[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
IRANIAN NUCLEAR TALKS:
NEGOTIATING A BAD DEAL?
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 18, 2014
__________
Serial No. 113-227
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
TED POE, Texas GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MATT SALMON, Arizona THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
MO BROOKS, Alabama DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TOM COTTON, Arkansas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
PAUL COOK, California JUAN VARGAS, California
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania Massachusetts
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia GRACE MENG, New York
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
TED S. YOHO, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
SEAN DUFFY, Wisconsin JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
CURT CLAWSON, Florida
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade
TED POE, Texas, Chairman
JOE WILSON, South Carolina BRAD SHERMAN, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TOM COTTON, Arkansas JUAN VARGAS, California
PAUL COOK, California BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts
TED S. YOHO, Florida
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Ray Takeyh, Ph.D., senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies,
Council on Foreign Relations................................... 6
Mr. J. Matthew McInnis, resident fellow, American Enterprise
Institute...................................................... 14
Mr. David Albright, president, Institute for Science and
International Security......................................... 21
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Ray Takeyh, Ph.D.: Prepared statement............................ 9
Mr. J. Matthew McInnis: Prepared statement....................... 16
Mr. David Albright: Prepared statement........................... 23
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 62
Hearing minutes.................................................. 63
IRANIAN NUCLEAR TALKS: NEGOTIATING A BAD DEAL?
----------
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2014
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o'clock p.m.,
in room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ted Poe
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Poe. Subcommittee will come to order. Without
objection, all members may have 5 days to submit statements,
questions and extraneous materials for the record subject to
the length limitation in the rules.
If someone could get the back door, it would be
appreciated. It is not to keep you in or keep anyone out. We
just want the door shut.
Iran has defied and lied to the international community for
over a decade when it comes to its nuclear weapons program.
Finally, the West got serious and took a stand and imposed real
sanctions in 2012.
The sanctions actually worked and Iran came to the
negotiating table, but then the West retreated. Loosening up on
sanctions just when Iran was beginning to feel the consequences
of its actions was a monumental mistake.
Netanyahu was correct. When this deal was made by the
Secretary of State he said that this was a bad deal, a very bad
deal for Israel and for the United States and for world safety.
Since then, Iranian leaders have been emboldened by the
economic relief they have experienced and they have reverted to
their defiant ways.
Recently, a top advisor to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
said, ``Obama is the weakest of all U.S. Presidents.'' Now is
the time for the leader of the free world to prove Iran wrong.
The world, including our enemies and allies, are watching.
We have already passed the deadline for negotiations to end in
July and now we await a second deadline, which is next week.
There is reason to believe that the Iranians----[Loses sound.]
After all, we will continue to pay them millions whether
the deadline is met or not, just for the promise of
cooperation--a promise from, really, an enemy of the world.
Each attempt at compromise has turned out to be a stall tactic
by the Iranians.
While the Iranians have their first string varsity team, we
are playing our JV team, to quote a phrase. As it is, we don't
know how many centrifuges the Iranians currently have. The old
principle of trust but verify does not work in this case
because Iran has shown that it cannot be trusted.
They will lie when the truth is not in their political
interest. The IAEA hasn't been able to verify Iran's
capabilities. The Iranians could have a bomb in as little as 3
months.
The problem is we don't know and neither does the IAEA.
Making matters worse, we can't take the Iranians at their word
on their nuclear aspirations. They still haven't come clean
about their previous suspected nuclear weapons activities
alleged by the IAEA back in November 2011.
Iran's real aspirations are simple. They want to annihilate
Israel, and then they want to annihilate the United States.
That is what the real leader of Iran, Khamenei, called for just
last week.
We are dealing with the devil and the clock is running out.
The deal cannot be handled solely behind doors away from the
public and away from scrutiny. There are dire consequences in
these negotiations and the American people expect their
representatives--the U.S. Congress--to play a role.
The U.S. Congress must approve or disapprove any potential
final nuclear agreement with Iran. Here is what an acceptable
agreement might look like.
One, Iran would verifiably take apart its illicit nuclear
infrastructure; two, Iran would resolve all past issues of
concern including possible military aspects of its nuclear
program development; three, the inspections regime must go
beyond the authorities that the IAEA currently has; four, a
permanent inspections team in Iran is needed and they must be
allowed to go anywhere, see anything at any time; five, Iran
must come into compliance with all six standing U.N. Security
Council resolutions related to its nuclear program; and six,
Iran's ballistic missiles program must be addressed.
Missiles, after all, can be used to deliver nuclear
weapons. Any deal that does not address this is not only a bad
deal but a dangerous one. We have to address the issue of
deliveries.
And seven, finally, no sanctions relief should be provided
unless a final agreement can verify and permanently prevent
Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Even if an acceptable agreement is reached, the sanctions
relief must be limited and phased so that we can keep our
economic leverage. In general, any good agreement is not about
freezing Iran's nuclear program but dismantling it. Anything
less simply postpones the inevitable danger that a nuclear-
armed Iran presents to the world.
I look forward to hearing what our witnesses think about
where we are and what we should be doing in Congress. The U.S.
must be clear and unequivocal. There will be no reductions in
sanctions without verified steps to show that Tehran is
abandoning, not just freezing, its nuclear weapons program.
I will now yield to the ranking member, Mr. Sherman from
California, for his opening statement.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you, Chairman Poe, for holding these
important hearings.
I agree with you that any sanctions relief should come only
through an act of Congress and I hope that the Iranians
understand that any waivers granted by this President are
waivers that do not necessarily apply to any future
administration.
Furthermore, looking at the statute, waivers are supposed
to be case by case based upon the entity applying for the
waiver, not blanket waivers in effect suspending our sanctions
statutes.
The one possible disagreement I have with you is I don't
think that even at their high water mark our sanctions were
enough to really bring Iran to the table if that is the table
where they are supposed to give up their nuclear program.
We had sanctions significant enough to get them to come to
the table where they do a kabuki dance and get some relief from
the sanctions because it is always better to help your economy
at least even from modest sanctions.
So to say that we ever had sanctions significant enough to
threaten regime survival and to cause this regime to be willing
to give up its nuclear weapons program is questionable.
The Joint Plan of Action gave Iran some very significant
relief. First, it caused a pause in the reductions of oil
purchases that were called for by the Menendez-Kirk provisions
of the 2012 law.
Second, it stopped Congress cold from adopting new
sanctions statutes. And finally, and perhaps most importantly,
it changed the whole psychology, and much of economics is
psychology. It caused people interested in the Iranian economy
to think that things would be on the upswing. Under this Joint
Plan of Action, we are giving Iran $700 million, albeit of its
own money, every month.
I think we have got to be loud and clear to the
administration that further releases of Iran's frozen funds
should not occur just because we are going into a new month. If
these talks are extended they shouldn't be extended with us
paying a price for that extension.
Now, we are in a much weaker bargaining position than we
were at the beginning of this century. During the first decade
of this century, we didn't enforce our sanctions laws.
The administration worked very effectively and successfully
to prevent us from passing any new sanctions laws and the
Shiites were put in control of Iraq. So today, we have to deal
with a much weaker hand than if we had started to take this
program seriously at the beginning of the century.
We are told that this JPOA has frozen Iran's program. That
is not true and, to some extent, is true. Some of the program
has been frozen. Some of it has been rolled back, particularly
the 20 percent enriched uranium.
Half has been diluted. Another half has been oxidized. But
keep in mind even that oxidized portion is far more than Iran
needs for any peaceful purpose. It is oxidized but it hasn't
been converted into fuel, pellets or rods so it is pretty
available for use in creating a bomb and it is more than a
bomb's worth.
So, even under this JPOA, they are close to their first
nuclear weapon. But what concerns me just as much is their
centrifuges are still turning, creating more and more low-
enriched uranium that is oxidized, but reversing that
oxidization process is rather easy, low technology and quick.
This committee has been assured by the administration that,
as part of this deal, we would learn of the possible military
dimensions, or PMDs, of the Iranian program.
Iran has stonewalled the IAEA on that and it should be part
of any reduction of sanctions or any continuation of the
suspension of Kirk-Menendez that we find out and that the IAEA
is given answers to its questions.
On the other hand, the JPOA has pretty much frozen the Arak
plutonium reactor and that is one of its positive elements. In
looking at a final agreement, a lot of focus is on how long the
agreement will last, what enrichment will be allowed and how
that enrichment will be monitored.
We need to look just as much at how much uranium and in
what enrichment levels Iran is able to stockpile and what
tracing of ore and monitoring of ore and yellow cake is there
so that we can make sure that the total grams of enriched
uranium both in terms of quantity and enrichment level is
consistent with the allegedly peaceful nature of Iran's
program.
Finally, I am going to be asking our witnesses to help us
identify how we can draft strong sanctions legislation that
will go into effect in a few months unless Congress receives
and approves a good deal negotiated with Iran.
