[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
WHITE HOUSE NARRATIVES ON THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 17, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-77
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman
JOHN L. MICA, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
JIM JORDAN, Ohio ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
TIM WALBERG, Michigan Columbia
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee JIM COOPER, Tennessee
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TED LIEU, California
MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
KEN BUCK, Colorado STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands
MARK WALKER, North Carolina MARK DeSAULNIER, California
ROD BLUM, Iowa BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
JODY B. HICE, Georgia PETER WELCH, Vermont
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
WILL HURD, Texas
GARY J. PALMER, Alabama
Jennifer Hemingway, Staff Director
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
Art Arthur, Subcommittee Staff Director
William Marx, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 17, 2016..................................... 1
WITNESSES
Mr. Michael Rubin, Resident Scholar, The American Enterprise
Institute
Oral Statement............................................... 6
Written Statement............................................ 9
Mr. Michael Doran, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Oral Statement............................................... 19
Written Statement............................................ 22
Mr. John Hannah, Senior Counselor, Foundation for Defense of
Democracies
Oral Statement............................................... 31
Written Statement............................................ 33
APPENDIX
Article from the New York Times Magazine, by David Samuels,
Published on May 5, 2016 Titled, ``The Aspiring Novelist Who
Became Obama's Foreign-Policy Guru''........................... 78
A May 16, 2016 letter from W. Neil Eggleston, Counsel to the
President, to Jason Chaffetz, Chairman of the House Committee
on Oversight and Government Reform............................. 106
A May 16, 2016 letter from Senator John Cornyn (TX), Senator Mark
Kirk (IL), and Senator John Barrasso (WY), to President Barack
Obama.......................................................... 108
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report by the
Director General Titled, ``Verification and Monitoring in the
Islamic Republic of Iran in Light of United Nations Security
Council Resolution 2231 (2015)'' dated January 16, 2016,
Submitted by Representative Stephen F. Lynch (MA).............. 110
Written Statement for the Record from Representative John J.
Duncan, Jr (TN)................................................ 115
WHITE HOUSE NARRATIVES ON THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
----------
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in Room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Mica, Turner, Duncan,
Jordan, Walberg, Amash, Gosar, Gowdy, Farenthold, Massie,
Meadows, DeSantis, Mulvaney, Buck, Walker, Blum, Hice, Russell,
Carter, Grothman, Palmer, Cummings, Maloney, Norton, Clay,
Lynch, Connolly, Cartwright, Lawrence, DeSaulnier, Welch, and
Lujan Grisham.
Chairman Chaffetz. Good morning. The Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform will come to order.
Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
recess at any time.
Today's hearing is entitled ``The White House Narratives on
the Iran Nuclear Deal.'' I think this is important that we take
this up and deal with this situation.
As we get going, there are three items I would ask
unanimous consent to enter into the record. The first is the
New York Times Magazine article ``The aspiring novelist who
became Obama's foreign policy guru.''
The second is a letter from the White House of May 16. This
is a letter addressed to me, copied to the ranking member, Mr.
Cummings, and it is from Neil Eggleston talking about how the
White House would not make Ben Rhodes available to the
committee today.
And I would also like to enter into the record a May 16
letter. This is from Senator Cornyn, Senator Mark Kirk, and
Senator John Barrasso.
And without objection, I would like to enter these three
into the record. Without objection, so ordered.
Chairman Chaffetz. Iran, it is one of three countries that
are still on the state-sponsors of terrorism, and I think it is
important that we have some clarity. There are some issues that
are outstanding. It is one of the most important foreign policy
initiatives that the President has taken forward, but I still
think it demands a lot of clarity.
We were hoping that the clarity would be provided by
Benjamin Rhodes. He is the assistant to the President and
deputy national security advisor for strategic communications
and speechwriting. He is obviously a very talented and trusted
person in the White House. I do not doubt his talents and his
knowledge. But the deal that had been spun up and sold to the
American people I am not sure was as clear as it should have
been, and I have serious questions about the transparency, the
truthfulness, and when it really ultimately started.
And I think those are legitimate questions as we move
forward because here you have a state sponsor of terrorism in
Iran and we still don't fully know the answer to a lot of these
questions. Now, some may think they know the answers to all
these questions, but there is still a shroud of secrecy, and I
think this is a very viable thing to look at. Mr. Rhodes was in
a unique position to offer this perspective, given his heavy
duty and work on this.
What is mystifying to me is how readily available he made
himself to the media, but only select media, those in his echo
chamber. He showed obviously disdain for people with foreign
policy credentials. He showed great disdain for the media
themselves. He is entitled to those personal opinions, but he
also elected to share those with the New York Times and put
them out there. He is also very negative about Congress going
so far as to saying could not have a rational discussion--I am
summarizing here--with the Congress. So we provided that.
Josh Earnest from the podium there at the White House
openly mocked Congress, said that perhaps we should be calling
other members up such as Senator Tom Cotton, who should also
raise their right hand and swear and affirm and answer
questions.
I took that suggestion, shared it with Senator Cotton. We
accommodated that. Mr. Cotton, Senator Cotton had agreed, if
Mr. Rhodes would be here, to also be here to answer questions
and ferret out any of these details. But Mr. Rhodes elected not
to speak. Now, he does have a public speaking engagement today.
He is out giving a public speech today but refuses to come and
speak with Congress.
I am going to play a clip. I have got two clips in my
opening statement. And I think you can see where maybe some on
the other side of the aisle will say, oh, we know everything
about this, it has been thoroughly debated, but I want you to
watch this clip. We are going to go to what we call clip B if
we could, and let's watch this.
[Video shown.]
Chairman Chaffetz. So as you can see there, Victoria Nuland
offered what turned out to be absolutely and totally not true.
Ms. Psaki, I think, was more candid in that assessment. And
then you have this article comes out and basically the
administration thought it was in their best interest to spin up
the story that negotiations started with a more moderate regime
in 2013, but that is not what had happened. That was fiction as
well.
I also want to talk about 24 by 7 access. I think the
American people were led to believe that Americans with the
best interest would have access and be able to see and get in
there and go into these nuclear facilities 24/7. So I want to
play another clip. This is clip number E or letter E.
[Video shown.]
Chairman Chaffetz. Thanks. You can take that down.
So, first of all, as somebody pointed out on our committee,
I think Mr. Palmer pointed out I don't think Mr. Kerry was the
chief negotiator, but that is another point. But the second
part of it is, is there 24 by 7 access? Can you access
anything, anywhere, any time? Spinning quite a different story
as we go along.
We have also heard a lot of numbers related to sanctions
relief and dealing with escrowed oil funds. President Obama was
quoted in an Atlantic article talking about $150 billion that
would be going back to Iran. The Iranians say they have access
to $100 billion. The Treasury Department says it is $50
billion. Secretary Kerry said they have only had access to $3
billion, and then blamed Treasury, talking about a lot of money
going to a state sponsor of terrorism.
There are also questions about ballistic missiles. In
December 2015 he said there was a violation of the United
Nations Resolution 2231 in testimony by the Iran Deal
coordinator, Ambassador Mull. But in March of 2016 you have the
United States Ambassador Power to the United Nations who toned
it down a little bit. Now, they are calling it just an
``inconsistent with'' is their quote, as opposed to a violation
of the United Nations resolution.
Then you also have issues about boosting Iran's economy.
Secretary Kerry is currently on tour in Europe. The State
Department suggests that we are obligated, we are obligated,
the United States of American is obligated to boost the Iranian
economy, again, something we need to understand. We don't
understand the side deals. There are still sanctions of
terrorism on Iran. We want to understand that.
And then there are questions about everything that has
actually been agreed to not just in writing but the side deals
and any other verbal commitments that were also made.
I would also note to our colleagues that the chairman of
Armed Services, Mr. Thornberry, has a very important amendment
I think we should all consider and look at that will be part of
the NDAA issue as we move forward.
Again, there are a lot of outstanding questions. We wanted
to get the person who is right in the thick of things from the
White House to come here and testify. The White House on
Thursday claimed that this wasn't about executive privilege,
and then less than 24 hours before this hearing, they reversed
course and said, oh, it is about executive privilege. Now, who
is being inconsistent? Who is being inconsistent?
You have plenty of time, Mr. Rhodes, to go out and talk to
all the media friends and talk to the echo chamber that you
brag about in the New York Times, but when it comes time to
actually answer hard questions under oath did you decide not to
do it.
Chairman Chaffetz. My time has far exceeded what we had
allocated. We will now recognize the ranking member, Mr.
Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I
thank all our witnesses for being here today.
Mr. Chairman, sitting here today, I am surprised and--I
mean, very surprised and shocked that you would invite John
Hannah to testify before our committee as an expert witness,
particularly on the subject of false White House narratives.
Mr. Hannah was Vice President Dick Cheney's top national
security advisor in the White House. He personally, personally
helped prepare Secretary of State Colin Powell's infamous
speech to the United Nations in the run-up to the Iraq War, a
speech that Secretary Powell has called a permanent blot on his
record.
Mr. Hannah was identified by the Iraqi National Congress as
``principal point of contact'' in the Vice President's office.
The INC was an organization that supplied our nation with
reams, with reams of false information about weapons of mass
destruction.
Mr. Hannah worked directly for Scooter Libby who was
convicted after the Bush administration leaked the identity of
a covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. Her husband, Ambassador Joe
Wilson, had publicly debunked the administration's false claims
about the Iraqi nuclear program.
This was the same Scooter Libby who told the FBI that it
was ``possible'' that Vice President Cheney actually directed
him to leak information about Ms. Plame's covert status. That
is Mr. Hannah.
Now, I don't know Mr. Hannah and I don't believe I have
ever met him before today, but based on the public record
alone, let me say this. If our goal is to hear from an expert
who actually promoted false, false White House narratives, then
I think you picked the right person. But if our goal is to hear
from someone who was not involved in one of the biggest
misrepresentations in our nation's history, then you picked the
wrong person.
Listening to John Hannah criticize anyone else for pushing
a false White House narrative is beyond ironic. He and Dick
Cheney and their colleagues in the White House wrote the how-to
manual on this. The profound tragedy here is that thousands,
thousands of U.S. service members from our districts were
killed in Iraq and thousands more sustained terrible injuries.
The American taxpayers have now spent hundreds of billions,
billions of dollars even by the most conservative estimates.
Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, you rushed to invite Mr.
Hannah without consulting anyone. In fact, this entire panel
has been stacked with hand-picked witnesses who all oppose the
Iran agreement. You did not invite prominent Republicans like
Brent Scowcroft or Richard Lugar. You did not invite any of the
dozens of generals or admirals or other military experts who
support this agreement.
Other committees have held dozens of substantive hearings
on the Iran agreement, but do you know how many this committee
has held? Zero. The Subcommittee on National Security held one
last November, but that was it, nothing at the committee level.
Yet all of a sudden now our committee is rushing to hold
today's hearing without even the one-week notice required by
the House rules according to the parliamentarian.
These experts here are all repeating the same talking
points for the same Republican political narrative. This
committee has basically created its own Republican echo
chamber.
With respect to Ben Rhodes, I am struggling to understand
the allegations against him. If I understand it correctly,
Republicans accuse him of misleading the American people by
claiming that nothing happened with Iran before 2013 when they
elected a so-called moderate president. Republicans claim that
if the Americans just knew the president was working towards an
agreement before 2013, they would have rejected the deal.
Of course, this is absurd. There are dozens of public press
reports from every single year of the Obama administration
documenting how they were working to reach out to Iran with
varying degrees of success. All you have to do is Google it.
From the time President Barack Obama was a candidate for
President until today, press reports are full of accounts of
how letters were being exchanged, meetings were being held, and
negotiations were being launched.
The Republicans rushed to hold this hearing not as a way to
obtain substantive information about the merits of the Iran
agreement or even to investigate a legitimate allegation.
