, what has happened since then? There is not anybody saying this is a good agreement. This is a bad agreement. So why did we not stick with the proposition that no agreement was better than a bad agreement? Now the mantra that people are talking about is, well, it is not perfect.

I would urge that with what we are dealing, the people we are dealing with, and because of the consequences for America, for the world, for the Middle East, it needs to be perfect, and it is nowhere near perfect. I want to underscore a couple things in that regard.

The other thing we started out with was that the President promised us that we are going to have inspections anytime, anyplace. Nothing could be further from the truth now that this agreement has been put on the table. This is not an anytime, anyplace agreement. Indeed, the procedures--if you wade through the difficult and complex procedures for how you get to an inspection when there is suspicion or even when there is not suspicion, if you are just doing it to check, it is going to be very difficult to do that. In addition to that, there are places in Iran that are off limits. No American will ever set foot in there. No IAEA inspector will ever set foot in there.

So why anyone would make this kind of agreement is beyond me. I am talking about Parchin. Parchin is a place where they have done the kind of work in the past that we want to stop. Indeed, by getting in there, by going through it, by inspecting it and doing an analysis, we would be able to tell what they did so we could expect what they would do in the future--and they will. In addition to that, the most likely place in Iran for bad things to happen is at Parchin. No one can get in Parchin. Why would the Iranians insist on a provision in this agreement that no one can get into Parchin? There is only one reason: They intend to cheat and they intend to do it at Parchin. They have gotten away with a lot of things at Parchin in the past, so they want to protect it.

All of these things argue for no agreement being better than a bad agreement, which this is.

Let me talk about a couple of the things. There has been a lot of time spent on them, but this situation regarding the money is just--I don't understand how people can talk about signing on to this agreement, when you are talking about what is going to happen with the money that is going to be freed up for Iran. There is $150 billion that is going to be freed up. Now, you will get people who say: Well, it is not that much because they owe this. It is dedicated here, what have you. So let's just take the 50 billion that everybody believes--I think they say 54 billion, but let's take $50 billion--$50 billion. In Iran this is not small change. Here in the United States, obviously, it would be a much smaller amount. But the statistics, when you compare what $50 billion means to the regime in Iran, it is very substantial.

What does Iran do with its money when it gets money? Since the sanctions have been on, their economy has been ratcheting down and down. Life has become much more difficult there from an economic standpoint. The government has very little money to operate. But every country has national priorities. Every single country on the face of this Earth has national priorities. The only way can you judge it is how they have spent their money in the past. During this period of time, while they were in very difficult financial straits, they had the ability to fund and to finance the worst enemies America has, the worst enemies the world has--terrorists. They have funded Hamas, they have funded the Houthi rebels, they have funded Hezbollah, and others. Every problem we have in the world with terrorism has Iran's fingerprints on it.

They have been able to fund that even when they were in difficult financial straits. What do you think is going to happen when they get this windfall of $50 billion? Those organizations are going to become flush with cash. They are going to be able do things they have not been able to do in the past. If you go to the hospitals here in America where our veterans are lying with missing limbs--arms and legs--almost all of them, almost all of them were caused by a device that Iran either made or financed. That is where this money is going to go. How can you go to bed at night saying, well, yes, I agreed to this because it is going to be a wonderful thing for the world, when you have actually put money in the hands of these terrorists who are going to hurt America's best who go out into the field? It boggles my mind. When you are sitting at the negotiating table, why did someone not say: Hey, if we catch any of this money going to terrorists, all bets are off, and we are going to pull back everything.

It is not just the $50 billion. More important than that is Iran will now have a continuous cashflow because they are going to be able to sell their oil, and they are going to be able to generate substantial amounts of money. So it is not just the $50 billion. This money thing is a real problem. It absolutely boggles my mind that--I don't know how anybody who supports this is going to look these Americans in the eye who are hurt by these devices that are made and that are financed by Iran. It is going to go on. It is going to continue. This money is going to be used for that.

That alone, to me, is sufficient reason not to vote for this. It should be sent back, saying: Look, we need a specific agreement that this money is going to be used for domestic purposes for you to help the people of Iran--the people who want to do good things--and not sent off to foreign terrorists who are going to use that money to kill Americans and to kill other people.

I wish to talk for a second about the secret agreements that are incorporated into this. Who--who--would sign a contract or an agreement where you incorporated two agreements made by two third parties, you don't know what is in them--you will never know what is in them unless things go south and go south badly--but you will have agreed to that. Whatever happens as a result of these secret agreements--whatever happens as a result of these secret agreements--we are going to have to abide by it because we will have entered into this.

Nobody enters into a contract to buy a bicycle where they have secret agreements. You wouldn't buy a consumer product for your home if at the bottom line it said: By the way, there are two agreements between so and so and so and so. Neither of them is a part of this, but by buying this and signing this contract, you are agreeing to whatever is in there.

I don't understand that. No American has seen it. We get fairly good information in the Intelligence Committee, and we have had closed hearings on this. We have dragged in everybody. The closest I have come to is Wendy Sherman. She was the No. 2 negotiator behind John Kerry. John Kerry has not seen these agreements--and everybody tells you what is in these agreements.

I cross-examined them:

How do you know what is in these agreements?

Well, that is what we were told.

Well, how do you know it if you haven't seen it?

Well, the Iranians tell us what is in there, and the IAEA tells us what is in there. So we are willing to accept that.

But no American has seen it. Wendy Sherman admitted she was in a room with a number of people when the agreements were there, and they were being waved around, but she did not read those agreements. She cannot tell us what is in those agreements. She tried to tell us what is in those agreements. Others tried to tell us what is in those agreements, but nobody knows because they will not let us see what is in those agreements.

Why is that? Do you think there are things in those agreements that show this is a good deal?

They are hiding stuff. There are bad things in there for America. Yet people are willing to sign on to this and to endorse, to adopt, and to ratify two secret agreements that no American has ever seen or can vouch for what is in those two secret agreements.

One of the things that is included in there that they have admitted is how Parchin gets inspected or, rather, isn't inspected. If they are willing to admit that in those secret agreements there is a provision that says Parchin will never be inspected, can you imagine what the rest of the matters are that are in those agreements? It is outrageous for someone to adopt, on behalf of the American people, provisions that they don't know what they are.

Let me just say that I come back to where I started; that is, we need to have a full appreciation of whom we are dealing with. While this is going on, while the Senate is debating this, and while the American Congress is debating this, the leaders of Iran proudly stand, beat their chests, and say: We promise you that Israel will not exist in 25 years.

I don't believe much of what they say, but what I do believe is, because of the way they have acted, because of their history, that they will do everything they possibly can to make that promise come true.

This is whom we are dealing with. They are going to try to eliminate our closest ally in the world over the next 25 years. This is whom we are dealing with. And we are willing to get in bed with these people and throw Israel under the bus? It is fantastic. It just does not make sense, but that is whom we are dealing with. They are promising, while all this is going on, that they will see that Israel does not exist in 25 years.

Well, it has been all over the media that the people who were supporting this are looking for a legacy. I promise you that the people who support this are going to get a legacy, but it is not going to be the legacy they want. When this thing goes south, the media and every American is going to be looking for the people who did this, who supported it, and who ratified it through this Congress.

I yield the floor.

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