As I said, these sanctions would have to be regime
threatening. They would have to go beyond where we were before
these negotiations began, and I look forward to working with
all of the members of this subcommittee and our witnesses to
make sure that we are ready with sanctions that will go into
effect early next year unless Iran enters into a good deal with
the United States.
I say that not to make our negotiators' position more
difficult but because only with such strong sanctions
legislation is there any hope that they will be successful. I
yield back.
Mr. Poe. The Chair will recognize other members for their
1-minute opening statements. The Chair recognizes the gentleman
from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson, for a minute.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I thank
you for your leadership, and Ranking Member Sherman. It is
really reassuring to see Members of Congress working together
facing a common threat. This is so unusual.
I am just so pleased to see you working together and all of
us working together, hopefully, on this subcommittee. I agree
very much with the senior senator of South Carolina, Lindsey
Graham, who, this weekend, pointed out that the administration
needs to understand that this Iranian regime cares more about
trying to weaken America and push us out of the Middle East
than cooperating with us.
Until we recognize that reality and formulate a regional
strategy to counter the Iranian regime's malign influence, we
will continue to harm U.S. national security interest.
Additionally, I support holding the President accountable by
requiring congressional approval of any deal that is reached
with Iran, and I want to conclude by agreeing with Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who indicated, ``Iran is not your
ally.''
As the Prime Minister said on Face the Nation, ``Iran is
not your friend. Iran is your enemy. It is not your partner.
Iran is committed to the destruction of Israel.''
Facing this, again, I want to thank the leadership who are
here today and in a bipartisan manner to protect the people of
the Middle East and the United States. Thank you.
Mr. Poe. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois,
Mr. Kinzinger, for 1 minute.
Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it is
important to remind everybody here that during the time of the
Iraq war it is estimated that upwards of half of the Americans
that were killed were killed either directly or indirectly by
Iranian EFPs--explosive foreign penetrators--Iranian direct
military action and things along that line.
So yeah, you are right, Mr. Wilson. They are not our
friend. I think the message to Iran is simple--just stop or pay
a price, and I think we had them at that position a year ago,
and for some reason we saw an administration collapse in a
desperate desire to enter a deal.
We knew that, of course, the first 6 months wouldn't happen
so we extended another 6 months and I believe that in a week
they are going to come in front of Congress and say, we need an
additional 6 months, which I think would be the wrong message.
So the question here is, with the collapse of U.S. foreign
policy in the last couple years, what leverage do we have and I
think it is important for us, and I appreciate the chairman
calling this hearing, to stand together and say that we will
not allow a bad deal with Iran.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman. The Chair will yield 1
minute to Mr. Perry from Pennsylvania.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have, like many of
us, numerous concerns regarding the Joint Plan of Action and
the continued negotiations as being a viable avenue for
preventing--I just stress preventing--Iran from obtaining a
nuclear weapon, which is and should be the primary objective of
our policy and our actions.
However, a great concern that seems to be sometimes getting
lost in the more technical debate is the potential for a
nuclear agreement to recognize Iran's right to enrich, and I
take great exception with this.
It sets a unacceptable precedent, in my mind. Other
signatory states to the Non-proliferation Treaty--the NPT--may
then choose to enrich themselves after they observe Iran being
allowed to continue to enrich despite breaking its NPT
commitments.
A nuclear arms race is absolutely the last thing we need in
this region of the world, and I yield back.
Mr. Poe. The gentleman yields back his time.
The Chair will recognize the other gentleman from Illinois,
Mr. Schneider, for his opening statement.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
the witnesses for joining us today on a most crucial issue as
we sit less than 1 week from the deadline for negotiations
under the Joint Plan of Action.
The prospect of a nuclear Iran--I believe is the single
greatest threat to the region, to the world, and it is
imperative that we find a way to prevent that.
If there is to be a deal it must absolutely ensure that any
and all paths for Iran to get a nuclear weapon are blocked and,
ultimately, permanently closed.
What I am looking forward to hearing from you all in the
time we have together today is your sense of the potential for
a deal, whether it is in the next week or shortly thereafter,
what are the consequences and concerns if there is to be a
delay further than on November 24th, as the current deadline
is, and, on the assumption that there is not a deal to be had,
what would be the next steps you would want to see from this
Congress.
And with that, I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Poe. Do any other members wish to make an opening
statement? Seeing no show of hands, the witnesses will be
introduced and then they will have their time for opening
statements and then proceed to questions.
Dr. Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow for Middle East studies
at the Council of Foreign Relations and an adjunct professor at
Georgetown University. Dr. Takeyh was previously a senior
advisor on Iran at the Department of State and is widely
published.
Our next witness, Mr. Matthew McInnis, is a resident fellow
at the American Enterprise Institute, focusing on Iran.
Previously, Mr. McInnis worked on Middle East and
counterproliferation issues during his long tenure at the
Defense Intelligence Agency.
And Mr. David Albright is the founder and president of the
Institute for Science and International Security. Mr. Albright
holds Masters degrees in both physics and mathematics.
Our first witness, Dr. Takeyh, we will start with you. You
have 5 minutes. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF RAY TAKEYH, PH.D., SENIOR FELLOW FOR MIDDLE
EASTERN STUDIES, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Mr. Takeyh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me here.
I will be brief and it is always good to be with
Mr. Poe. If your mike is working.
Mr. Takeyh. Oh, sorry. Better?
Mr. Poe. A little better.
Mr. Takeyh. I think it is fair to say--I am sure there will
be agreement on this issue, perhaps even a unanimous one--that
the Islamic Republic has not been responsible stakeholders in
international affairs.
I don't think I am being too provocative with that. Yet, I
think Iran over the years has had some success in conditioning
the narrative of the nuclear negotiations.
The Iranian regime has obtained an acknowledgment of its
right to enrich. That is not necessarily a right in principle
but acknowledgment in practice, which is a distinction of a
rather limited nature.
It has also persistently suggested that all U.N. Security
Council resolutions are politically contrived and have neither
authority nor legitimacy, and there may be indication that the
P5+1 countries--the five members of the Security Council and
Germany--that are negotiating on this issue may actually not
adhere to certain aspects of the U.N. Security Council
resolution themselves, particularly the provision demanding
suspension, and it is probably unlikely that a final agreement
will have a suspension component and that brings into question,
of course, the legitimacy of international law in this
particular respect.
Iran has continued to insist that its existing enrichment
capacity has to be respected and it has also maintained that
any inspection modality has to be limited to the existing NPT
measures which, perhaps, fall short of some of the expectations
that we have.
Another aspect of the Iranian diplomacy over the past year
that has been successful has been President Rouhani's notion
that he has inculcated rather effectively that he is under hard
pressure from hardliners at home and the implication of that
being that if the Western powers want a deal they should
essentially deal with him and make the necessary concessions to
obtain that deal.
I don't think that is true. I think a more careful
examination reveals that the Islamic Republic has actually
reached an internal consensus. Today, I think the Islamic
Republic is ruled by a unity government and some of the
factionals in that has historically bedeviled the theocracy has
at least for now been set aside.
For the first time in the three decades of the existence of
the Islamic Republic it is not troubled by divisions and
dissension that have plagued previous governments. So I am not
quite sure if President Rouhani is under the type of pressure
that he speaks about.
However, I think going into these negotiations there are
many advantages that the Western powers have, particularly the
United States, and one of those advantages are raised
expectations. There has been a lot of raised expectations.
Both parties--United States and Iran--have unwisely at
times raised expectations about a possible deal and fed a media
narrative of a potential historical breakthrough between the
two old nemesis.
Suddenly, the hard-pressed Iranian public has come to
expect imminent financial relief should the negotiations not
yield an agreement. Then Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, not
President Obama, would have a popular backlash at his hand. A
disenfranchised dispossessed population is an explosive
political problem for the Iranian leadership.
Therefore, I think the Western powers should not be afraid
to suspend negotiations or walk away from the table should Iran
prove intransigence. Ironically, a stalemate in negotiations
are likely to pressure Iran into offering more concessions
rather than the United States.
I want to highlight briefly that what we are dealing with
here is not necessarily just nuclear infractions but also the
Islamic Republic's regional policies. The Islamic Republic
remains a revisionist state that has done much to imperil
American interests in the Middle East, as was just mentioned.
It has been recently fashionable to suggest that the two
parties have an interest in the rise of ISIL and that could
essentially offer a pathway for cooperation. On the surface,
this may seem sensible. Both parties do have an interest in
defanging the militant Sunni group.
However, the essential axiom of Middle East politics has
always been that the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy. The
ebbs and flows of war on terrorism should not be allowed to
conceal the fact that the Iranian regime and its attempt to
upend the regional order remains the United States' most
consequential long-term challenge.