Instead, this hearing is exactly what it purports to condemn, a
partisan narrative designed to mislead the American people.
That is not just ironic, that is hypocritical.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back, and I thank the
witnesses again for being here.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
The prime witness that we had invited, Mr. Rhodes from the
White House, declined to come before the committee. We are
disappointed in his failure to appear.
The chair also notes that contingent upon Mr. Rhodes
appearing, an invitation to appear was extended to the
Honorable Tom Cotton, United States Senator from the State of
Arkansas. This was done at a request of the White House. Given
that Mr. Rhodes had refused to appear before the committee
today, the distinguished Senator from Arkansas is also excused.
Mr. Gowdy. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Chaffetz. Yes, the gentleman from South Carolina.
Mr. Gowdy. I have an inquiry.
Chairman Chaffetz. Yes.
Mr. Gowdy. Is Mr. Hannah here?
Chairman Chaffetz. Yes.
Mr. Gowdy. Well, then why did Mr. Cummings ask him the
questions? He will have a chance to ask Mr. Hannah whatever
questions he wants to ask him. We don't have a chance to ask
Mr. Rhodes the questions we want to ask because he didn't
bother to show up ----
Mr. Cummings. Will the chairman yield?
Mr. Gowdy.--but Mr. Hannah did.
Mr. Cummings. Will the chairman yield?
Chairman Chaffetz. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. I can say whatever I want to say in my
opening statement.
Mr. Gowdy. Yes, you can. It just needs to be fair.
Mr. Cummings. And I can ----
Mr. Gowdy. That is my point.
Mr. Cummings. Well ----
Mr. Gowdy. Just be fair about it. You can say what you
want.
Chairman Chaffetz. Gentleman will state his inquiry.
Mr. Gowdy. I just wanted to know if he was here.
Mr. Cummings. He is here.
Mr. Gowdy. And you tell me he is.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Gowdy. Okay.
Chairman Chaffetz. And Mr. Rhodes is not here.
I would also note that the Democrats were free and usually
almost always in my experience invite a Democratic witness, but
there is no Democratic witness today because you didn't invite
one.
Mr. Cummings. Will the gentleman yield?
Chairman Chaffetz. Sure.
Mr. Cummings. Chairman, you know for a fact that we got
less than the notice that is required in the rules and did not
object and went on with the hearing. You know that.
Chairman Chaffetz. I disagree ----
Mr. Cummings. All right.
Chairman Chaffetz.--with the timing issue that you suggest.
Mr. Cummings. You gave us the required time?
Chairman Chaffetz. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. I disagree with you.
Chairman Chaffetz. Okay. We will sort that out. We have a
good working relationship, Mr. Cummings and I, but ----
Mr. Gowdy. Parliamentary inquiry.
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman from South Carolina.
Mr. Gowdy. Does the executive privilege apply to media
interviews or only to appearances before Congress?
Chairman Chaffetz. I don't know the full answer to that,
but I believe they are free to talk to whoever they want to in
the media, but they did claim in Mr. Eggleston's letter to
claim executive privilege.
Mr. Gowdy. So is that a yes or a no? Does it apply when you
are being interviewed by the New York Times or ABC or CBS or
just when Members of Congress just want to ask questions?
Chairman Chaffetz. Evidently just when Members of Congress.
Mr. Gowdy. I thank the chairman for that clarification.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. We are going to continue with
the hearing. We do have Mr. Michael Rubin. He is the resident
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; Mr. Michael
Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute; and Mr. John
Hannah, senior counselor at the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies. We welcome you all and thank you for being here.
Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses are to be sworn
before they testify. And if you will please rise and raise your
right hand.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. Let the record reflect that
all witnesses answered in the affirmative.
We would appreciate you limiting your verbal comments to 5
minutes. It will give us time to ask you questions. And your
entire written statement will be entered into the record.
I now recognize Mr. Rubin for his opening statement.
WITNESS STATEMENTS
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL RUBIN
Mr. Rubin. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings,
honorable members, thank you for the opportunity to testify
here today.
The major Iran-related issues about which the White House
misled when selling the Iran deal were verification. The JCPOA
loosened the standard set in South Africa and Libya. It
embraced Iran's voluntary compliance with the additional
protocol when previously Rouhani had bragged that voluntary
compliance allows Iran to reverse course at any time.
It also ignores the problem of offsite research. Have
Iranians transferred some nuclear work to labs in North Korea?
Under the JCPOA, we will never know.
Another issue in which it misled was Rouhani as a moderate.
Rouhani is no moderate. Loyalty to Khomeini's vision was a
major theme of his campaign commercials. He stuffed his cabinet
with veterans of the Intelligence in effect constructing not a
reformist cabinet but a KGB cabinet. In 2005 he laid out a
doctrine of surprise. Lull the Americans into complacency with
dialogue and then deliver a knockout blow. Just last week, he
offered full-throated endorsement to the legacy of Qods Force
Chief Qassem Soleimani, Iran's master terrorist.
It also misled about who benefits inside Iran. The real
tragedy of the deal is it pumps money into the coffers of the
Revolutionary Guard. History belies the idea that showering
Iran with trade moderates the country or trickles down to
ordinary people. Between 1998 and 2005, the European Union
almost tripled its trade with Iran and the price of oil
quintupled. Iran took its hard currency windfall and invested
in its ballistic missile program and its covert nuclear
enrichment facilities.
Reformist President Khatami's spokesman bragged about how
he had defeated the West. We had an overt policy, which was one
of negotiation and confidence-building he said, and a covert
policy, which was continuation of the activities. The person in
charge of directing the money into the military, Rouhani in his
capacity as chairman of the National Security Council.
The problem goes beyond the supreme leader's investment
arm. The economic wing of IRGC controls perhaps 40 percent of
the economy, including every sector now open for business.
Many of those who supported the JCPOA acknowledge it to be
a flawed and faulty agreement but argued the alternative was
war. This may have been crafty politics, but it undermined the
U.S. position. By creating a binary choice between the JCPOA
and war, Rhodes removed credibility to the notion that the
Obama administration envisioned the best alternative to
negotiated agreement. This played into Iranian hands because
they knew no matter what they pushed for, Kerry would concede.
The problem now is that what Rhodes did has become the rule
rather than the exception. In my written testimony I detail the
long history of diplomats and politicians lying to keep
diplomacy alive. Too often they blame political opponents in
the United States more than foreign adversaries for the failure
at diplomacy.
As I document in Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of
Engaging Rogue Regimes, a history of the last half-century of
U.S. diplomacy with rogue regimes and terrorist groups, as
diplomats proceed with high-level engagement, they too often
calibrate it to the fantasy they have constructed rather than
reality.
This often leads officials to avoid congressional oversight
and, on occasion, to lie to Congress. During the 1990s, senior
State Department officials testified that they could draw no
direct links between Yasser Arafat and terrorism to avoid
triggering an aid cutoff. Declassified documents show Clinton's
peace team knew their testimony was false.
Likewise, in 2007 during the Bush administration,
Christopher Hill, the State Department's point man on North
Korean issues, presented to Congress an artificially rosy
picture of the diplomatic process with North Korea in order to
keep support for engagement alive, no matter the truth of
Pyongyang's behavior.
More recently, diplomats advocating the New START treaty
lied, both directly and by omission, to Congress in order to
avoid reporting that Russia had been cheating on arms control
accords.
So what to do? Rhodes has placed the security of the United
States and its allies at risk. Certainly, any dissemination of
falsehoods to Congress and the American people merit a broader
investigation. National security and Congress' credibility are
at risk. That is not enough. In the past six decades, the U.S.
State Department has failed to conduct lessons-learned
exercises as to why its high-profile diplomacy with rogue
regimes has seldom, if ever, succeeded.
Conducting a broader review is not to criminalize policy
debate; that would be poisonous and counterproductive. But if
the State Department refuses due diligence, it would be
beneficial if Congress would examine diplomacy leading up to
the JCPOA if only to ensure that the same mistakes are not made
for a seventh time. There should be bipartisan consensus. Even
supporters of the deal acknowledge serious concerns about its
flaws, so, too, do most serious arms control and
counterproliferation experts outside of the echo chamber about
whose crafting Rhodes bragged.
One final point if I may, I'm concerned that perhaps by
creating an echo chamber and solely talking to people within
it, in effect what Rhodes did was create a propaganda operation
in which he entrapped none other than Secretary of State John
Kerry. Did Secretary of State Kerry talk to people outside the
echo chamber? If not, he's a victim of Ben Rhodes as well.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Rubin follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
I will now go to Mr. Doran of the Hudson Institute. You are
now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL DORAN
Mr. Doran. Chairman Chaffetz ----
Chairman Chaffetz. Sorry, microphone there, please.
Mr. Doran. Thanks. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member
Cummings, members of the committee ----
Chairman Chaffetz. Sorry, if you can move that microphone
right up close and comfortable. There you go. Thank you.
Mr. Doran. Thank you for inviting me to address some of the
problems raised by the recent profile New York Times Magazine
of Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security advisor for
strategic communications. Mr. Rhodes admitted to the New York
Times that he created a war room of some two dozen detailees
from around the executive branch who came to the White House
and monitored all communications--all public communications
about the Iran deal, communications coming out of the--Capitol
Hill, the think tank world, on social media, and in the
traditional media.
He also created what he called an echo chamber. That was a
network of sympathetic NGOs, think tanks, and pliant members of
the press to whom he ceded narratives, false narratives I would
say, about the Iran deal, and then he directed the reporters to
these NGOs and think tanks to give seemingly independent
verification to the narratives that he put out.
In my view, the creation of the echo chamber and the war
room does constitute a deception of the American people and of
their representatives. But the question is what were--what
exactly was the nature of the deception? And I think to
understand that we have to understand the larger policy
context, and that is that the strategic goal of the President
was to carry out a detente with Iran. It was to end the
conflict with Iran as a necessary precondition to pulling the
United States back from the Middle East because ending the
military engagement in the Middle East, I think, is the
President's overall goal.
Now, if the President had been up front about this with the
American people and said that he wanted to A) pull the United
States out of the Middle East and B) make Iran part of the
security architecture of the region, he would have encountered
immediately a severe political backlash that would have
undermined his whole project. And former Defense Secretary
Panetta, former chief of the CIA Panetta said as much to the
New York Times Magazine.
Now, that's the need for a propaganda operation that--to
deceive the American people. It's not just to misrepresent
what's in the Iran deal but to misrepresent everything else
that's around it that is the strategic goal of the President in
the Middle East.
I'd like to say a few words if I may about what I think
were the--what is the anatomy of the deception, that is the
main lines of false narrative that the war room and echo
chamber put out. And in my prepared statement, I go into more
detail about this. I'll just summarize here five major points.
Number one, conjuring moderates. The echo chamber created
the impression that Hassan Rouhani, the president of Iran, was
a moderate coming to power, representing a wave of moderation
in Iran, a desire to fundamentally change relations between
Iran and the West. This narrative of the moderates coming to
power and the need to support the moderates has been the gift
that keeps on giving to President Obama's diplomacy. It creates
a pleasing story of a breaking down of barriers. It creates a
moral equivalence in political terms between those who are
critical of the deal in the United States and hardliners, the
supposed enemies of Rouhani in Iraq.
And, importantly, it makes--it lulls us into a false sense
of security about all of the concessions that we have made to
Iran, and in particular, the sunset component of the nuclear
deal, which gives Iran effectively in 10 years a completely
legitimate program and the ability to move--nuclear program,
and the ability to move quickly toward a weapon. If Iran is
moderating, if we have--if we are supporting a process of
moderation in Iran, then allowing it to have these capabilities
is really no danger.
The second deception is falsifying the chronology of the
negotiations, which began much earlier than the election of
Rouhani. They go back to July 2012, and they were initiated by
the United States.
