The President's Correct and Necessary Decertification of the JCPOA

Statement

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Zeldin for his leadership on this issue; his voice in criticism of this flawed nuclear deal with Iran; and, of course, for his valiant service to the United States in the military.

I rise tonight in strong support of the President's decision to decertify this deeply flawed JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. I agree with the President's finding that Iran is not transparently, not verifiably, and not fully implementing the agreement. I agree with the President's finding that continued sanctions relief is not in the vital security interest of the United States.

That is because the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran was a dangerous and historic mistake. The deal provided the mullahs in Tehran with roughly $100 billion in upfront sanctions relief in exchange for Iran's promise, future promise, to temporarily pause its enrichment program.

Unfortunately, the agreement contained fatally deficient verification protocols and the International Atomic Energy Agency now concedes that it has no capacity to verify that Tehran is engaged in activities which could contribute to the development of a nuclear explosive device. That is because under the terms of the agreement, the very terms of the JCPOA, international inspectors are barred from accessing Iran's military sites where elicit nuclear activities are most likely taking place.

President Obama's promise that there would be ``anytime, anywhere inspections,'' but that promise was replaced with ``managed access'' to suspect nuclear sites in which international inspectors must appeal to Iran, Russia, and China in a bureaucratic process that would take days during which Iran could remove anything covert and in violation of the agreement.

As Congressman Zeldin correctly pointed out, we don't even know what the verification protocols actually are because we haven't been able to access the secret agreement between international inspectors, non-U.S.
inspectors, and the leadership in Tehran.

But the most serious concern is not that Iran would cheat. It is that even if Iran is fully complying with this agreement, bad outcomes are guaranteed. First, Iran will be allowed an arsenal of nuclear weapons in as little as 10 years. Under the very terms of this agreement, Iran was not denied a nuclear weapon. The path was paved for Iran to have an arsenal of nuclear weapons with international sanction.

Iran was not required to dismantle key bomb-making technology. It was permitted to retain vast enrichment capacity, and it was allowed to continue research and development on advanced centrifuges, and it will be allowed to continue to acquire intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Why do you need intercontinental ballistic missiles if you have peaceful designs for your nuclear program?
Those of you who are listening at home across America, remember this:

an intercontinental ballistic missile is not a missile designed for Tel Aviv. An intercontinental ballistic missile is designed for New York City; for Washington, D.C.; for Atlanta, Georgia; for Los Angeles, California; and for Seattle, Washington; and for Chicago.

Our homeland security has been jeopardized because of this fatally flawed agreement. Iran will receive a sanctions relief jackpot. They have already received upwards of $100 billion so far. In my capacity as the chairman of the subcommittee that oversees sanctions, oversees the Treasury Department's implementation of sanctions, I can say that we have heard it. We have heard the reporting that, as a result of this agreement, Iran has not become pacified. Iran has actually accelerated its support for terrorist proxies in Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Nigeria. Because Iran's neighbors know that this deal reverses a decades-long bipartisan policy blocking Iran's nuclear program, this agreement continues to risk a nuclear arms race in the broader Middle East.

They are apologists. There are defenders of the Iran nuclear deal, and they say it is working. They say there is evidence of dismantling of the nuclear program, but we have the benefit of almost 2 years of implementation of the deal. We have the benefit of hindsight to see if this deal is actually working.

Here are the facts. The facts are that since the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was implemented in January of 2016, Iran has continued to sponsor Hezbollah and other radical terrorist militias in the region. Its support for the Assad regime alone, including the use of planes to airlift military supplies, has helped claim an estimated 400 lives. Last April, even President Obama suggested that the Iranians were violating the spirit of the deal by engaging in these activities.

Rather than being deterred, in October, Iran sentenced three Americans to long prison terms on bogus charges. In January of this year, the country tested a ballistic missile in violation of U.N.
Security Council resolution 2231. In April, just as a commercial airline manufacturer was announcing new sales to Iran as a result of the sanctions relief under the JCPOA, we learned that dozens of Syrian civilians, including at least 11 children, were gassed in an Iranian- supported chemical weapons attack.

Additionally, Iran has stated that it will no longer permit inspections of its military bases. It continues to attempt to intimidate our allies, and is facilitating the imports and exports of arms.

As of February 2017, Iran has fired as many as 14 ballistic missiles, and the leaders of Iran continue to chant ``death to America,'' and pledge to wipe Israel off the face of the planet.

So where do we go from here?

As the chairman of the subcommittee that oversees enforcement of sanctions, we have been working on additional measures that can be taken, including non-nuclear sanctions consistent with the JCPOA to hold Iran accountable for its malign activities.

On April 4, we held a hearing on the effectiveness of non-nuclear sanctions against Iran, where we determined that Iran Air, a state- owned commercial airline, has used its aircraft to transport fighters and weapons throughout the Middle East on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. As a result of these findings, I wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Mnuchin urging him to ban the sale of commercial aircraft to Iran Air.

Similarly, I supported two appropriations amendments that would prevent the sale of aircraft to Iran and prohibit U.S. firms from financing such a sale.

Finally, I recently drafted a letter to the Treasury Department urging it to identify all entities it believes to have transacted business with the IRGC, a precursor to possible additional secondary sanctions.

These actions are all important and relevant in the aftermath of the President's correct decision to decertify the deal because it invites Congress to step in and offer constructive recommendations on how to address the flaws, the fatal flaws, in the JCPOA. These are some of those recommendations to the administration, and we hope the Treasury Department will respond accordingly.

Going forward, we must do the following to stem Iran's nuclear ambitions: We must designate the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization. We must make permanent the sunset clauses on Iran's nuclear program and testing. This cannot be temporary prohibition of the Iran nuclear program. This must be a permanent ban on Iran ever having nuclear weapons capability and the capability of delivering those weapons.

Finally, we need to do a better job strengthening the agreement, revising the agreement, scrapping the old agreement, and actually getting to anytime, anywhere inspections. That means we have got to work with the P5+1 and our European allies to revise the JCPOA so that we mandate anytime, anywhere inspections of nuclear facilities, and so that we are guaranteed that the IAEA, that international and U.S.
inspectors have access to all suspected sites within the territorial boundaries of Iran.

In conclusion, I want to thank Congressman Zeldin for the Special Order. I want to thank President Trump and his administration for their leadership on stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and for the important national security imperative of revisiting this flawed Iran nuclear deal so that we can actually achieve peace in the world.

Mr. Speaker, we thank Congressman Zeldin for his leadership in pursuing this very important objective.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source