The Islamic Republic is not a normal nation state seeking
to realize its legitimate aspirations within the existing
international system. It is a country whose leadership tends to
put premium on conspiracies to explain its predicament, and as
was mentioned it has been a staple of Ali Khamenei's speeches
that United States is a declining power whose domestic sources
of strength are fast eroding.
Finally, the United States and Iran tend to see the region
from opposite ends. The Islamic Republic's ideological
compulsions and sheer opportunism makes it an unlikely ally for
the West.
The coincidence of mutual interest in opposition to a
radical Sunni group should not blind us to the enduring threat
that the Iranian regime represents to its population and to the
region at large.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Takeyh follows:]
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----------
Mr. Poe. Perfect timing. The Chair recognizes Mr. McInnis
for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MR. J. MATTHEW MCINNIS, RESIDENT FELLOW, AMERICAN
ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Chairman Poe, Ranking Member
Sherman and distinguished members of the House Committee on
Foreign Affairs.
Thank you for inviting me here to testify on the current
ongoing Iran nuclear negotiations. As has already been noted,
prospects for an actual agreement on the 24th of November are
dim but I do not underestimate the desire on both sides to get
a deal.
We may yet see a breakthrough but I think it is doubtful.
While I strongly support finding a diplomatic solution to the
impasse with Iran, I also share your concern that this
eagerness on our part may cause us to settle for a deal that
has not sufficiently addressed the challenge of their program.
I fear since the beginning we have not fully understood
what was driving Iran to the table and underestimated our
leverage once they got there. It is a recipe for a very
frustrating diplomacy.
So what is Iran's calculus here? Most importantly, we
should remember there has been no sign--and I think this has
been noted here before--no sign of real change in their nuclear
policy.
They still want to man a robust Iranian enrichment program
that is far beyond what is needed for civilian purposes. They
have shown no willingness to come clean on the possible
military dimensions of their nuclear research.
If Iran had had a true change of heart we could have
resolved all the outstanding concerns a long time ago. Iran
would have flung open the doors of Parchin military complex to
IAEA inspectors.
That is not the case here. This is not South Africa. This
is not Libya. The new diplomatic approach adopted by the
supreme leader and President Rouhani is notable but at its
heart it is a tactical move.
They may accept some limits on the output of the program
but no actual reversal of technological achievements and
capabilities will be allowed. This is why we keep stumbling
over their red lines, refusing to dismantle any part of their
nuclear infrastructure.
However, the supreme leader and President Rouhani and the
rest of the Iranian leadership have decided they need to get
out from underneath the sanctions and I agree with my
colleague, Dr. Takeyh here, on his assessment of the internal
dynamics inside the regime right now.
The short and long term economic challenges are just too
great for them. They need this deal now and, frankly, they need
it more than we do and we don't take advantage of that.
So what are the basics of an acceptable deal? They are
quite simple and I think we have discussed them already in the
opening statements--a reasonably verifiable regime administered
by the IAEA that ensures Iran cannot pursue a nuclear weapon
with a clear mechanism to reimpose sanctions for noncompliance.
My colleague, David Albright, will certainly go into much
more of the technical discussions about things that we need to
address. But first I want to highlight a couple of things I am
concerned about.
First, we need to be aware of the trap of centrifuge
numbers. As the efficiency of Iran's centrifuges improve,
actual quantities of the machines will matter less. We need to
have the right metrics for any type of deal on that topic.
Second, for me, the heart of the matter, really, is
bringing Iran into compliance with the IAEA on the possible
military dimensions. There should be no relief in the most
critical sanctions without resolving this issue satisfactorily.
Third, given the long history of Iran's nuclear activity
being exposed rather than willingly acknowledged, the need for
a rigorous verification regime goes without saying. There is
not trust here, just verify.
Since there was a real risk of additional covert enrichment
or weapons development activity, the ban of critical
technologies, especially for missiles, needs to be maintained
to the greatest degree possible.
Fourth, we need to be very careful about how sanctions are
unravelled. Many sanctions are related to Iran's nuclear
program even if they are also tied to the regime's support for
terrorism and human rights violations.
The reverse is also true. Unthoughtful relaxation of
financial sanctions, for example, could prove a great boon to
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp's activities across the
region.
And that brings me to my final point and, again, agreeing
with my colleague, Dr. Takeyh, we should not be looking to use
the nuke negotiations as a stepping stone, as a confidence-
building measure toward greater cooperation with Iran, unless
we see real changes in their behaviors, which I do not expect
under this supreme leader.
Tehran is still trying to overhaul the political system in
the region through subversive and violent means. It is still
supporting and building proxy forces beholden to Iran, designed
to threaten the U.S. and our allies and ensure the capacity to
execute terrorism missions worldwide.
This includes groups like Lebanese Hezbollah, Palestinian
Islamic jihad, Hamas and, most recently, the Houthis on the
march in Yemen. Our end states for Syria and Iraq are
different. We may have some form of deconfliction with Quds
Force Commander Qasem Soleimani against ISIS on the ground in
Iraq. We may even have some form of detente. But this is not
rapprochement. Until we see actual shifts in the policy from
the supreme leader, our negotiations, our sanctions strategies
and our regional policies need to be very sober.
We should recognize at best we are checking the regime's
worst behavior while we wait for real change in Tehran.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McInnis follows:]
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----------
Mr. Poe. The Chair recognizes Mr. Albright for 5 minutes
his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID ALBRIGHT, PRESIDENT, INSTITUTE FOR
SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
Mr. Albright. Thank you, Chairman Poe and Ranking Member
Sherman, for the opportunity to testify today.
I would like to just go through several points, really,
headlines of what I see is important to consider today in this
deal.
First, I think a long-term deal, if carefully crafted, can
keep Iran from building nuclear weapons. But getting that deal
is a major challenge, particularly by November 24th. If not
achieved, the interim deal will need to be extended, and that
brings me to my second point.
The interim deal has accomplished many worthwhile goals, as
Mr. Sherman has pointed out, but it appears to be fraying at
the edges and needs to be strengthened if it is to continue
being effective. We work on the technical side of this and we
noticed in the last International Atomic Energy Agency report
that some of the expectations of the interim deal have not been
met. One is that Iran started to enrich for the first time in
an advanced centrifuge called the IR-5.
I know we relayed those concerns to the administration
pretty early on Friday and the administration got a commitment
by Iran that weekend that it would stop. Whether it will
continue to stop, we don't know. Iran continues to or still
needs to oxidize at least 500 kilograms of newly produced 3.5
percent LEU that they produced, and this was produced since the
July extension.
Also, Iran had said it would convert 25 kilograms of the
near 20 percent LU oxide into fuel assemblies. From the IAEA
data, only 5 kilograms have actually been turned into fuel
assemblies and I think we don't view these as violations of the
deal since they still have until November 24th. But to us and
ISIS it represents a fraying of the deal and so--even if it is
extended--these things need to be addressed.
The third issue I want to discuss, and I won't spend much
time on it because I think we are all in agreement, is that,
there has been little progress on getting Iran to address the
IAEA conditions and I will just say that there needs to be at
least concrete progress on that issue before a deal is signed.
Obviously, Iran can't address all the IAEA's issues prior
to November 24th and, in fact, the IAEA director general has
said Iran isn't even trying.
But the negotiators should only sign a deal if Iran has
made some concrete progress and that can be anything from
allowing visits to the military sites such as Parchin to some
kind of international recognition that Iran had a nuclear
weapons program and then others can think of other things.
Later on, Iran is going to have to address the IAEA issues
and some sanctions are going to have to be tied to that. I
don't know what the U.S. is thinking on that but I would hope
that there are very significant sanctions tied to actually
addressing those issues.
Another issue that we have worked on extensively in the
last several months has been the sanctions on what we call
proliferation sensitive goods. They have got to stay in place
during the length of the agreement or through at least most of
it until Iran has demonstrated that it is in full compliance
and things are going well. And in particular, U.N. Security
Council sanctions on such goods need to remain in place.
Iran is not expected to stop seeking proliferation-
sensitive goods abroad for its missile and other military
programs. It may seek goods abroad for its clandestine nuclear
activities and facilities.
It is certainly doing so today. Iran's regime is well known
to European authorities, including the Germans, for constantly
trying to break their laws. In 2012 and 2013, more than two-
thirds of their 264 investigations in Germany were involving
the Islamic Republic. And Germany expects the proportion to
remain the same this year. So Iran is a habitual sanctions
violator and that is not expected to change.
Now, if the sanctions legislation or sanctions continue
through the U.N. Security Council resolutions there will be a
need to provide goods to authorized nuclear programs, whatever
level of those programs that remain, and the precedent for that
is the exemption created for the Bushehr reactor and that
exemption can be applied to an authorized nuclear programs.
The difference between the Bushehr exception and any newly
authorized exports would be that that channel or procurement
channel is going to have to be monitored extremely carefully
and involve the U.N. panel of experts, the International Atomic
Energy Agency and supplier states.