The third deception is erasing concessions from the United
States along the lines of what Dr. Rubin just discussed.
The fourth is hiding the regional cost. The President has
in effect recognized Syria as an Iranian sphere of influence,
and one of the goals of the deception of Mr. Rhodes is to
prevent people from connecting the dots between the Syria
policy and the Iranian nuclear policy.
And the fifth part of the deception is blaming allies. The
White House on background and in public is very willing to
criticize our Sunni allies as creating sectarian extremist in
the region. It's willing to criticize in very derogatory terms
Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. It never criticizes the
Iranians. You never hear a word from the White House about what
the Iranians are doing in Syria in pursuit of the--in support
of Assad's murder machine.
I'll just sum up now by what I think we need to do about
this, and I would say two points. Number one, I agree with you,
Chairman Chaffetz, that we do not actually know what is in the
Iran deal. We still to this day don't know, and I completely
agree with your assessment about the activities of Secretary of
State Kerry. In Europe last week, he was in Europe drumming up
business for the Iranians, and the Iranians are saying that
this is part of the deal. Is it part of the deal or is it not?
We don't know. So I would support further investigation.
And then secondly, I think we have to trim the size of the
NSC. It just--I don't see how anyone who looks at this and sees
a war room of 22 detailees from around the executive branch in
the White House with the job of monitoring communications and
creating a false narrative in the media is a legitimate part of
the NSC's mission. The NSC should be a coordinating body. It
should not be a muscular imperial body running roughshod over
all of the executive branch.
So I would add my voice to those who are saying that the
NSC should be cut back severely from the 400 members it
currently has to something more like 100.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Doran follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
I will now recognize Mr. Hannah for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JOHN HANNAH
Mr. Hannah. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings,
members of the committee, on behalf of the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies, thank you for the invitation to testify
on the Iran nuclear deal.
For me as a foreign policy analyst, perhaps the most
important revelation made in the recent New York Times profile
of Ben Rhodes was its allegation concerning President Obama's
overriding strategic purpose in seeking a nuclear deal with
Iran, a purpose which until now has been largely concealed from
the American people.
According to the article, ``By eliminating the fuss about
Iran's nuclear program, the administration hoped to eliminate a
source of structural tension between the two countries, which
would create the space for America to disentangle itself from
its established system of alliances with countries like Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, Israel, and Turkey. With one bold move, the
administration would effectively begin the process of a large-
scale disengagement from the Middle East.''
Now, if accurate, this is truly a stunning admission with
very big implications. As suggested elsewhere in the article,
it does represent nothing less than a radical shift in American
foreign policy. According to the article, Mr. Rhodes' passion
for the Iranian nuclear deal did not derive from any investment
in the technical details of sanctions or centrifuges or the
future of Iranian politics but rather ``from his own sense of
urgency of radically reorienting American policy in the Middle
East in order to make the prospects of any American involvement
in the region's future wars a lot less likely.''
Now, whether you agree or disagree with this inclination to
step back from the leadership role that the United States has
played in the Middle East since World War II, the troubling
fact remains that this fundamental shift in American strategy
has never been openly communicated to the American people. It
has never been debated by the U.S. Congress and it has never
been revealed to America's long-time allies in the Middle East.
Determining whether or not this very substantive claim is
true, that is, whether the White House is now in reality
seeking to engineer a large-scale American disengagement from
the Middle East is a question of vital importance to U.S.
national interests, again, whether you agree with it or
disagree, and it's one that I think the Congress should seek
clarification on.
If, in, fact the nuclear deal with Iran is as Mr. Rhodes
suggests, the center of the arc for President Obama's efforts
to radically transform U.S. policy, it raises a host of
concerns. Certainly, it casts doubt on the administration's
repeated claim that no deal was better than a bad deal. To the
extent that the preeminent objective instead, in Mr. Rhodes'
view, was to ``eliminate the fuss about Iran's nuclear
program'' rather than to actually eliminate that program
itself, one wonders whether the administration did demand or
had a tough enough posture in negotiations as it might
otherwise have been.
Similar concerns, I think, exist now that the deal is in
place and being implemented. When Congress was reviewing the
JCPOA last summer, the administration made repeated assurances
to the Congress that it would vigorously enforce the agreement
while using every tool at its disposal to counter Iranian
terrorism, its destabilizing regional activities, ballistic
missile program, and human rights abuses.
Since then, however, Iran's bad behavior has dramatically
escalated. It has significantly increased its combat role in
Syria, it's increased--or it's arrested additional U.S.
citizens, conducted multiple ballistic missile tests, it's
fired rockets in very close proximity to U.S. ships in the
Persian Gulf, held 10 American sailors captive, and threatened
to close the Straits of Hormuz.
The U.S. response to these repeated provocations, despite
the administration's earlier assurances, has so far ranged from
quite tepid to nonexistent. Even more worrisome, perhaps, has
been the reported U.S. willingness to at least contemplate
granting Iran additional sanctions relief that it failed to
negotiate in the JCPOA. Specifically, Iran is demanding access
to dollarized financial transactions. This would be a huge
unilateral concession that would greatly expand Iran's ability
to do business internationally while legitimizing an Iranian
banking sector that remains mired in elicit financing
activities.
Let me close by stressing that especially in light of the
questions raised by the New York Times profile about what
America's true underlying purpose is in pursuing the Iran deal,
it's extremely important that Congress now hold the
administration's feet to the fire when it comes to the
commitment to combat Iran's continued aggression. At a minimum,
Congress should do everything in its power to ensure that Iran
receives no new sanctions relief in the absence of significant
new Iranian concessions. And far more aggressive use should be
made of nonnuclear sanctions to constrain Iran's expanding
ballistic missile program and deter the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps from their destabilizing activities in Syria, Iraq,
and Yemen.
The bottom line is that the United States should not be
sending Iran the message that we now place such a high premium
on its continued adherence to the nuclear deal that it will
have carte blanche to pursue its increasingly threatening
policies in other areas that endanger our interests and those
of our allies.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to
testify. I know this is the place where I would normally say I
look forward to your questions, but maybe more appropriately I
stand by and am ready to try and answer your questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Hannah follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Chaffetz. Fair enough. I think that is a fair
summary of where we are at.
I will now recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. Rhodes I wish were here. He has a unique perspective.
He said some truly amazing and over-the-top things that were
quoted in the New York Times. I haven't heard anything refute
that. One of the ones that I think would concern all of us is
this quote that he said on the fourth page of this article. He
says--it is printed out--``I don't know anymore where I begin
and Obama ends.'' That is a true--if you really think and let
that settle in, that is a truly stunning statement.
He also said some other things that I think are very
concerning. ``All these newspapers used to have foreign
bureaus,'' which I think he makes a good point on that. And
then he says, ``now, they don't. They call us to explain to
them what is happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets
are reporting of world events from Washington. The average
reporter we talk to is 27 years old and their only reporting
experience consists of being around political campaigns. That
is a sea change. They literally know nothing.''
He went on to say--Mr. Rhodes said, ``But then there are
these sorts of force multipliers. We have our compadres. I will
reach out to a couple people and, you know, I wouldn't want to
name them''--and then he goes on and--anyway, it is really
interesting in his approach.
That is one component, but you compile that on top of what
you also hear former Secretary Panetta said. This is what
Secretary Panetta said. And this is a quote from Panetta. ``And
you know my view, talking with the President was--if I brought
it to the point where we had evidence that they are developing
an atomic weapon, I think the President is serious that he is
not going to allow that to happen.'' But then Panetta stops
according to the article, and the authors says, ``But would you
make that same assessment now?'' And Secretary Panetta's quote
is ``I would make the same assessment now? Probably not.''
Probably not. So he said it once. I have repeated it twice, but
this is of what is deep concern.
I think it would be naive to just gloss this over and say,
hey, we got this deal, it is in the best interest of the United
States, it is not something that was fully brought before the
Congress. I would hope that we would walk out with an
understanding from the three of you as what those big
outstanding questions are.
But maybe somebody could shed some light on these so-called
side deals, these things where Iran has maybe made other--do
you have any insight, Mr. Doran, any of you, on what these so-
called side deals might be?
Mr. Doran. No. There's what we have uncovered, but as time
goes on, as time goes on, we keep finding out more and more
that wasn't in the text, and of course the Obama administration
says there is nothing else. But the Iranians are saying that
there is a larger deal in particular with regard to access to
dollars and expanding their economy. And the behavior of our
officials suggest that they are right. Our officials say that
the Iranians are not correct, but here we have Secretary Kerry
in Europe last week meeting with banks trying to get them to
overlook concerns about Iran's illicit activities and to drum
up business for Iran.
So there's a mismatch here between what we're saying and
what we're doing, but what we're doing actually does match
quite closely with what the Iranians are saying, and that's
been a characteristic of the deal from day one. The deal has
been shaped by the red lines of the supreme leader and not by
the red lines of the President of the United States. So our red
lines have dropped all along the way and the Iranians have
stayed consistent with theirs.
Chairman Chaffetz. Mr. Rubin?
Mr. Rubin. Very quickly, the JCPOA is almost like a
timeshare agreement where you sign the deal and then you'll
only find out then what the true costs are. One of the subjects
for oversight would be with regard to changing the language
restricting Iran's ballistic missile work. Was it a deliberate
concession or was it the result of incompetence?
What troubles me mostly is how we seem to be having become
Iran's lawyer. For example, the Iranians will now complain that
we are not enabling enough openings for their economy, and yet
what didn't hit the Western press was last week the Iranians on
the order of the supreme leader canceled an order, $20
million--I'm sorry, $2 million for Chevrolets. And the answer
was we shouldn't be doing business with the Americans. Who's
kneecapping the Iranian economy, us or the Iranians? It's time
to have the Iranians stop blaming other people and take
accountability to themselves.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. My time is expired.
I now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hannah, you were Dick Cheney's top national security
advisor, is that right?
Mr. Hannah. Yes, sir, from 2005 to 2009.
Mr. Cummings. And your office was ground zero in the Bush
administration's marketing campaign to sell the Iraq War to the
American people. Is that a fair statement?
Mr. Hannah. No, I don't think it is. We--as you said, we
played an important role in making the first draft of Secretary
Powell's speech to the United Nations. That was certainly true
----
Mr. Cummings. Okay.
Mr. Hannah.--but we ----
Mr. Cummings. So you were involved in making the first
draft, is that right?
Mr. Hannah. Yes, that's correct.
Mr. Cummings. Is this pretty much the draft that he
presented to the United Nations? I mean ----
Mr. Hannah. It ----
Mr. Cummings. I know a first draft usually goes through
many more drafts but ----
Mr. Hannah. Sure. Sure. It--I thought there were some
similarities in it. If you actually hear some of Secretary
Powell's people tell the story now, they say my draft was
filled with inaccurate intelligence reports, reports that
couldn't be supported by the intelligence community, so at the
end of the day they threw out my draft. Secretary Powell then
spent four days with the highest levels of our intelligence
community at Langley doing a new draft that he said was
primarily based on the intelligence community--community's NIE.
So I--their claim is that there were no--that my draft did not
actually form the foundation of what he presented to the United
Nations.
Mr. Cummings. I am sure having heard that, I am sure you
probably said then let me at least listen to what he did say,
is that right? Did you read his ----
Mr. Hannah. Oh, sure. No, I ----
Mr. Cummings. Okay.
Mr. Hannah. Yes, I did. Absolutely.
Mr. Cummings. And was there any mention of weapons of mass
destruction in your draft as compared to the final draft of
Secretary Powell?
Mr. Hannah. Yes, I think both of our drafts were entirely
focused on weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. Cummings. And what would you say was the difference
because he seemed like he was very disappointed with the
information that you had provided him and said that it was a
blot on his reputation and pretty much said, you know, until
the day he dies he is going to regret it. But I am just
curious.