The fifth point I want to address is that I think we have
all agreed that Iran should have a limited number of
centrifuges. My group probably has one of the high numbers. We
would accept up to 4,000 IR-1s and view that level can be
verified.
Now, the important way to strengthen that goal is also to
reduce the stocks of low-enriched uranium and there has been
discussion in the media about how the administration plans to
remove large amounts of the stocks from Iran. I think that is a
workable proposition but it should not substitute for the
reduction in numbers of centrifuges--it should strengthen that
goal but it should not substitute for the goal of achieving low
numbers of centrifuges.
And I just want to close by mentioning that Congressman
Sherman mentioned uranium ore. That often does not receive the
attention it needs.
The administration has told me in the past that they are
seeking limitations on uranium ore but we will see if that
happens. But it requires not only knowing how much they made it
total, but also knowing how much they are making every year,
how much they have stockpiled, their past illicit efforts to
acquire uranium internationally and then to cap that uranium in
a way that Iran would not have more uranium on hand inside the
country than it needs----
Mr. Poe. Conclude your remarks, please.
Mr. Albright [continuing]. It needs to meet its actual
needs.
Thank you. Sorry.
Mr. Poe. Thank you.
Mr. Albright. Sorry for going over.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Albright follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Poe. Thank you, gentlemen. The Chair will begin with
its questions--5 minutes of questions.
Are the Iranians working on a delivery system for nuclear
weapons--intercontinental ballistic missiles?
Mr. McInnis. I would say that the pursuit of an ICBM has
been something that the Iranian regime has been going after for
some time. I think the U.S. intelligence community has been
watching that fairly closely.
So, obviously, they portray it as usually tied to their
space program or other types of activities but
Mr. Poe. The Iranians have a space program?
Mr. McInnis. They have been able to put some stuff up
there.
Mr. Poe. I understand. But the intercontinental ballistic
missile pursuit that is not a part of the negotiations and this
discussion, as far as I know. Is that correct?
Mr. Albright. Yes. No, the missiles are not. That is one of
the reasons why you want to keep the U.N. Security Council
sanctions in place because one would expect them to go out and
acquire or seek goods illicitly.
Now, the reentry vehicle that would hold a nuclear weapon
and the warhead itself are certainly part of this and a lot of
the IAEA's concerns are exactly on those two issues. In 2003,
their information is that they were developing a reentry
vehicle and developing a warhead that was about .55 meters
across that could fit inside that reentry vehicle. So that part
of it is very much part of this issue.
Mr. Poe. Are the Iranians delaying and cheating at the same
time, in your opinion? Delaying implementation of another deal
but also pursuing violations of previous agreements. What is
your opinion on that?
Mr. McInnis. I mean, would you characterize the IR-5 issue
that has come up as a----
Mr. Albright. Yes, we asked the question if the IR-5 or
feeding the IR-5 was a violation. I mean, we think it shouldn't
have happened. I mean, we are not lawyers so I would go as far
as saying we think it shouldn't have happened.
Now, the issue of violation. Right now the IAEA says that
Iran's declared program is in compliance with its obligations
under the nonproliferation treaty.
They cannot say if there are undeclared nuclear activities
or facilities that Iran may be pursuing. They don't have the
mechanisms and the tools to do that. So we just don't know.
On the PMD, the IAEA continues to say that some of the
activities, and they would talk about nuclear weapons-related
activities, may have continued and I don't know if that would
be a violation but it would certainly be troubling if that was
the case.
Mr. Takeyh. I just----
Mr. Poe. Sure.
Mr. Takeyh. I think there are six U.N. resolutions--
Security Council resolutions--including 1929 that was
negotiated in May 2010 that have enjoined Iran to suspend all
its enrichment and reprocessing activities.
And so the continuation of those activities stand in
violation of that. So in a sense, the entirety of the Iranian
program that continues to operate is an illicit one.
Mr. Poe. Mr. McInnis, do you want to weigh in that?
Mr. McInnis. No. I certainly don't disagree with Dr.
Takeyh's assessment on that.
Mr. Poe. You do disagree or do not?
Mr. McInnis. No, I definitely do not disagree with it. What
I would add is, certainly, given the history of Iran's nuclear
program, in my own personal opinion, I would be very, very
surprised if there is not some type of clandestine and other
types of activities ongoing that we, obviously, don't know
about or it is going to be a while before we find out.
So that is, again, there is nothing in their history to
change that assessment.
Mr. Poe. Has the supreme leader's statements, philosophy
about demanding the destruction of Israel and then the
destruction of the United States, has that changed his
political statements?
Mr. Takeyh. No. Actually, he has remained rather persistent
in his notion and kind of fantastic claims that he attributes
to the United States such as, for instance, that the United
States deployed atomic weapons in Japan to test them out
against--to see how it would work on human beings. I mean, he
makes--those statements continue unabated. So he is not
providing his nuclear negotiators with sufficient public
relations concessions.
Mr. Poe. And I agree with you. He has not changed their
philosophy about destruction of Israel and the United States
and we ought to deal with them with that understanding.
The Chair will yield 5 minutes to the ranking member, Mr.
Sherman from California, for his opening or his questions.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you. We ought to be trying to prevent
them from developing missiles but let us remember you can
smuggle a nuclear weapon. It is about the size of a person.
If Iran were to smuggle one into an American city and then
let us know they had it somewhere there, that would put them in
a position to blackmail us. Or if they decided to use a nuclear
weapon against the United States they could do so with
plausible deniability and I don't know how you would have
retaliation in the absence of being sure that you knew where
the weapon came from.
Among all the things we are doing for Iran or at least in
ways that benefit them our Sunni allies and human rights groups
have asked us for a no-fly zone. That might very well lead to
the departure of Assad, but we have not done so, just one of
the many forbearances that Iran benefits from. I don't want to
get partisan here but I noticed one of my colleagues talking
about the collapse of our foreign policy under this
administration. That implies that there was a foreign policy
against Iran with the prior administration. I will simply say
that most of you think this is genuine male pattern baldness.
It is actually what happens to a Member of Congress who
spends 8 years pounding my head into a very effective and
successful Bush administration that was successful in not
enforcing a single one of our sanctions and not allowing
Congress to pass a single significant statutory sanction in 8
years.
The question is what is to be done. We are going to need
additional sanctions on Iran unless we get a good agreement and
we are not going to get a good agreement if we don't have the
prospect of much tougher sanctions, regime-threatening
sanctions.
I have got two ideas I want to preview with our panel but,
more importantly, I want to get your ideas because our
negotiators will not be successful unless Iran is convinced
that their economy will be crippled in 2015 by actions taken in
the United States Congress should they fail to reach a deal
with the United States.
One of those ideas is to take all the way down to zero in a
3-month period the amount of oil that we allow countries to buy
and still be able to transact business with the New York Fed
and dollar U-turn transactions.
We listened to our allies who said, don't eliminate all of
our access to Iranian oil--there might be an oil shortage and
what will that do to our economy.
The world is currently swimming in oil. Some of my
colleagues are concerned that oil is selling too low and that
that is having an averse effect. I don't join them in that
pain.
But, certainly, our allies can deal with $75 a barrel oil.
Second, we could provide that--so as to cut Iran off from all
the major Western and Japanese multinational corporations that
if any corporation--has any contract with the United States
Government that it must certify that all of its parent and
subsidiary and brother-sister corporations are adhering to U.S.
sanctions against Iran, which I describe as the not one paper
clip rule, so that we would put Iran in a position where it
could not do business with any of the world's major
multinational groups or corporations.
I would like our--I will start with you, Doctor, both to
comment on those but to give me some other ideas. What would
cause at least a little bit of fear in Qom right now?
Mr. Takeyh. The Iranian Central Bank has suggested, for
what it is worth and it is usually not worth very much, that
what they need for their budgetary allocations about oil to be
about $70.
So any kind of reduction----
Mr. Sherman. Oh, clearly, the best sanctions didn't come
from our committee. The best sanctions came from lowering the
price of oil from $140 down to below $75.
Mr. Takeyh. So anything below that, if that figure is taken
into consideration, will likely to affect it. To have the kind
of sanctions regarding cutting off Iran along the pace that you
are suggesting, I think that has to be accompanied by very
significant diplomacy with our allies and China and other
countries.
In and of itself, I think it is going to create some
disquiet in those particular capitals and it is going to lead
to a lot of complaints. I think with suitable diplomacy and a
lot of work it might come about.
My suggestion has always been in terms of congressional
action. A lot of people are involved in dealing with the
Iranian nuclear negotiations--5+1, U.S. and so on.
Mr. Sherman. I have got to go. I have got to go on to your
co-panelists here.
Mr. Takeyh. I think you should have the parameters of what
is an acceptable deal legislated.
Mr. Sherman. Yes?
Mr. McInnis. I would just add to Dr. Takeyh Rouhani's
economic reforms, which are actually part of what has been
going on behind the scenes here, I mean, Ray is right in that
they need about, you know, $70, $75 to be able to maintain
their current budget.
But for the kinds of structural reforms that Rouhani needs
to get the economy moving past the really horrible management
of Ahmadinejad for the previous 8 years, he needs more money
than $70, $75.
So that is one of the reasons why I think the oil is having
a major impact on their calculus right now. Certainly, on being
able to cut them off from finances and money to the greatest
degree that you can do toward that is always going to be the,
you know, that plus oil prices is the--is the right
combination, from my perspective.
Mr. Albright. Yes. We don't work on sanctions but I think
what we see in my group is there is a need for a Plan B, as we
have called it. Ideally, that Plan B would be run by the
administration, if things are not going to work out. I don't
think we have reached that point. I don't think we will reach
it in November if there is an extension, that there is a need
to be able to impose sanctions and to be able to modulate those
sanctions.
And so I think, from my own point of view, the best
situation would be if the administration and Congress are
working together to create a Plan B.
Now, I understand your frustration. There isn't exactly
that kind of cooperation going on and so----
Mr. Sherman. We will get to the administration panel next
and its presence here demonstrates how closely they are working
with us.
Mr. Albright. Okay. And so I think it if this isn't going
to work, I think the planning for the additional sanctions has
to be going on now because you also, and I would want to
recommend the administration do this, you don't want to have it
happen in 1 day--in 1 day.
Mr. Poe. Excuse me, Mr. Albright. Time has expired. Time
has expired.
Mr. Albright. Okay.
Mr. Poe. Excuse me. The Chair will recognize the gentleman
from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson, for 5 minutes for his
questions.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Judge Poe, for your leadership in
conducting this hearing. I am very grateful that in my home
state of South Carolina we have a significant number of Iranian
Americans who are leaders in our state in the medical community
and business community.
It is a very dynamic community that means a lot for our
state, and I meet with so many of them who are in distress
about the authoritarian regime in Tehran and how sad it is that
the young people of Iran are held back because of the regime
there and denied freedom and democracy, which can be so
positive for such a great culture as that of Iran.
Mr. McInnis, a very important question which is facing
Congress is what should be the minimum requirements that Iran
should meet before Congress agrees to lift the major sanctions
that it has imposed?
Included in the question is the future of Iranian
enrichment the Arak heavy water reactor, answering questions
about the possible military dimensions and past Iranian
violations of the United Nations sanctions, the underground
Fordow fuel enrichment plant and Iran's nuclear-capable missile
force?
Mr. McInnis. I mean, the short answer should be all of
those but, certainly, if we are going to be looking at lifting
the sanctions and, again, I want to emphasize and from my
comments and my submitted testimony that, you know, we have to
be careful about what is tied in with human rights violations
and counterterrorism sanctions in with the nuclear sanctions.
Not that they were necessarily all tied together to begin
with, but some of these same mechanisms that we use, you know,
so far as financial sanctions have a compounding effect on the
situation.
For me, I mean, it is coming clean on the PMD and being
able to cap the ability for their enrichment to a breakout
level. We talked about the breakout idea. Six to 12 months, for
me, is a minimum--that we have to have that type of warning to
be able to do something and we need to be--do whatever we can
to prevent whatever clandestine or covert activities are
happening right now.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, and Dr. Takeyh, how do we
trust a regime that has doubled executions of its own people,
called explicitly, as you have indicated, for the destruction
of another U.N. member, being the state of Israel, labels the
United States the Great Satan, exports terrorism as a matter of
state policy and has trained and supplied terrorists, including
the IEDs that we faced in Iraq which have killed U.S. soldiers?
And how can we trust them to abide by any agreement?
Mr. Takeyh. I think it would be very difficult and I
suspect in any agreement as even in JPOA there will be
occasions and indications of violations. There are two things I
will say.
Any agreement negotiated with Iran, as I think Dave has
suggested, has to have clarification of previous military
activities. I don't know if you can actually verify a current
agreement without knowing the clandestine history of the
program.
Second of all, I will say U.N. Security Council resolutions
should be suspended in the event of a deal and not discarded
because then you have a mechanism that can come online should
there be indication of Iranian violation.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much. And, Mr. McInnis, out of
what has been leaked and/or disclosed about a potential final
deal, what most concerns you?
Mr. McInnis. For me, it is that we are not going to be able
to resolve the PMD issues and that, frankly, that we are not
going to be able to really have an effective metric and
mechanism to monitor the enrichment capacities.
So those and, certainly, the other sidebar issue of whether
this is going to lead into other efforts we may do with them
regarding ISIS, and other things that I fear very much where
the path that we are going down, we are being a little naive
about that.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much and I yield the balance of
my time.
Mr. Poe. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
California, Mr. Lowenthal, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am just trying to
understand kind of where we are now and where we go to follow
up, I guess, on some of the questions raised by Congressman
Sherman.
As I understand, we are not going to have an agreement. We
will probably be talking about an extension after the 24th of
November. I am also hearing that both Iran, for different
reasons, and the United States it would be beneficial to both
to have some kind of agreement for different reasons and that--
and I am wondering, and I thought I heard also that a stalemate
in these negotiations will benefit the United States more than
Iran.
Is that true or not, and why is that so and how long does
that mean, given the existing conditions that we have?
Mr. Takeyh. In terms of extension of an agreement, November
24th is a sort of a self-declared deadline. They actually--
according to the terms of JPOA, they have until January so that
date is in many ways a self-imposed deadline.
I think the Iranian regime, given its predicament, probably
requires an agreement more than 5+1 do simply because they
arouse expectations of the population that they are going to
get financial relief and somehow their economic fortunes are
going to turn, and you really cannot have a normal economy in
Iran in absence of a nuclear agreement because so much of its
economic activities are retarded by international sanctions,
banking regulations and so on.
So we do have that leverage going forward that the Iranian
regime is in a worse position than we are.
Mr. Lowenthal. Do you all agree with that?
Mr. McInnis. I, certainly, would agree with that and I
pointed out in my initial comments that we are in a situation
where we have underestimated, in my opinion, our leverage. And,
as was also pointed out by the chair and the ranking member, we
are actually in a situation of bringing them to the table but
in many ways the effects of these sanctions were not really
allowed to settle.
I mean, we could have gone much further by keeping up these
sanctions at their current pace because the impact that was
happening on their reduction in GDP, their inflation issues,
those are very serious and, again, as I pointed out before, it
wasn't just their current economy.
They have very long-term problems that in some ways have
nothing to do with the sanctions. But they can't solve those
problems without having major infusions of cash and better
access to the international markets.
Mr. Albright. Yes. I guess on a technical level and then on
a sanctions level I am not sure I agree. I mean, I think in the
short run I think we have a tremendous advantage.
But they continue to operate centrifuges. They are learning
to operate them better. They are working on more advanced
centrifuges in places that are outside the purview of the
International Atomic Energy Agency.
The way they have structured their centrifuge R & D program
the IAEA does not know how well they are working even at the
places where they are monitoring.
And so I think they are going to make progress and that is
worrisome in the long run. The other is that, again, I am not a
sanctions expert but I can look and see in the news from places
like Germany the exports to Iran are increasing.
You know, there are things happening. It is just, you know,
people are getting used to it. They are being more relaxed
about it. I mean, we continue at ISIS to see Iran actively
going out to buy things illegally for its nuclear program.
We see in the last couple years that they have actually
become more sophisticated at hiding, particularly, the
connection between the nuclear program in Iran and the trading
companies that go out and get these things and that is
important because you can't chase everything.
So if you had information linking the effort to the nuclear
program then you would apply more resources. So I think that in
the long run I am not so sure, I think, that this plays best
for us.
Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman. The Chair recognizes Mr.
Kinzinger from Illinois for 5 minutes and his questions.
Mr. Kinzinger. Close. Close. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, and thank you all for being here. I will say to the
ranking member and, with a bit of a smile, I get your point
about the collapse of foreign policy.
I wasn't speaking of just Iran. I was more thinking of the
rest of the world and everywhere else. So but let me just say
thank you all for being here.
As I mentioned in my opening statement, with Iraq
specifically, again, and I want to make this mention one more
time, as Mr. Wilson alluded to as well, there are American
soldiers that are not alive today because of the actions of
Iran.
I think that is something that is very important to keep in
mind. Not just direct Iranian involvement, which existed--I
know that first hand as a veteran of the area--but also with
the supplying of materiel and knowledge meant to kill American
soldiers, meant to take their lives away because of their
meddling in the region, which they have been doing everywhere.