Mr. Hannah. Just a correction, first of all, when he said
it was a blot, I think he was talking about what he presented
to the United Nations. I don't think he was talking about the
draft that I presented him. It's what he did with George Tenet
and the rest of the intelligence community that he ended up
presenting that was obviously filled with errors. Most of it
was wrong.
My draft--the instruction to me when I started that draft
was that you need to go look at all of the intelligence there
is, including raw intelligence, which we regularly got at the
White House, which were individual reports by individual
intelligence sources. I did that and put it into a draft, and
then have the intelligence community look at that draft and
decide what pieces of intelligence could they support, which
ones weren't they able to support. That source was not
reliable, didn't have enough of a reliable record of reporting,
and they would throw it out. So I wrote the draft knowing that
large segments of it would be thrown out because the
intelligence community just didn't have the necessary
confidence level in that reporting.
Mr. Cummings. Now, let me read what Secretary Powell's
chief of staff said about your document. I take it that is the
first draft. He said, ``Hannah was constantly flipping through
his clipboard trying to source and verify all the statements.
It was clear the thing was put together by cherry-picking
everything.'' In fact, they discovered that you did not use a
DIA report properly, you did not cite a CIA report fairly, and
you referenced a New York Times article that quoted an
intelligence report out of context.
So they scrapped, as you said, your entire document. And
the Secretary's chief of staff described it in this way. He
said, ``Finally, I threw the paper down on the table and said
this isn't going to cut it.'' Now, this was the chief of staff,
right, for Secretary Powell. How could you have given him such
a document that appears in his opinion to have been baseless
and misleading?
Mr. Hannah. Well, I mean, there's a long history to this.
It was Mr. Wilkerson, Colonel Wilkerson ----
Mr. Cummings. Yes, I ----
Mr. Hannah.--who was his chief of staff.
Mr. Cummings. That is correct.
Mr. Hannah. He has a long record of--that anybody can go
read about his views of the Iraq War and his regrets and deep
regrets. I think we just have a different view of the draft I
presented.
I do acknowledge that it included an awful lot of stuff
that I knew that came from the intelligence community that they
would not be able to support. If they thought it wasn't used
properly, they could use it properly if they thought it was
useful. So we just have a basic, I think, difference of view
about what I actually provided and what the purpose of my draft
was. It wasn't meant to be a final draft, the final word that
would go to the United Nations. It was meant to be a rough
draft that the intelligence community would go through with a
fine-tooth comb and pick out those parts that they thought were
the--made the strongest case that in fact Saddam did have
weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. Cummings. But it wasn't just Mr. Wilkerson. It was also
George Tenet who reportedly turned directly to you--and I am
sure you will remember this--and said ``you wasted a lot of our
time.'' Is that true, and did he say that, George Tenet?
Mr. Hannah. He certainly didn't say it to me. He may have--
certainly, I can easily see him saying that kind of thing, but
he didn't say it to me.
Mr. Cummings. All right. Thank you very much.
Chairman Chaffetz. I now recognize the gentleman from
Michigan, Mr. Walberg, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Walberg. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the panel
for being here. We wish that there were other members of
course.
Mr. Doran, in your testimony you discuss the need to
restore checks and balances and note that while Mr. Rhodes'
behavior is scandalous, and I think propaganda is a word that
you used, it wasn't a rogue operation but that he was carrying
out the will of the President. Questions that I am sure my
constituents representing them here in the people's House would
want me to ask in reference to this is, number one, how can
Congress take steps to prevent this President and future
Presidents from circumventing Congress?
Mr. Doran. I think this is part of the inherent tension in
our government. I did say that I think that the--Mr. Rhodes is
doing the bidding of the President. I think it's important to
remember that. We have now numerous accounts from--mainly from
former Defense Secretaries Panetta and Gates especially,
showing how there's an inner core in the White House of five or
six people who consult closely with the President about his
views, and everybody else is pretty much left out of the
conversation, including principals on the National Security
Council. And Mr. Rhodes is part of that inner circle.
The only answer I have to this--I spent a lot of time
thinking about it. The only answer I have are the two that I
gave you. One is over--just exercising the oversight
responsibilities that Congress has, asking the hard questions,
and continuing to put pressure on the executive branch to come
clean.
The second is, I think, cutting back the size of the NSC.
It's simply wrong. I think anyone on both sides of the aisle
would see that the National Security Council, created by
statute in 1947, was created to be a coordinating body, not an
operational arm of the government. And under President Obama,
it has slipped into becoming an operational arm.
And I think when you look at the war room, as described not
by me but by Mr. Rhodes, this is an operational White House.
Just one last point here, there's an issue here that I
think there's--we all just need to be aware of, but there's not
much we can do about it, and that is the collapse of the press.
So one of the reasons why this is a threat to our checks and
balances is because of the collapse of, I would say, certain
informal checks on governmental power that have disappeared
over the last decade, you know, very, very quickly because of
the rise of the internet.
What Ben Rhodes said in that article about foreign events
being reported from Washington and from the White House by
young reporters who don't know anything and don't have any
other sources of information except what the White House is
telling them is completely correct, and it's a danger. There's
not much in terms of legislation that we can do about that, but
we need to be aware of it.
It's sort of a double danger because not only do those
reporters not have alternative sources of information, but
because all of the information is coming out of the White
House, they have a special interest in maintaining good
relations with the White House, and reporting the news stories
as the White House wants it reported.
Mr. Walberg. Well, let me go on from that as well, and, Mr.
Rubin, you may want to jump in here as well. Ben Rhodes'
assistant in the article--in his report--his comments in the
New York Times Magazine article indicated that there were
compadres involved in this, and some of those were in the think
tank community as well. Who would he be referring to in a think
tank and policy world?
Mr. Rubin. The Ploughshares Fund.
Mr. Walberg. The what?
Mr. Rubin. The Ploughshares Fund has funded many of the
elements of the so-called echo chamber, to use Ben Rhodes'
words, supposedly neutral assessors, for example, in various
arms control think tanks, perhaps in the Atlantic Council as
well and elsewhere were receiving grants. Now, one can say just
because one has received a grant from this high-level funder--
and by the way, this funder also had provided grants to senior
Iranian officials working in the United States as well at
universities and so forth--just because they have funded
doesn't necessarily mean that there's a quid pro quo, but what
you will find is that anyone who has received Ploughshares
funding, especially for the bulk of their grant or the bulk of
their salary, never, not once contradicted the assessment which
Ben Rhodes sought to put forward.
Mr. Walberg. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
I will now recognize the gentlewoman from New York, Mrs.
Maloney, for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you.
After a good deal of deliberation and research, I voted
against the Iran nuclear deal. And at the time I was hoping
very much that I was wrong, but everything that has happened
since and the additional information that has come forward, it
literally has convinced me that I made the right decision.
But I have to say as a Member who took the time to
carefully study the plan before making a decision, as I believe
all of my colleagues did, I had absolute, complete access to
all documents. I read every document, even classified
documents. Every meeting was addressed in various areas. The
administration bent over backwards to provide accurate
information to us.
And I must say that this was one of the most hotly debated
issues that I have experienced since I have been in Congress,
but both sides were deeply involved in putting forward their
cases. There were demonstrations, there were petitions, there
were meetings, there were conferences, there were debates. It
was completely and totally open to everyone to learn and to
make their own decision.
So my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are now
taking another opportunity to attack the administration with a
futile fishing expedition based on a widely questioned New York
Times profile of an advisor to President Obama. I believe it is
quite a stretch to suggest that the White House building a
comprehensive information campaign to support a major foreign
policy initiative amounts to any way misleading the American
people.
And I find it incredibly hypocritical to invite Mr. Hannah,
who worked for Dick Cheney and helped market the Iraq War based
on false pretenses to come now before us as an expert witness
on an alleged false White House narrative. I find the hypocrisy
really beyond belief.
And I would like to ask Mr. Hannah, do you know who Scott
McClellan is? Yes or no.
Mr. Hannah. Yes.
Mrs. Maloney. Yes. Well, Scott ----
Mr. Hannah. Yes.
Mrs. Maloney. Other people may not know, but he was the
White House press secretary, and he wrote a book about his
experience. He explained how a small group of advisors called
the White House Iraq working group helped sell the Iraq War by
misleading the American people.
And I am quoting from President Bush's press secretary. He
said, ``The White House Iraq group had been set up in the
summer of 2002 to coordinate the marketing of the war to the
public.'' And, Mr. Hannah, wasn't Scooter Libby your boss and
Dick Cheney's chief of staff? Weren't they part of the Iraq
group?
Mr. Hannah. The Vice President wasn't. I think Scooter
Libby was. I'm not 100 percent sure, but I think you're right.
Mrs. Maloney. Yes. Yes. Well, Scott McClellan further
wrote, he explained exactly how you and others misled the
American people. And he said this, ``As the campaign
accelerated, qualifications were downplayed or dropped
altogether. Contradictory intelligence was largely ignored or
simply disregarded.''
So, Mr. Hannah, why did you ignore and disregard evidence
that contradicted your political narrative for the war?
Mr. Hannah. Congresswoman, I would just say that, you know,
to the extent that I got it wrong in believing that Saddam had
weapons of mass destruction, an awful lot of people got it
wrong. It was not a figment of the imagination ----
Mrs. Maloney. Sir, are you saying ----
Mr. Hannah.--of the Vice President's office.
Mrs. Maloney.--that Mr. McClellan was wrong in the book
when he said he misled and lied to the American people, this
group?
Mr. Hannah. All I can tell you is that there have been
bipartisan commissions that have looked at how--the
intelligence on weapons of mass destruction ----
Mrs. Maloney. Do you think ----
Mr. Hannah.--that came to the conclusion that the President
of the United States did not lie about ----
Mrs. Maloney. I am not talking about him ----
Mr. Hannah.--evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
Mrs. Maloney.--I am talking about McClellan. Was McClellan
wrong? Was he misinformed? Was he lying ----
Mr. Hannah. I may have had one ----
Mrs. Maloney.--when he wrote we were misleading the
American people. We downplayed any ----
Mr. Hannah. I ----
Mrs. Maloney.--contradictory information?
Mr. Hannah. I--Congresswoman, I haven't read his book. All
I can tell you is that a lot of people who know Scott very
well--I don't know Scott at all really ----
Mrs. Maloney. Okay. Are you saying ----
Mr. Hannah.--have contradicted his presentation.
Mrs. Maloney. Okay.
Mr. Hannah. They believe he was wrong in his judgments and
he ----
Mrs. Maloney. Are you saying that you did include
contradictory intelligence showing that your case was weak or
nonexistent?
Mr. Hannah. No. I think we were instructed to write what we
thought was the best case for why Saddam had weapons of mass
destruction.
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentlewoman's time is expired.
Mrs. Maloney. No, I have 21 seconds left according to this.
Chairman Chaffetz. No, your--that is ----
Mrs. Maloney. So I would just like to ----
Chairman Chaffetz. No, no, no, no, you are 27 seconds over
time.
Mrs. Maloney. Oh, okay.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you.
Mrs. Maloney. All right.
Chairman Chaffetz. I now recognize the ----
Mrs. Maloney. Well, I would like to put my closing
statement in the record. It is a zinger, and it is very
hypocritical, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. No, no--you know, Mr. Hannah is here to
answer questions. Mr. Rhodes is not here to answer questions.
That is what is difficult about this hearing.
We will go to Mr. Gosar now of Arizona. I recognize him for
5 minutes.
Mr. Gosar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rubin, Mr. Doran, and Mr. Hannah, thank you for your
testimony and for providing valuable information to this
committee, which sheds light on the deceptive manner in which
the Obama administration sold out the American people and our
allies across the globe with the Iran capitulation agreement.