We see Iran very vested in propping up Bashar al-Assad in
Syria, investing financial resources in this, by the way. At a
time when supposedly their economy is so bad even in the
interim deal that they are, you know, going to do whatever the
United States wants, they are investing in the existence of
this guy who has brutally murdered 200,000 of his own people--
Bashar al-Assad.
Keep in mind, I know ISIS is a major concern. We are all
united on that. But the existence of Assad is an anathema to
humanity, in my mind, and the way he governs.
I just want to ask the three of you a couple of questions.
First off, what message do you think was sent to Iran in terms
of helping them to come to an agreement that makes sense for us
and for the peaceful world?
What message was sent? You know, what we are seeing today
in Russia, for instance? Iran doesn't just look at the Middle
East. They look at the United States foreign policy all over
the place. The Iraq pullout in 2011 as well as the comments by
the administration about this idea of a pivot away from the
Middle East, which I know and I have heard from the
administration they regret using those words and I understand
that and I appreciate it.
But they were used and that is the perception. So I ask the
three of you if you could talk about kind of those foreign
policy areas where, I think, there has been some difficulty and
talk about what message that has sent to Iran in terms of
motivating them to come to the table with a good deal for us.
Mr. Takeyh. On the issue of the tensions between United
States and the Russian Federation, I think they have become
more obvious and a more tangible impact on the negotiations if
there is a breakdown of some sort of a diplomacy on the P5+1.
I think then you can see the Russians pulling away from the
5+1 consensus as may the Chinese as well in terms of
repatriating Iranian money and so on. So the Russian angle is
not obvious at this point but it can be.
The region itself today is, as you mentioned, Congressman,
is rather disorderly, to say the least, and Iran is an
opportunistic country that is trying to take advantage in
Syria, in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Yemen, and so they do seem to be
engaged in a sort of a cold war with the Saudis that is playing
us off throughout the region.
And as I have mentioned, there is a persistent narrative on
the Iranian leadership that, you know, they do have
opportunities at this point that they have to exploit because
they were not that obvious before.
Mr. Kinzinger. But wouldn't it--it also seems that if we
had Iran, and I think we did a year ago, to the point where
they were in pretty--I mean, we had our boots on their neck,
basically, on these--or before the negotiations started.
But if even in this interim agreement is such that, you
know, their economy is still taking it on the chin, they have
been able to invest a stunning amount of resources in expanding
their influence around the Middle East. It has been amazing.
Mr. Takeyh. There is no question that they are apportioning
whatever money they have in an injudicious way and the welfare
of their population doesn't seem to be their priority on that.
That is true about most revolutionary states and this is one of
them.
Mr. McInnis. I would just add to that point that one of our
major foreign policy failures several years ago was the
underestimation of how far Iran would go to prop up Assad.
I think there was a general consensus here in Washington
and other capitals that Assad's days were numbered, as the
President said. That really underestimated the fact that Syria
is absolutely essential for Iran's foreign policy, for its
ideological objectives, for its religious objectives, that they
cannot--even if they have lots of problems with Assad himself,
they can't lose Syria and I think we have kind of lost the fact
that Iran is not going to be pulling back from its foreign
policies that it has been pursuing since the end of their
revolution.
And, frankly, on the money issue, yeah, the money keeps
flowing but at the same time the amount of money it needs--that
Iran needs to be able to kind of keep up its efforts there in
the region is still--I mean, Iran--as much as Iran's economy is
strained, it still doesn't spend tons of money on military
issues. Its percentage of GDP on defense is, like, under 4
percent.
Mr. Kinzinger. And because my time is up, I just want to
wrap up with saying this. I think if there is an attempt by the
administration to come to this body and even--or not come to
the body but say, we need additional time, I mean, I hope and I
think there would be bipartisan support to not give that
because I can't see what would happen in another 6 months that
we didn't have an opportunity to do in the first year and I,
frankly, think reinstating the sanctions and walking away from
the table and saying fine, you chose your own destiny, is much
more powerful than saying yeah, I know, we didn't have enough
conversations so you need another 6 months. I yield back.
Mr. Poe. The gentleman yields back his time. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Schneider, the gentleman from Illinois.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Takeyh, you mentioned that there are multiple--you
referenced the fact that there are multiple U.N. Security
Council resolutions saying that Iran has effectively zero right
to enrichment.
Yet, Mr. Albright, you talked about, potentially, 4,000
centrifuges. Could all of you touch on, I'm trying to think of
the best way to phrase the question is why, if any, number of
centrifuges are acceptable for a final agreement with Iran?
Mr. Takeyh. I think the U.N. Security Council resolutions
have suggested that Iran has to suspend its activities and come
into compliance and then a deal can be negotiated that may
actually involve some residual enrichment.
One of the assumptions that has guided the United States
across two administrations has been that, if you settle for
limited number of centrifuges and limited enrichment, then
Iranian pride would be satisfied and therefore they would
settle for that permanent symbolic program.
What the Iranians have said persistently, publicly and
privately, is that they are seeking an industrial-size program.
So whatever enrichment capacity they have, they do envision
that capacity to be industrialized, and I would just say that
the comprehensive deal that is being negotiated today in of
itself is also an interim deal of duration.
It will have a sunset clause at some point. Maybe that
sunset clause is 15 years, maybe it is 10 years, and there is
some discrepancy about that. But subsequent to that, Iran is
under no legal stricture to expand its program.
It can, therefore, have an industrial enrichment capability
that is legal, sanctioned and without any hazards of economic
penalties.
Mr. Schneider. Mr. McInnis?
Mr. McInnis. Actually, I yield to Mr. Albright.
Mr. Albright. Yes. If you think of it in terms of breakout
time, which is what drove us to this number and it is a
combination of centrifuges and stocks----
Mr. Schneider. Yes, I have turned in your submitted
testimony to the charts.
Mr. Albright. Okay. Oh, okay. But if they had no
centrifuges at all we would estimate their breakout time is 2
years. So, they know how to do it. They can make them and so
you can't eliminate that and so then the question is how many
can you accept under some kind of criteria like breakout and
verifiability and we ended up that we could live with 4,000.
Now, in terms of their right, I think we're paying a very
heavy price. I mean, I am not a lawyer. I understand--I have
seen Senator Kerry say they have no right to enrich--it is not
in the treaty.
But for us, it is a tough compromise to accept because we
work just as much on North Korea, in theory at least, as Iran.
This is a special time, and that pivot to Asia, while it may be
opposed by those working on the Middle East, those working on
North Korea see a desperate need for more U.S. attention to
stop North Korea's nuclear weapons advancements.
And so, now I know it probably will be impossible to argue
that North Korea give up its centrifuge program because of what
is happening in Iran.
So I think that it is where compromises are being made. We
are accepting them at my organization but they are very
problematic and they are going to cause problems and that means
that, in any deal that is gained, Iran has to be made to pay a
very heavy price for it and there does need to be some kind of
condition at the end so that the program is under special
arrangements that keep it and other countries from being able
to claim that they can just go ahead and build as many
centrifuges as they want.
Mr. Schneider. And--I am sorry. Go ahead, Mr. McInnis.
Mr. McInnis. I would just add one quick comment on that.
One of the things I think we underestimated in why Iran came to
the table last year is because, as Mr. Albright was saying,
they have actually achieved a certain technological capability
that is almost impossible to walk backwards from and so that is
something that, you know, once they had--which they were not
at, say, 6, 7 years ago when there was much more at risk for
them.
So I think they are at a confidence level that allows them
to come to the table because there is only so much we can do to
them.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you. Mr. Albright, to build on your
comment, at zero centrifuges because of their know-how they are
2 years away from a breakout.
At the current 19,000, approximately, IR-1 centrifuges if
they were to operate all of those you estimated a year ago that
the JPOA moved it back from, if I remember correctly, 1.3 to
1.6 months?
Mr. Albright. Yes, there is a difference now for us. It was
from 2 months to 3 months, that was the walk back, still well
within 20 percent.
Mr. Schneider. But still well within a year. My question is
what is an acceptable time frame moving them back from that 3
months to somewhere between 3 months and 2 years that the
international community should be expected to live with if
there is a number?
Mr. Albright. The U.S. position is 1 year. That translates
into, at least in our calculations, about 2,000 IR-1s staying
in place with certain amounts of low-enriched uranium.
So we think 6 months and, again, it is 6 months to the
point where they have enough weapon-grade uranium for a bomb
and we think that is--that is acceptable.
The administration told us many times that they want a
year. They see ours as too short and, you know, if they can get
a year I am all for it.
Mr. Schneider. Just because of limited time I am going to
take back and turn now to the Iraq heavy water reactor. Is
there----
Mr. Poe. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Schneider. I am out of time.
Mr. Poe. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen.
It seems to me that any negotiation deal is predicated on trust
and whether it is regarding Iran's nuclear program or buying a
car that is the minimum requirement.