Even when presented with the facts like the facts each of
you have laid out in your testimony, the administration box
doubles down and tries to discredit anyone who disagrees with
their false narrative, including me. When asked about Ben
Rhodes' revelatory interview with the New York Times Magazine,
Press Secretary Josh Earnest dodged and decided to lambaste
several Members of Congress, including me, as liars, truly
eliciting Alinsky's principles to their core.
Why? Because I said that under this illegal Iran deal and
lifting sanctions that Iran would be able to access up to $100
billion that was previously frozen. His Treasury Secretary Jack
Lew stated the sanctions relief would be worth about $100
billion. The President of Iran said his country would get $100
billion.
Despite the fact that I said something similar in September
of 2015, the White House is now trying to brand me as a liar in
attempting to deflect Ben Rhodes' recent statements. The point
is not whether it is $100 billion or $50 billion or whether it
is all at once or over a period of time.
The real problem is that President Obama is funding the
world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. Iran is no friend
to the United States, to Christians, to Jews, or even Sunni
Muslims. Iran is a rogue nation hell-bent on nuclear war in the
Middle East.
A responsible President who loves his country and supports
our allies would never lift sanctions and give this murderous
regime money, much less billions. This deal is a strain on our
national character. Our next President we can only hope will
terminate this nonsense and promote freedom, accountability,
and opportunity overseas, not a regime that stones women, hangs
homosexuals, and kills members of other religions and political
beliefs.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest suggested I show
up to the Oversight Committee. Well, here I am. Where is Ben
Rhodes? I guess you can run and hide.
Now, Mr. Doran, much of the news coverage recently had
focused on Mr. Rhodes and the lies and misinformation that he
had spun relating to the Iran deal. However, we know that no
one operates in a vacuum. Does Mr. Rhodes represent a rogue
employee of the White House or does this spin campaign
represent something more deeply about how the White House
handled the Iran deal?
Mr. Doran. I believe it represents the President's
strategic vision and the President's will. He--the President is
on record as early as 2006 saying that he wanted to improve
relations with Iran and Syria and that he saw Iran and Syria as
sharing core interests and stabilizing Iraq and that we should
work with them to do that.
I don't think he ever lost that. I think ----
Mr. Gosar. So you would say that he actually is ultimately
responsible for developing this frame of capitulation?
Mr. Doran. Absolutely. And it's the--that's the key factor
to understand why we made all of these concessions to Iran
because we're not actually trying to stop it from getting a
nuclear weapon. We're trying to develop a partnership with it.
Mr. Gosar. Yes. Unfortunately, as you said, the lies and
misrepresentation that are deeply woven deep within the Iran
capitulation agreement are just the latest example of a culture
of deception that has been this administration's MO since its
inception. Let's not forget that this is the same
administration that sold the American people out to the
insurance companies under the guise of health care reform. The
President's congressional minions drove a legislative garbage
truck full of special interest giveaways through Congress and
over Americans' pocketbooks by knowingly and willfully
repeating the lie, ``If you like your doctor, you can keep your
doctor.''
This is the same administration that blatantly violated
Federal law by engaging in unlawful lobbying in order to
promote its Waters of the United States regulation. The
Government Accountability Office confirmed that the executive
branch, under the direction of EPA Administrator McCarthy,
unleashed an illegal propaganda campaign in order to force
WOTUS down the throats of the American people.
Mr. Rubin, it is clear that the Obama administration had a
covert agenda to reach a deal with Iran at any cost that was
driven more by the optics of diplomacy and legacy than the real
facts on the ground. What are the dangers of such a narrative-
driven approach to policy-making?
Mr. Rubin. When one calibrates policy to a fantasy that is
constructed rather than to reality, the cost is often paid with
blood. Iran has not become any less of a terror sponsor as a
result of the JCPOA. In fact, if we take the--if we just take
the $50 billion figure, that's 10 times the annual official
budget of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
One thing I would do, sir, productively, is take the
ability of the State Department, take the ability to designate
state sponsors of terrorism out of the hands of the State
Department and put it in an independent commission so it
doesn't become a political football.
Mr. Gosar. I thank the gentleman. And this behavior has
become the status quo for an Obama administration that has
blatantly disregarded the rule of law and the respect for the
American people to enact its partisan agenda. It is a dangerous
precedent and it needs to be stopped by Congress.
Thank you, Chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman's time is expired.
I will now recognize the gentlewoman from the District of
Columbia, Ms. Norton, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Now, we can re-litigate the Iran deal as much of the
testimony attempted to do or we can discuss the central
allegation that brought us to this hearing. It is of course--
and that is what I would like to pursue, that essentially
Republicans, my colleagues accuse Ben Rhodes of misleading the
American people by claiming that the Obama administration began
negotiating the deal, and the operative year is 2013 after Iran
elected a so-called moderate president. The claim is that if
the American people knew that the President was working towards
the agreement before 2013, they would have rejected the deal.
So here is how the claim is worded in the New York Times
Magazine, that Rhodes ``shaped the story'' of the Iran deal,
that the Iran deal began in 2013 when a moderate faction within
the Iranian regime beat the hardliners, leading to an election
where there was ``more openness.''
So the author says that Mr. Rhodes claimed the story began
in 2013. That is what brought us here, gentlemen. But the
problem is that isn't true. The President's efforts with
respect to Iran were widely reported from the time he became
President, so I am going to ask that a clip from the Washington
Post 2008 when the President became President be posted. It
describes how the Iranian President wrote to President Obama
after he was elected in 2008.
Now, you are all a panel of so-called experts. I assume you
read the Washington Post on occasion. Were you not aware of
this 2008 report? Were any of you unaware of that 2008 report?
Mr. Hannah. I don't remember the report exactly,
Congresswoman, but I think you're exactly right that in fact
everybody knew going into that election that President Obama
had made clear that he thought he would be the one to end our
three-decade-old war ----
Ms. Norton. But this is about ----
Mr. Hannah.--with the Islamic Republic.
Ms. Norton.--negotiating the agreement itself and about
being in touch with the Iranian regime before there was a
regime change.
Let's go to the Washington Times in 2009. I assume you read
the Washington Times. It describes how President Obama sent two
letters to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. Now, that
is 2009. This is well before 2013. There are many reports from
every year of the administration. This is why this hearing
befuddles me.
Two thousand ten from The Economist, Mr. Obama says the
various components of his policy should not be seen in
insolation. First, he tried to engage Iran early and directly
not because he was naive about the regime but in order to make
clear to the world that America was not the aggressor and he
was willing to work with Iran if it behaved reasonably.
Two thousand eleven from The Atlantic, ``On three occasions
in as many years U.S. diplomats have sat down''--this is 2011--
``with high-level Iranian officials to discuss confidence-
building measures as part of a six-party body negotiating
issue.''
Two thousand twelve--all of this is before 2013--United
States and Iran have agreed in principle for the first time to
one-on-one negotiations from Iran's nuclear program. Now, you
are supposed to be experts. Some other experts not invited here
have said that it is nonsense that only after regime change did
the President begin to negotiate.
Joe Cirincione, the president of Ploughshares Fund, called
it utter nonsense. Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution
agreed, and she explained the core claims of official deception
around the Iran deal were never actually substantiated.
Now, none of these experts, so that we could have some
balanced picture, were called here. Unfortunately, Mr.
Chairman, by not inviting these experts, we are getting a very
one-sided story ----
Chairman Chaffetz. Will the gentlewoman yield?
Ms. Norton. I will yield to the chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. Democrats always, always have an
opportunity to invite a witness to come to this hearing.
Democrats chose not to invite a witness to this hearing. And
the person we called from the White House, Mr. Rhodes, also
refused to show up.
Ms. Norton. I understand, Mr. Chairman, and the ranking
member has already indicated that had there been time ----
Chairman Chaffetz. I am just responding to your ----
Ms. Norton. That had there been time, there would have been
a Democratic witness. I thank you very much, and I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. I will now recognize the gentleman from
Ohio, Mr. Jordan, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, are any of you familiar with the name Jonathan
Gruber? Mr. Doran, do you know Jonathan Gruber? Do you know
that name?
Mr. Doran. It rings a bell, but I can't call it up.
Mr. Jordan. Anyone, Mr. Rubin, do you know Mr. Gruber?
Mr. Rubin. I know the name.
Mr. Jordan. You know the name? Do you know what he does
for--you know, what his occupation is?
Mr. Hannah. I think he's an economist who was enlisted to
help with the health care reform. Yes, sir. Yes.
Mr. Jordan. Yes, the famous guy who was--and do you know
what title he was given when he was helping with ObamaCare and
health care reform? Do you know what he was titled, anyone
remember? Architect of ObamaCare. And you know, that is one
thing, you are the architect of ObamaCare and all, but he got a
little notoriety in the press and actually had to come and sit
right where you guys are sitting a few years ago. Any of you
guys know why he was brought in front of the committee and had
to sit here? Anyone want to take a guess? Mr. Rubin?
Mr. Rubin. Well, basically he lied about the cost of
ObamaCare.
Mr. Jordan. Yes. He was deceptive, right? He said things
like this. He talked about the stupidity of the American voter.
He talked about--this is a direct quote. He was out bragging
after this thing is passed, ``Lack of transparency is a
political advantage.'' That is a nice way of saying if you
deceive people, you might get your way, right? It might help
your case.
So here is Jonathan Gruber, architect of ObamaCare, talking
about deception, things like if you like your plan, you can
keep it, like your doctor, you can keep it, premiums are going
to go down, Web site is going to work, Web site is safe,
emergency room--everything turned out to be false.
And now, we hear about another person in the Obama
administration, Mr. Rhodes. He comes along and he is given the
title, according to the piece in the New York Times, ``the
single most influential voice shaping American foreign
policy.'' Wow, things are starting to sound familiar. And he
creates a false narrative as well, talks about this echo
chamber and deceiving the press. And his derision for the press
is kind of like Mr. Gruber's derision for the American voter
because he says something like--what is the line he used
there--``they literally know nothing'' was one of the lines
that I think Mr. Rhodes used in his piece.
Mr. Rubin, you talked about this false choice, I think, in
your opening statement that Mr. Rhodes set up and used this
echo chamber of folks who ``literally know nothing'' to further
this message to the American people, this binary choice, either
it is the deal or it is war. That is what he set up, right?
Mr. Rubin. Yes.
Mr. Jordan. And the thing that strikes me, Mr. Chairman--
and I won't take my full time here. I just wanted to make this
point. So this isn't the first time this administration, on
some big policy decision, has deceived the American people. But
maybe more importantly, it is not in my judgment the first time
Mr. Rhodes, on a big policy issue, on a big concern to the
American people, has tried to deceive them.
And, Mr. Rubin, you are getting ready to say something. Go
ahead.
Mr. Rubin. Well, I mean, the deception comes oftentimes in
the way of cherry-picking. If we want to look at previous
Iranian offers or acknowledgements of letters, for example,
what's actually interesting is when Supreme Leader Khomeini, on
the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the American embassy, a
seizure for which no Iranian reformist or hardliner has ever
apologized, mocked President Obama for the letters he was
sending and said we are not going to talk to the Americans
until they fundamentally change their position.
And so one of the reasons why we need this transparency,
this transparency about what you're saying, is sometime around
2012 the Americans fundamentally changed their position but
didn't come clean to the American people about it.
Mr. Jordan. Yes, I thank you for that.
Let me just finish up with this, then, just to, I think,
make this point. Mr. Gruber deceives the American people on
ObamaCare, along comes Mr. Rhodes on the Iranian deal, uses
deception to create this false choice and help get this
agreement passed. And as I said, this is not the first time Mr.
Rhodes has done. It is not the first time the administration
has done, more importantly, not the first time Mr. Rhodes has
done it. I think he did it on the Benghazi issue. I think he
did it there as well when he said in the now-famous talking
points, which frankly became the catalyst for the formation--
the reason the House of Representatives and the Speaker formed
the committee when he created this false choice between--it is
not a failure of policy; it is rooted in a video, and straight
from the talking points.
And so, again, the pattern with the administration, what
appears to be a pattern with Mr. Rhodes himself, and then when
he is given the ask to come testify doesn't even have the
courtesy to show up.
So, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my 4 seconds.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
I will now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr.
Lynch, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the
panel.
I can't let this go. Earlier, Mr. Doran said that if only
the President had been up front about withdrawing from the
Middle East. I have to say that, you know, the President was
clearly--during his campaign going back to 2007, 2008, I mean
ad nauseam. At the time that the President took office, we had
about 165,000 troops and 180,000 contractors in Iraq, and he
went on and on about the fact that he was going to get those
people out of there, that he was going to withdraw from the
Middle East. I think he got elected based on that claim.
But he was like Trump does with we are going to build the
wall, we are going to make America great again, President
Obama, during his campaign, he went on and on. He hammered away
at that and said if I get elected, I am going to withdraw those
troops. I am going to get--in the first 16 months--I went back
and read it--he said in the first 16 months he is going to get
all the combat brigades out of Iraq. So he was very much up
front about that. He was perfectly clear on that.
The other fiction here is that the American people were
tricked by Ben Rhodes. And remember, we were the audience, us
here. They were trying to get the bill, the Iran agreement
through Congress. So we are the ones getting all the
information. And I have to say I was never tricked by Ben
Rhodes. And with all due respect to Ben Rhodes, in terms of the
merits of that agreement, he was probably not as qualified as a
lot of the other people that were coming to Congress and
testifying before both, you know, Republican and Democratic
caucuses.
We had a list of experts. It is very lengthy, but I will
just hit on a few. We had 78 nuclear nonproliferation experts,
60 national security experts, 5 former ambassadors to Israel,
29 Nobel Prize-winning scientists, 36 retired generals, over
100 former U.S. ambassadors, and over 500 Iranian-Americans
with experience both in the U.S. and Iran, 340 rabbis, 53
Christian leaders. These scientists included physicists who
helped design the first hydrogen bomb.
So we had stone-cold experts on this. We were not listening
to Ben Rhodes. And those are the people that--and I actually
sat with one of the experts from the IAEA about what he thought
after having been in Iran and at some of their--at ARAK, at
Fordow, at Natanz and what they actually thought about the
ability of this agreement to stop Iran from developing a
nuclear weapon. So those are the people that we also listened
to. It wasn't Ben Rhodes and, you know, some political spin.
But I would say that if we are really trying to measure
this agreement--and that seems what is going on here; we are
all rehashing this agreement again--I think the best way would
be to go to the IAEA because under the agreement they are the
ones that we have put on the ground and asked them to do these
inspections.
And so I would just like to--for the record, I am going to
ask have admitted the first two reports, January and February,
by the IAEA, the international agency, verification for
monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of the
United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231. So this is an
inspection done by the IAEA because of the agreement.
And some of the things--I will just tell you what they
report. I will just give you the greatest hits. They determined
that ARAK--they went into A-R-A-K--everybody things I'm saying
Iraq--but ARAK heavy water research reactor and they determined
that Iran was not pursuing the construction of the existing IR-
40 reactor.
They had removed the existing calandria from that reactor,
and they had rendered the calandria inoperable by filling it
with concrete, which is part of the agreement. They had stored
under continuous conditions--continuous agency monitoring all
existing natural uranium pellets and fuel pursuant to the
agreement. They modified the fuel process line at the fuel
manufacturing plant at Isfahan so that it cannot be used for
the fabrication of fuel. Iran was not accumulating enriched
uranium through its enrichment research and development
activities.
Let's see. It goes on. I got 27 seconds left. A lot of good
stuff in here. And these are people who have actually been in
Iran doing the inspections. Iran at Fordow was not conducting
any uranium enrichment, had removed all of its nuclear material
at Fordow. This was all pursuant to the agreement.
And I am getting to 8 seconds. Had completed the modalities
and facility inspection arrangements to allow the agency to
implement all the transparency measures provided in the
agreement.
So that is what the IAEA is exactly doing, and, you know,
that is part of the agreement. That is what we put them for.
The great advantage to us no matter what happens in the
future is that up to the time that this agreement was signed we
never had people on the ground in those facilities. We were
always guessing about the level of progress they had made on
their nuclear weapons program. Now, we have people on the
ground.
So even if they breach, we will have had the benefit of
having people on the ground looking at those facilities, and
for military purpose or diplomatic purposes, that is a good
thing.
I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman, and we will enter
those into the record unless there is an objection.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you.
Chairman Chaffetz. No objection, so ordered.
Chairman Chaffetz. I now recognize the gentleman from South
Carolina, Mr. Gowdy.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank you for not only the panel that is before
us but the panel you tried to have before us. Not only did Ben
Rhodes not appear and cost us an opportunity to question Mr.
Rhodes, it cost us the opportunity and the privilege to ask
questions of our friend and colleague Tommy Cotton. Speaking of
constitutional crisis, hauling a United States Senator before a
committee of Congress would really have created a
constitutional crisis, so good thing for us Tommy was willing
to come on his own.
And the background contrast would have been interesting to
me. You know, the White House is very critical of Senator
Cotton and has been for several months now. Senator Cotton, of
course, when he was serving tours of duty in the United States
Army in Afghanistan and Iraq, Ben Rhodes was navigating the
mean streets of a creative writing curriculum. And I mean that
literally. That is not figurative. He has a master's in
creative writing. And if you are interested in writing haikus
and sonnets and novellas, he is probably the right guy.
On the other hand, if you are advising the leader of the
free world on foreign policy matters, I don't know how a haiku
helps. But I would have enjoyed the opportunity to ask Mr.
Rhodes how his background prepared him to sell the Iranian
deal, but yet Tommy Cotton's background did not prepare him to
criticize the Iranian deal. That would have been an interesting
dichotomy for me.
But what I really wanted to do, Mr. Chairman, was ask Mr.
Rhodes to help me, as Gruber did in the past, understand what
he meant by certain things. Mr. Chairman, he said ``we created
an echo chamber.'' Does the chairman know who ``we'' is?
Chairman Chaffetz. I do not.
Mr. Gowdy. Well, certainly he couldn't be referring to
other presidential advisors because he then invoked executive
privilege and he can't be talking about what other presidential
advisors said. So it couldn't be that, could it? I don't ----
Chairman Chaffetz. I do not know.
Mr. Gowdy. Okay. Well, then he said, ``Reporters call us to
explain to them what is happening in Moscow and Cairo.'' And I
am curious which reporters that would be. Which ones call him
to find out what is going on in Cairo? But we can't ask him
because he is not here.
And I would add he has plenty of time to sit down for what
he had hoped to be a fluff piece in the New York Times. He has
been on television plenty of times. He had plenty of time to
draft memos for the President, but he doesn't have time to come
before a committee of Congress.
And then this is what really concerns me, Mr. Chairman. In
talking about those reporters, he said ``they literally know
nothing.'' How does someone literally know nothing? He said
they were 27 years old, which suggests that they probably have
a driver's license at that point. You have to know something to
get a driver's license. If they are 27, they would be eligible
to vote in the Democrat primary more than likely, so you have
to know something. So when you say they literally know nothing,
that struck me. I wanted to ask him about that.
Also, I think that his appearance today, had he bothered to
come, would have created an opportunity for a little bit of
bipartisanship, which I know our friends on the other side of
the aisle like from time to time. It said he expressed contempt
for the editors and reporters at the New York Times, the
Washington Post, and The New Yorker. That might have provided
an opportunity for some bipartisanship. It would have given us
an opportunity to share our own frustrations. But he didn't
come.
Mr. Chairman, you do a great job leading this committee. It
is up to you whether or not you assert the people's right to
question Ben Rhodes, but this selective use of executive
privilege on one day but it is not executive privilege on the
next, at some point Congress is going to have to stick up for
itself. We are going to have to decide whether or not we do
have a right to question people. And if you have time to make
these comments to a reporter, you ought to be able to come
explain yourself. And if you have time at the White House to
send a bunch of mean tweets about a guy who served two tours,
two combat tours in Tommy Cotton and he is willing to come, but
the creative writing expert isn't willing to come, at some
point this body is going to have to stick up for itself.
With that, I would yield back to the chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
I will now recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Connolly, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Connolly. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And lordy, lordy, the outrage of my friend from South
Carolina does a heart good, does a heart good.
From my point of view, this hearing is nothing but a
smokescreen, yet another in a long chain of attempts by my
friends on the other side of the aisle to deny what is
manifestly true, that the Iran nuclear agreement is working. It
is not a panacea for all Iranian behavior, though they would
like you to believe that, just as disarmament agreements with
the Soviet Union, our implacable foe during the cold war, were
also not designed to address every aspect of Soviet behavior,
would that they could, but they are not designed to be the be-
all and end-all to circumscribe an entire relationship. But
they were designed and this was designed for a specific set of
goals.
And Lord Almighty, we had a hearing in the House Foreign
Affairs Committee where again my friends on the other side of
the aisle desperately wanted not to talk about compliance, but
being the skunk at the picnic, I did. And let me see. In terms
of compliance, we found that the agreement has reduced the
number of centrifuges, as planned, from 19,000 to 6,104, that
the fuel enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow saw those
centrifuges reduced. Iran is no longer enriching uranium above
3.67 percent, verified by the IAEA, as my friend Mr. Lynch
indicated, and has reduced its stockpile of enriched uranium,
as required, to no more than 300 kilograms shipped out of the
country, verified. Centrifuge production in uranium mines and
mills under constant surveillance and verified, and of course
the plutonium production capability eliminated.
I asked point blank is there any evidence of cheating
because that is all we heard. They were going to cheat, they
couldn't be trusted, and this was nothing but enabling behavior
to allow Iran to become a nuclear threshold state, and the
answer was no, so far, no cheating.
Now, my friend from South Carolina--we are friends; we are
sometimes sparring partners--just is all exorcised about the
fact that somebody, God knoweth why, would not accept a
friendly invitation to come before this committee because we
are a very hospitable environment to witnesses. And once in a
while we deny them their Fifth Amendment rights, once in a
while we badger them, once in a while we call them names, once
in a while we censor them, a lot of times we interrupt them
when we don't like their testimony, but they ought to come here
nonetheless.
You are lucky, Mr. Rubin. You are really lucky to be here
today.
Mr. Hannah, when you received an invitation from the Senate
Intelligence Committee in 2006, did you accept that invitation?
Mr. Hannah. I don't remember getting an invitation.
Mr. Connolly. Well, actually, it is in the committee
report. Did you not see that report?
Mr. Hannah. I must ----
Mr. Connolly. They published a report.
Mr. Hannah.--not have.
Mr. Connolly. What?
Mr. Hannah. I must not have.
Mr. Connolly. Well ----
Mr. Hannah. I don't recall.
Mr. Connolly.--let me help refresh your memory because they
issued a final report, and they said that every request made to
you for an interview was denied. And it concludes, ``These
decisions inhibited the committee's ability to pursue
legitimate lines of inquiry.'' Any reason why you would say no
to the Senate Intelligence Committee when it was under
Democratic--actually, it wasn't under Democratic control in
2006, but you still said no. And that doesn't refresh your
memory?
Mr. Hannah. It doesn't refresh it, but I can tell you that
there was obviously--especially in the office of the Vice
President--counsel there was a very aggressive proponent of
executive ----
Mr. Connolly. Go ahead. Say it.
Mr. Hannah. You say it for me.
Mr. Connolly. Was that word coming out?
Mr. Hannah. Executive privilege.