So with that in mind, as far as I am aware, last month the
IAEA reported that Iran did not provide information about work
it had completed on high explosives for a nuclear bomb and
other possible military dimensions of its nuclear program, even
though it promised to do so back in November 2011.
So we're 3 years in. Can anybody explain what this means? I
mean, to me it is somewhat obvious but maybe I am missing
something.
Sometimes things are counterintuitive. So is there
something I am--you know, if I am trying to build a nuclear
weapon I imagine I want a triggering device and so on and so
forth and I don't want to tell anybody if everybody is mad
about me doing it.
So this seems axiomatic to me. Are we foolish Americans
missing something?
Mr. Albright. No, I don't think so. No, I think it is one
of the reasons why I don't think there should be a deal until
Iran has demonstrated some concrete progress on addressing the
inspectors' issues and that dealing with the high explosives
was one of the test cases.
They promised to do it I forget when. Was it back in May, I
think? And they didn't and then they told the IAEA, in my mind
making it even worse, that we don't even want to have another
meeting until after November 24th.
So I think it is a very troubling development and I think
what Iran is trying to do is seeing if they can get away with
it. There are also many people who are saying the past doesn't
matter and that why do we bother with this.
So I think it is very important that Congress have a very
strong voice in saying that it does matter and I know all my
experience in inspections and working on verification is the
past does matter and the warning for that should be what
happened in Iraq in 1991 when the IAEA and others did not worry
about the past and only focused on the present and the future.
It turned out they had a very large nuclear weapons program
that had been missed by the inspectors.
So I think the IAEA learned from that and they want to know
the past.
Mr. Perry. Well, why wouldn't the past matter in this
context? I mean, what other measure of trust would you have? If
you just met somebody--Country A met Country B for the first
time--you establish a certain level--a base level of
trustworthiness because you have to start somewhere.
But in this context----
Mr. Albright. Well, you can't build it on trust. That is
why they have the rules we want to know the past.
Mr. Perry. Right.
Mr. Albright. I mean, you can't build it on trust. Maybe
you can--later you can have trust----
Mr. Perry. But aren't our--but aren't our actions
currently--don't they portend that they are built on trust?
Mr. Albright. No, I--no, I don't think so. No, I don't----
Mr. Perry. Are our actions?
Mr. Albright. In terms of there is--in the negotiations I
think there has been quite a rapport built up between U.S.
negotiators and the Iranians but I don't think the U.S. actions
are based on trust.
Mr. Kinzinger raised an important point. I had the
privilege of listening to some of the investigators who tracked
back not only the IEDs but it was the purchase of key
electronic components for those IEDs in the United States and
they were able to identify the Iranians, particularly one
Iranian in Tehran, who was at the center of this network.
So I think all of them understand that we are dealing with
a regime we cannot trust.
Mr. Perry. That is exactly my point, but yet we are moving
forward as if we should trust them when they have given us
nothing to be trustworthy about.
Mr. Albright. Well, I think the United States has to remain
firm. I mean, I think they have conditions, they were laid out
and that they should remain firm in achieving those conditions
and not very much from the--I don't want to call them red lines
because they tend not to use those terms but they are core--
they are core requirements for a successful deal.
Mr. Perry. Does a nuclear explosive device that--the
triggering that you discussed in May, is there any other
application for said device other than----
Mr. Albright. There are always other applications, and Iran
is seeking those. That is how it tries to answer this; it comes
up with some civil use.
Mr. Perry. Give us some examples, if you have them.
Mr. Albright. Well, with the exploding bridge wires--the
IAEA evidence combined on those, combined with other
information is pretty clear that it was to detonate a nuclear
explosive.
Iran has tried to argue no, no, it is just for other
military purposes. They have tried to even concoct, I believe,
some civil purposes.
You can always do that and in fact the approach Iran has
taken and it could be an effective one, is to give nothing
away. They deny they ever had a nuclear weapons program.
They deny the IAEA access to all information that could
confirm what they are suspecting or alleging. They deny them
access to facilities where they could get information and they
deny them access to people.
In a sense, what Iran learned is the best lie is the total
lie. So if you are going to have a front have a complete front
and don't give at all. That is what, I think, Iran cannot get
away with if there is going to be a deal.
Mr. Perry. Okay. So----
Mr. Poe. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Poe. Gentleman's time has expired. I thank the
gentleman. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California,
Mr. Vargas, 5 minutes.
Mr. Vargas. And thank you, Judge Poe, and again, thank you
for holding this hearing and the people who are here today
testifying. I am--I think that they have denied everything and
I actually never agreed to the interim agreement.
I thought it was a mistake. I continue to think it is a
mistake. I think that we were naive going into this entire
process. I believed that the sanctions were working.
I voted to screw down even harder sanctions and I think
that that is the way we should have gone. We should have made
them make that decision, do you want your nuclear program or do
you want an economy--do you want a society.
Unfortunately, we didn't go down that route and here we
are, and I don't believe we are going to get an agreement. I
remember thinking that once we got to the end of that interim
agreement that in fact it was going to be extended.
People said no, we will get to that agreement. Well, we are
about to reach the extension and say well, we are going to--we
are going to extend it again, and it is exactly, I think, what
many of us believed.
And during the whole time they haven't stopped. They
haven't gotten rid of their centrifuges. In fact, I will ask
you about that. Do they still have their centrifuges? Can they
still enrich? They haven't gotten rid of a single one of them,
have they?
Mr. Takeyh. They have committed to--David can speak about
this--essentially transform the enriched uranium into a
chemical compound that is less accessible in terms of
oxidization.
Mr. Vargas. Right. But the centrifuges themselves--have
they committed to getting rid of them? Have they gotten rid of
any?
Mr. Takeyh. The parameters of the Joint Plan of Action they
were not required to so. Yes.
Mr. Vargas. That is right, and I think it has been a
terrible mistake. The other thing, though, I want to--because I
don't have much time, I do want to focus on the sunset because
I think that is even more dangerous.
Do you remember when the revolution started there? 1979.
How many years is that? Thirty-five years. Now, they want a 5-
year deal. We are looking at maybe a 10- or 15- or 20-year
deal, and after that they are treated the same as Japan or
Germany or any of these other countries.
They get to walk out from underneath these sanctions and
all these other restrictions. I mean, how can that possibly be
the case?
Mr. Takeyh. My guess would be that if there is a
comprehensive plan of action negotiated it will be an
extraordinary complicated document which will have stages and
there will not be a single sunset clause but sunset clauses.
So some capabilities come online after 2 years, some after
three, some after five and I think that is how they are going
to pursue and at some end point and then the program will be
unhinged from any kind of internationally mandated
restrictions.
Mr. Vargas. Would anyone else like to comment? I haven't
heard that process until right now.
Mr. Albright. Yes. Yes. I don't know the details. I mean,
originally, and I heard this currently from administration
officials, is they were really thinking on order of 30 years, a
full generation, and that in that time they would expect Iran
to have changed at least on the nuclear----
Mr. Vargas. As they have in the last 35 years?
Mr. Albright. Well, I am explaining on the nuclear issue.
They weren't expecting them to change on the regime necessarily
but on the nuclear program the people would have aged.
We saw this in the Iraqi nuclear program. I mean, the
people--the nuclear experts in 2003, when I met some of them
after the fall of Baghdad, were not of the caliber they had
been in 1999 and 2000 when they--when they were actively
engaged in their centrifuge program and in 2003 there were
fewer of them.
So I think they are counting on a whole generation to have
an impact. Now, the trouble is they have walked back from that
30 years and we are now hearing of 10 years, 15 years. So there
will have to be some criteria on the--at the end of the deal.
It can't just be some, you know, it is tough and then
suddenly it disappears. So there is going to have to be----
Mr. Vargas. Doctor, did you have a comment on that? It
seemed like you wanted to comment.
Mr. Takeyh. Well, no. I just think that, you know, given
the fact that this--I mean, I don't know the details of
negotiations but given the fact that any agreement will unfold
in stages, presumably at every stage Iranian nuclear capacity
enlarges after the initial agreement that puts some curbs and
perhaps some restrictions on it, and then the trajectory is
that it will get to--it will get to a point where it is without
restriction and then the decision to have an industrial-size
program will be a national decision--the Iranian Government's
decision and they take into account all the factors that go
into that.
Mr. Vargas. Well, I just have 20 seconds left. I guess I
would say I think we are going down the wrong path. I have
always believed that. I hope we get back to the sanctions and I
think that they have stalled.
They have stalled magnificently. We have been caught up in
it. We have been naive and we continue to be naive. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman from California. The Chair
will recognize the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Cotton, for his
5 minutes.
Mr. Cotton. Thank you, and first, to save my time, I will
associate myself with all the comments Mr. Vargas just made
about the folly of pursuing this course from the outset. But
here we are.
I have heard it said that any attack on a nuclear weapons
system could only set back a country by 5 years because a
country starting from scratch could develop nuclear weapons in
5 years with the right technical expertise.