Mr. Connolly. Privilege, there you go. So for a Republican
White House, it is perfectly okay, and you had a very
aggressive counsel saying you are not going, but here, with
somebody who gives a profile for a magazine where he boasts
about himself, we have got to haul him in chains before this
committee because we are being denied access, and that is
wrong. And you have agreed to testify about it, knowing that.
So do you think Mr. Rhodes should be here in a way that you
were not 10 years ago?
Mr. Hannah. In our administration what I remember is that
Dr. Rice, when she was in her capacity as NSC advisor, actually
did testify. So I think there ----
Mr. Connolly. I am talking about you, Mr. Hannah. You were
named by the Senate Intelligence Committee by name and singled
out for your refusal to make yourself available to that
committee when it was doing its work. Was there less gravity to
the issue at hand 10 years ago involving you than there is
today involving Mr. Rhodes?
Mr. Hannah. Issues were very grave in both cases, I think.
I think Mr. Rhodes actually is a more influential player than I
am ----
Mr. Connolly. All right.
Mr. Hannah.--and he's been willing to talk about all of
these issues ----
Mr. Connolly. Well ----
Mr. Hannah.--so openly and with such contempt for so many
people ----
Mr. Connolly. Well ----
Mr. Hannah.--that ----
Mr. Connolly.--we are glad to have you here ----
Mr. Hannah.--I think he's in a different ----
Mr. Connolly.--today talking as well.
Mr. Hannah.--situation.
Mr. Connolly. I am sure my colleagues 10 years ago ----
Mr. Hice. [Presiding] The gentleman's time is expired.
Mr. Connolly.--would have enjoyed having you.
One good aggressive White House counsel deserves another,
Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Hice. The gentleman's time is expired.
The chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
DeSantis, for 5 minutes.
Mr. DeSantis. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would think that Ben Rhodes would be falling all over
himself to come here. I mean, he seems to think he is so much
smarter than everybody. Well, educate everybody. Tell us why
those of us who oppose this were wrong. Show us what we are
missing. Educate the American people. I think it would have
been a great opportunity for him if, in, fact he is as smart
and worldly as he says.
And I think part of this, yes, there is deception involved,
and any time a major policy is sold to the Congress or the
public, that is a major, major thing. Rhodes himself said that
the Iran deal was going to be the ObamaCare of the second term.
And of course with ObamaCare in the first term, the
President famously said over and over again, if you like your
plan, you can keep it, if you like your plan, you can keep it.
Not only was that not true, the administration knew at the time
it would not be true, and yet they did it in order to engineer
passage of ObamaCare.
And then with this deal, the President was in the
presidential debate in 2012. He said the deal is very simple
that I will accept. They end their nuclear program. It is
pretty straightforward, he says. And of course what we see now
is Iran retains really a major, major nuclear program. I
believe they are on a path to a bomb at worst once the time the
8, the 15 years goes up.
So there is a lot, I think, that is important about that,
and it important to talk about it. But I also think that some
of what we are talking about with Rhodes, for example, the idea
that, well, Rouhani's election really changes everything
because this guy is a moderate, never mind that he would never
have been allowed to run by the Ayatollah if he truly wanted to
change the nature of the regime. So you have a regime that is
the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. You have a
regime which, you know, people fail to mention that they were
responsible for as many as 1,500 American deaths in Iraq. They
were leading the Qods Force, Soleimani, they were funding these
massive EFP bombs, which took out at least hundreds of our
soldiers and probably as many as 1,500.
So that is the nature of the regime. And the notion that
was propagated, and Rhodes is honest about it, he says, look,
this is an opening, it is a new--we have got to take this
opportunity. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Well, it
turns out they never believed that. They knew that this
regime--in fact, they were negotiating with the regime before
Rouhani had ever been elected, and so all that was kind of a
ruse to camouflage the basic policy.
And I think Mr. Doran hit on it. This is a policy that
understands the radial nature of the Iranian regime,
understands the hostile nature of the Iranian regime, and is
doing a deal with those hardliners to effectively solidify
those hardliners. And they think that that is the way to have a
more peaceful world.
And so the deception is important just for itself, but what
it really masked is when we were going through all this--this
is the biggest thing we have done this Congress--I thought that
John Kerry and the President and these people were very naive
about how they conceded the Iranian regime. It turns out they
really weren't that naive. They knew exactly what we knew and
they still wanted to go ahead with it. And so that is why I
think it is very, very troubling.
And then we are seeing that now play out with really
gratuitous concessions such as giving Iran indirect access to
the American dollar. That wasn't even called for by the Iran
deal, and yet that is something that the administration is
doing.
And so I think that this is important. There are few--I
don't think we have done an issue this important in the
Congress in years and years. And so the idea that you are not
up front with the American people is very important, but I
think what this should allow us to do, I would like to tease
out the implications now of this policy with somebody like Mr.
Rhodes.
So, Mr. Doran, what is your view? I mean, it seems like
Rouhani as a moderate, they admit it is a ruse, so they knew
very well the nature of the regime, and they think that
effectively us unilaterally stepping back from having a
confrontational posture with Iran is going to be better for the
world security?
Mr. Doran. I think that's right. I think the President has
a vision of the Middle East as a kind of roundtable now. The
security architecture is a kind of roundtable and we have all
the stakeholders around the roundtable, and the Iranians are
stakeholders. And the assumption is that if we start treating
them with respect and respecting their interests that they'll
come toward us and that they--the key assumption--I think the
key false assumption here is that they share the same interests
that we do, the same core interests, this defeating ISIS,
stabilizing Iraq, and so on.
I think particularly relevant are the views of Fred Hof at
the Atlantic Council, who was President Obama's point man on
Syria from 2009 to 2012. He's somebody who understands the--you
know, there's nobody that's been closer to the Obama
administration's policies on Syria than Fred Hof. And he has
now come around to the view that President Obama has in effect
recognized Syria as an Iranian sphere of interest and did so in
order to reach the agreement with them.
Mr. DeSantis. Well, I appreciate it. I think the upshot of
all this, the nuclear obviously very significant, but even
beyond that, Iran is really emerging as the dominant power in
the region. How you can see that is good for our security is
beyond me. And I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
I now recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.
Cartwright, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cartwright. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to associate
myself with the words of Representative Lynch of Massachusetts
and also Representative Maloney of New York. I don't think it
is possible to overstate the amount of study that went into the
Iran deal on both sides of the aisle, and it is with great
regret that I see it has turned into a political football the
way it has.
Mr. Hannah, let me get this straight. You drew up the false
talking points for Colin Powell when he spoke in front of the
U.N., and you wrote in the talking points that there were
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that was what ended up
in his speech. And that you are here today to question someone
else's credibility and somebody else's professionalism. Am I
getting that straight?
Mr. Hannah. Not exactly. I'm not sure I'm questioning his
professionalism. I'm questioning the tactics that he used. We
based our intelligence on the intelligence that was there. It
was wrong. That was a mistake. It wasn't any kind of purposeful
desire to deceive or not give the American people what we ----
Mr. Cartwright. And you told us earlier in your testimony
today that you drew up that speech not knowing if it was true,
knowing that it would be vetted by the intelligence community,
drawing it up as a piece of salesmanship to see if anything was
true, and if it was, it would stick. Your words were quite
clear on that.
And one of the parts of the salesmanship was that this idea
that--was that the Bush administration cooked up this idea that
there was yellowcake uranium coming from the African nation of
Niger going to Saddam Hussein, and it was the American
Ambassador Joe Wilson who gave the lie to that fiction. He said
it was a bunch of nonsense. In fact, he wrote an op-ed in the
New York Times in 2003 in July debunking the claim that
yellowcake uranium was going to Saddam Hussein from Niger.
But, Mr. Hannah, you were one of Dick Cheney's top national
security advisors, you worked with Cheney, you worked with
Scooter Libby before he was convicted. Surely you discussed
Ambassador Wilson's op-ed with him, with Vice President Cheney,
especially since it was contradicting one of your key talking
points in selling the war in Iraq. Did you talk about
Ambassador Wilson's op-ed in the New York Times with Vice
President Cheney?
Mr. Hannah. I did not talk to the Vice President, but we
did talk about it within the office and within the ----
Mr. Cartwright. Did you talk to Scooter Libby about it?
Mr. Hannah. I'm almost sure I did, yes.
Mr. Cartwright. All right. Well, Ambassador Wilson wrote,
``It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful
that any such transaction had ever taken place.'' He directly
contradicted information that you put out publicly. In
response, the Bush administration retaliated against him by
publicly outing his wife Valerie Plame, who was a CIA operative
at the time.
Mr. Hannah, my question for you is what was your role in
outing Valerie Plame as a CIA operative?
Mr. Hannah. I had no role in outing Valerie Plame as a CIA
operative.
Mr. Cartwright. Mr. Hannah, special counsel was appointed
to investigate the criminal leak of classified information. It
was Patrick Fitzgerald, special counsel. He concluded that
there was--and I am quoting here--``concerted action by
multiple people in the White House to discredit, punish, or
seek revenge against Ambassador Wilson.'' Do you dispute those
findings?
Mr. Hannah. I haven't looked at them. I--yes, I dispute the
way that the name of Valerie Plame reached the press. It was by
a person who seemed to have no desire--was in the State
Department. Deputy Secretary Armitage happened to mention her
in a conversation with a reporter.
Mr. Cartwright. Mr. Hannah, the Bush administration smeared
Ambassador Wilson and his wife, ruined her career, sacrificed a
national security asset in the CIA all because Ambassador
Wilson had the temerity to debunk your false claims, and he
told the truth. Your boss and Dick Cheney's chief of staff
Scooter Libby was convicted but then President Bush commuted
his prison time. That is correct, isn't it?
Mr. Hannah. I don't think those are the exact--he was never
charged with releasing the name of a covert CIA operative.
Mr. Cartwright. The second voice and that you talked about
outing Valerie Plame, that was Karl Rove, wasn't it?
Mr. Hannah. I have no idea. I know Karl's name was in there
but I had no dealings with Karl.
Mr. Cartwright. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. I now recognize the gentleman from North
Carolina, Mr. Meadows, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rubin, let me come to you because as these decisions
continue to get made with regards to the validity of the Iran
deal as we would call it, decisions by Members of Congress
hinge on very small sometimes often minute pieces of
information where they can justify going one way or another. Do
you believe that some of the statements by Mr. Rhodes was a
factor at all in some of the Members of Congress casting their
vote one way or another?
Mr. Rubin. Yes, and I can give you examples if you would
like.
Mr. Meadows. Please.
Mr. Rubin. Well, first of all, when it comes to
verification, according to U.S. law, incumbent with the Corker-
Cardin compromise, all agreements are supposed to be presented
to Congress. Now, it emerges that there were secret side
agreements with the IAEA. One of these secret side agreements
that comes into play with regard to verification is that the
State Department decreed that the IAEA would not need to report
to the level it had reported under sanctions, especially with
regard to the possible military dimensions. So to say that the
IAEA said that verification--that Iran is complying with the
deal, that's like bragging that someone is the valedictorian of
the summer school class.
Mr. Meadows. So ----
Mr. Rubin. So it becomes a major problem. It lets them off
the hook, and we only found out about that afterwards because
the White House kept it secret.
Mr. Meadows. Well, we have had sworn testimony both in a
number of House committees and Senate committees where the
sworn testimony by administration officials were that there are
no and were no secret side agreements. Would you say that that
is a credible argument under sworn testimony to make?
Mr. Rubin. They are lying to Congress.
Mr. Meadows. All right. So that is a pretty bold statement,
Mr. Rubin, that they are lying to Congress. So if we go back
and look at the tapes when they say that there was no side
agreements in sworn testimony, do you think it is incumbent
upon this committee to hold those particular individuals who
gave sworn testimony in contempt of Congress?
Mr. Rubin. Yes.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Rubin.