Is that a correct estimate, in your opinions? Let me start
with Mr. Albright and go down the----
Mr. Albright. I think it is hard to know. I mean, in the
case of the Iraq bombing in 1981, I mean, it may have
accelerated the program. I mean, it was limping along quietly,
a small program around a safeguarded reactor and after that
bombing it took off.
And the issue, though, I think is--it is not--is to--if any
military strategy is going to be proposed, I mean, I and my
organization are opposed to those. I mean, we see it as a
failure of policy.
But if anything like that was proposed, you can't go in
with just one strike. I mean, you have to be able to go back.
You have to ensure that any military strategy is constructed so
that Iran doesn't rebuild--that it understands that to rebuild
is to suffer even worse consequences.
And so that has to be more of the guiding philosophy than
thinking that one strike could do much of anything.
Mr. Cotton. Mr. McInnis?
Mr. McInnis. What I would add, and certainly, this was, you
know, something that is involved in the U.S. Central Command
and other parts of the government. I think that there is, in
agreement with Dr. Albright, a general understanding that you
have to take, to use an Israeli expression here, mowing the
lawn with this type of approach--that there is no way to really
walk this all the way back more than a few years. I think this
was, again, one of the reasons why, again, Iran was willing to
come to the table at this stage because they had gotten this
far and they don't have to go backwards or at least they could
never be pushed back far enough that they couldn't recuperate.
And I think that there is another, you know, issue here that,
you know, that the Iranians are looking, you know, frankly, at.
A potential loss of a deal, if nothing comes through in
November or beyond, the prospects for a military option could
be back on the table either with Israel or the U.S.
I have been, you know, in watching the Iranians talk over
the last few months, you know, they have been going through
some additional interesting cycles of being spooked by the
Israelis and beginning in August of this year and I do think
that even though I think the drop in oil prices has been a
particular pressure on them this fall to make them a little bit
more eager and desperate for a deal I think behind the scenes
the thought that the military option may be back on the table
is affecting their calculus to some degree.
Mr. Cotton. Dr. Takeyh?
Mr. Takeyh. I agree with those statements.
Mr. Cotton. Okay. And thinking about negotiations it is
always important to think about the ultimate motives or goals
of your negotiating partner or adversary, as the case may be.
Thucydides said peoples go to war because of fear, interest
and honor. Why do you think Iran has been pursuing a nuclear
weapon for so long? Start with Dr. Takeyh and go down the other
way.
Mr. Takeyh. I do think they have a nuclear weapons program
because they think that having achieved that capability, and I
do think when they get to the point of threshold they will
cross. I don't think they will have this sort of a murky hedge
options.
It, first of all, provides them a deterrent capability and
that deterrent capability gives you an ability to project
power. So there is a seamless connection between projection of
power and deterrence.
Mr. Cotton. Primarily against the United States and Israel?
Mr. Takeyh. Primarily but not exclusively. So in that
particular sense, also when Iran looks at the Persian Gulf the
conventional balance of power tends to be--to its disfavor,
given the level of Saudi armament and so on. So a combination
of nuclear capability, unconventional capability married to a
significant missile fleet kind of negates that.
Mr. McInnis. Yes. I would just add that, you know,
certainly coming out of the Iran-Iraq war we knew back in the
1980s there was, you know, a real kind of prohibition, I think,
in thinking about a nuclear program because the shah had
pursued one.
But I think that watching what happened after the Iran-Iraq
war and seeing how existential some of their crises they are
facing that they would need some type of capacity to basically
make us back off or make Iraq back off or, you know, or Israel
or anyone else.
I mean, they look at what happened with Libya. They look at
North Korea and those situations and I think they continue to
take it to heart that they need something to make us never ever
think about invading.
Mr. Takeyh. If there is time I would like to have a slight
disagreement with Bill but if there is not that is fine.
Mr. Cotton. It is the hands of the judge.
Mr. Poe. Well, the gentleman's time has expired. Mr.
Albright, you can put your answer in writing and so can you,
Dr. Takeyh. The Chair will recognize the gentleman from Texas,
Mr. Castro, 5 minutes.
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for
your testimony this afternoon. I came in a little bit late so I
apologize if I am retreading over ground that was covered.
But do any of you recommend an extension for the bargaining
period--the negotiations period?
Mr. Takeyh. I think November, as I mentioned, the 24th
deadline is an artificial one and the administration does
really have until January according to the terms of the Joint
Plan of Action. So they don't really require an extension up to
that point.
Mr. Castro. Okay.
Mr. McInnis. Certainly, if it actually gets us a better
deal and allows some of the additional pressures to take hold,
yes, I would support an extension.
Mr. Albright. Yes. I would accept an extension. I would
add, though, that it needs to be negotiated carefully because I
think the current interim deal is fraying and there are
problems and that those have to be addressed and so that it
can't just be some simple rubber stamp extension.
Mr. Castro. So it sounds like the panel here is open to an
extension. But let us imagine that everything falls apart and
there is no agreement. What happens then?
Mr. Albright. Well, I think--I hope and I am not
encouraged, but I would hope the administration had worked up a
plan of action. I mean, that is what one would expect is----
Mr. Castro. A plan of action on sanctions, for example?
Mr. Albright. Well, that would include sanctions. I mean,
you have to manage the escalation. Iran, in reaction to the
Kirk-Menendez bill, they sent out a signal that if that bill is
passed or they called it sanctions imposed that they would then
start making 60 percent enriched uranium which, if you do the
calculations, is awfully close to weapon grade.
Mr. Castro. I guess let me ask you what additional
sanctions----
Mr. Albright. You want to manage the escalation.
Mr. Castro. Sure, and what additional sanctions would you
all impose that we aren't already doing? What are the
additional sanctions you would impose?
Mr. Albright. Well, I think Congressman Sherman had a few
ideas----
Mr. Castro. Sure. Sure. Sure.
Mr. Albright [continuing]. That I think there is lots of
room for imposing sanctions. I think the----
Mr. Castro. But what specifically are the additional
sanctions you would impose?
Mr. Albright. Well, you could impose driving down the oil
exports of Iran further. You could take steps to discourage any
foreign companies selling to Iran. I mean, I think there is----
Mr. Castro. But aren't we--I mean, aren't we applying a lot
of that pressure now? Are sanctions doing a lot of that now?
Mr. Albright. No. No. There is a lot of pressure to do--
there are things happening. I think another area that would be
fruitfully explored is additional financial sanctions.
Not all banks are sanctioned in Iran. They have some
connections to the international financial system. So I think
that you could--you could explore that. I think those tend to
be the most effective.
But, again, I think it--you don't want to have a wildly
escalating situation.
Mr. Castro. Sure. Well, and let me ask you----
Mr. Albright. Iran already knows how to make nuclear
weapons.
Mr. Castro. Let us imagine that Iran become more isolated
and the sanctions are not enough. Do you support military
action against Iran?
Mr. Albright. No, I do not.
Mr. McInnis. Only in the most extreme circumstances where
we have a clear indication that they are actually breaking out
and pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Mr. Castro. What would that extreme circumstance look like
exactly?
Mr. McInnis. Well, it would be us detecting they actually
have decided to pursue this. I think this is something that I
would be very hesitant to take, given some of the implications
from--it is the same reason why the Israelis have held back on
the trigger for so long.
Mr. Takeyh. And just in terms of, briefly, on the
sanctions, under the previous legislation Iran, which has about
five or six purchasers of oil, had to decline their oil
purchases by 5 percent every several months to conform with
those sanctions and not be subject to secondary measures by the
United States.
Under the Joint Plan of Action, those have been suspended
so the reenactment of those, I think, could affect markets.
Now, whether the Chinese are going to comply to them or not I
am--it is going to be difficult. As of when--I can't make that
decision, Congressman, when to use military force.
I just cannot at this point have the necessary information
to think about that particular issue. I think it is one of the
most serious considerations that an American President has to
make and he has to take into consideration a great many things
before making that decision--the scope, pace of the program,
the ramifications of that attack.
There is one thing and only one thing that Hitler knew and
that was war--he used to say war is like stepping into a dark
room--you could step on something toxic or nothing at all, but
you never know until you walk in.
So you are essentially suggesting when do you walk into the
dark room.
Mr. Castro. How much time do I have, Chair? How am I doing?
Mr. Poe. Twenty seconds.
Mr. Castro. All right. I yield back.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman. I will say this to the
gentleman from Arkansas who wanted to continue to ask
questions, congratulations on your election and you will find
that in the Senate they have no time limits on anything.
So you will be able to pontificate and ask questions
indefinitely.
Mr. Cotton. I am going to have to learn to be much more
long winded then.
Mr. Poe. I want to thank all the gentlemen for being here.
The information has been excellent. And this subcommittee is
adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 3:31 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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