And let me go on a little bit further because the troubling
aspect of this is for somehow members on the other side of the
aisle to suggest that there is wrongdoing in previous
administrations that would justify wrongdoing in a current
administration.
Is it your opinion, Mr. Rubin, that regardless of who the
administration might be, whether it be Republican or Democrat,
that it is incumbent upon them to be honest and straightforward
with Congress when they are negotiating something of this type
of magnitude?
Mr. Rubin. Yes. National security should not be a political
football.
Mr. Meadows. So is it your sworn testimony here today that
because of the talking points of Mr. Rhodes and the inaccuracy
or, as you would characterize them, lying that took place, that
the whole debate that transpired within Congress was based on
faulty assumptions that had no relevance or relationship to
truth?
Mr. Rubin. It was almost as if instead of looking at the
whole chessboard the White House was just directing Congress to
look at four pieces.
Mr. Meadows. So if we were only looking at four pieces and
something that is so critical to national security and to the
security of our all Israel, do you think that it was
disingenuous to suggest that some of the talking points that
were coming out of the Israeli Government were indeed
characterized as being dishonest and not truthful--do you think
an apology is owed by this administration to that government?
Mr. Rubin. You know, this administration has a sorry record
at this point of coddling adversaries and throwing allies under
the bus. Perhaps apologies are due when domestic Washington
politics got in the way of serious foreign-policy discourse.
Mr. Meadows. I thank you, Mr. Rubin, and, Mr. Chairman, I
yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
I will now recognize the gentleman from Vermont, Mr. Welch,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Welch. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
At the heart of this is a question whether this was--the
one faced by the President, is an Iran without nuclear weapons
better for our national security, for the Middle East and for
the world than an Iran with nuclear weapons? That was the
question.
And the engagement of Mr. Rhodes was one significant person
among hundreds, and along with our best allies, France,
Germany, England, and also our sometimes frenemies China and
Russia. And the collective decision of those countries and us
was that the Iran nuclear deal was in our collective interest.
Now, there was fierce disagreement about that among the
witnesses and among many of my colleagues here in Congress, but
this was a long and complex negotiation that was ultimately
ratified by our strongest allies. And there was a judgment that
the Commander in Chief had to make as to whether or not this
agreement was in the national security interest of this
country.
I agreed with him. I worked closely with Mr. Rhodes and
found him to be an exceptional public servant, knowledgeable,
and despite what you are saying, candid and direct.
Let me just ask a couple questions here because the
decision the President made was in contrast to decisions that a
previous President made. Do each of you believe that the
American people got the right information that there were
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, each of you, Iraq? Thank
you.
Mr. Hannah. No, it's shown that it was false.
Mr. Welch. Right.
Mr. Doran. No.
Mr. Rubin. No, the American people got what the
intelligence community believed.
Mr. Welch. Who has supervisory authority over the
intelligence community, sir, Mr. Rubin?
Mr. Rubin. Congress.
Mr. Welch. The President has no role?
Mr. Rubin. The buck stops with the President, but if we're
talking about oversight ----
Mr. Welch. You ----
Mr. Rubin.--that's what separation of powers is about.
Mr. Welch. All right. So you are saying--and by the way, I
will go along with this. Congress blew it on the Iraq
resolution. But are you suggesting to me that there is not
ultimate responsibility for making the decision in evaluating
the recommendations of the intelligence community on the matter
of sending our troops to war, of spending trillions of dollars,
throwing the Mideast up into upheaval, and he is not the one
who ultimately bears the responsibility for that decision?
Mr. Rubin. The President made the decision to go to war.
I'm not willing to put the broad instability in the Middle East
on his shoulders.
Mr. Welch. I was ----
Mr. Rubin. The Middle East needs to be accountable ----
Mr. Welch. All right.
Mr. Rubin.--for the Middle East.
Mr. Welch. Second thing. So we went into this war in Iraq,
we toppled Saddam Hussein, we were promised we would make money
on the war. That was testimony from some of the President's
advisors. It will be over in 60 days and the troops would be
greeted with flowers in the street. It didn't work out that
way.
Afghanistan, the longest war in the history of this
country, we still have troops there. The place is a mess,
nation-building, an arrogant policy embraced by a prior
administration, didn't work out so great. Any of you think that
Afghanistan is on a solid footing for democracy at the moment,
just a yes or no if I can get that from each of you?
Mr. Rubin. No.
Mr. Welch. Sir?
Mr. Doran. No.
Mr. Hannah. No.
Mr. Welch. Sir?
Mr. Hannah. No.
Mr. Welch. All right. So we have to President who says, you
know what, this war approach isn't so great, and he had to make
a decision and he said, look, let's try negotiations. I
supported sanctions. Every tough sanction that we were able to
impose on Iran I supported, as did virtually all of the
Democrats and Republicans. You know what? The sanctions work.
It brought Iran to the table.
In this decision you are focusing on this fine public
servant, Ben Rhodes, because of a newspaper article is
something that then disregards the fact that we blew it in
Iraq, we are blowing it in Afghanistan, and the President
decided to pursue negotiations, got an agreement, and had the
full support of those allies, the P5+1.
So if there are implementation issues, let's get on it. I
am all for that. But to sit here and to suggest with this
history of failure when war is the option that we should have
done that, and that is essentially what the alternative was.
That is essentially what the alternative was. I don't buy it,
and I don't believe the American people buy it, and we are
picking and choosing trying to come up with some little detail
that somebody somewhere said to suggest that we ought to
unravel the whole thing. I disagree.
I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr.
Walker, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Walker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
On September 11, 2015, CNN stated, ``The effort was one of
the most aggressive lobbying drives ever to take shape between
congressional Democrat leaders and the Obama White House on
this bill H.R. 3461.'' Now, among the people who voted no were
25 Democrats. You heard today Mrs. Carolyn Maloney acknowledged
that. She wasn't the only one on this particular committee.
There were others.
My question is what did those 25 Members know that either
the other Members did not know or sadly in some cases chose to
ignore or even lobbied? In regards to Mr. Shapiro, we have
heard a lot of talk today. You know, I am sure you guys may be
dads, and it is always interesting when you confront one of
your children and ask them if they did something wrong. The
telltale sign or the giveaway is when they immediately
acknowledged that another brother or sister did something
wrong. That is what the smokescreen has been here today. You
know, so much of the smokescreen has been about Mr. Hannah.
Nobody wants to talk about Mr. Shapiro.
But let me talk about the difference if I could just for a
second. Here is a big difference between Mr. Hannah and Mr.
Shapiro. Mr. Shapiro enjoyed running to the press sharing false
information. Mr. Shapiro became the poster boy, almost the
spokesperson of a flawed and horrific Iranian deal. The words
``anytime, anywhere'' continue to ring true as far as even to
this day.
So my question, gentlemen, if you would please, whether
intentional or not, did Mr. Shapiro in your opinion mislead the
American public with this ``anytime, anywhere,'' multiple
times, Mr. Rubin?
Mr. Rubin. Mr. Rhodes most certainly did. Now, the key here
is that by lying about whether Rouhani was a moderate, he
provided cover for the fact that the administration left Iran
with 5,000 P-1 centrifuges and that the administration never
had any hope, once this agreement expired, that the resulting
Iran with an industrial-scale nuclear program would be any
different. And I should note, sir, that that's the number of
centrifuges which Pakistan built not a bomb but an arsenal.
Mr. Walker. Thank you, Mr. Rubin. And maybe one correction.
I said Mr. Shapiro. That would be Ben Rhodes.
Mr. Doran?
Mr. Doran. Yes, I think he deceived the American people.
Mr. Walker. Mr. Hannah?
Mr. Hannah. If the article is accurate, yes, I think that
he engaged in certain deceptions about what the administration
was really up to and what we were facing in Iran.
Mr. Walker. The Iran agreement lifts restrictions on arms
sales to Iran after 5 years and after 8 removes the ban on Iran
developing ballistic missiles potentially capable of reaching
the United States. Question, Mr. Rubin. Can you elaborate on
the threat the ballistic missile capability poses to the United
States?
Mr. Rubin. One of the problems I have with the reporting in
the United States is people tend to pat themselves on the back
every time there's a failed missile test. The fact of the
matter is you learn a lot from a failed missile test and Iran
has made clear in its public statements that it intends to
continue with its ballistic missiles until such a time as they
can strike anywhere, anytime.
I should also say a major flaw in the agreement is it bans
the arms sales for 5 years for offensive weapons but never
defines what offensive is, which is why Iran is on a shopping
spree in Russia and China right now.
Mr. Walker. Thank you, Mr. Rubin.
Mr. Doran?
Mr. Doran. The--one of the things that the agreement did
basically was remove ballistic missiles--effectively remove the
ballistic missiles from the kind of sanctions that they were
under by the change in language that the chairman mentioned.
If the administration had told Congress before the deal
that the deal was going to result in an Iranian-Russian
military alliance which was going to intervene in Syria and
result in a rise of Iranian power around the region, I think we
would've had a very different debate.
Mr. Walker. Mr. Hannah, would you like to expound?
Mr. Hannah. I would say the only thing about--on the
ballistic missile I think everything my colleagues have said is
right. It essentially--Iran is determined to do this, and it's
important to note that the only really rational military use of
these missiles is if you can put a nuclear warhead on them.
That makes them really militarily useful.
And the fact that Iran is so dedicated to expanding and
building out this program, including eventually an ICBM, not
only being able to hit all of their neighbors, including
Israel, but eventually at some point in time being able to hit
the United States, the fact they've had such deep cooperation
with North Korea over the years that already has an ICBM
capable of ranging the United States makes you believe that
this nuclear deal is only kicking the can down the road, and
they fully intend at a point in time when they're stronger and
more able to stand up to sanctions and to American power to go
ahead and, once restraints are limited, to go for a nuclear
weapon.
Mr. Walker. Thank you, panel. With that, I yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman.
I will now recognize the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Clay,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank the witnesses
for being here today.
Mr. Hannah, you worked for Dick Cheney. You actively
participated in the preparation of Secretary Powell's infamous
speech to the United Nations about Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction. I find it incredibly ironic that the chairman
invited you here to testify about false White House narratives,
given your involvement in that debacle.
One of the primary claims for war was that Saddam Hussein
had so-called mobile labs that were roaming around inside Iraq
manufacturing biological weapons. Secretary Powell showed a
cartoon drawing of one of these mobile labs during his speech
to the United Nations. We have a slide of it. Could someone
please put it up on the screen?
[Slide.]
Mr. Clay. Oh, there it is. Those are the mobile labs. Mr.
Hannah, who drew this picture?
Mr. Hannah. I do not know. I assume whoever in the
intelligence community was responsible for the graphics for his
presentation.
Mr. Clay. And you used this is part of your preparation--as
part of you preparing Mr. Powell for that speech?
Mr. Hannah. My guess is that, yes, the issue of the
biological labs would have been in whatever I provided ----
Mr. Clay. Yes.
Mr. Hannah.--in the draft.
Mr. Clay. Okay. Let me read Secretary Powell, who stated
during his speech to the United Nations, ``one of the most
worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file
we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile
production facilities used to make biological agents.'' What
was the source of that claim, Mr. Hannah?
Mr. Hannah. I believe the primary source was--it was a
defector and it was human intelligence. I think it was a
defector.
Mr. Clay. Wasn't it a source known as ``Curveball''?
Mr. Hannah. I believe so, yes.
Mr. Clay. Okay. Secretary Powell highlighted this so-called
eyewitness account in his United Nations speech. He warned that
Iraq could use these mobile labs to produce enough biological
weapons ``in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of
people.'' Isn't that right?
Mr. Hannah. Is that what he said?
Mr. Clay. Yes.
Mr. Hannah. Yes, if you're reading that accurately, yes.
Mr. Clay. But we now know that that claim was false. In
fact, Secretary Powell said his claim has ``totally blown up in
our faces.'' Do you agree with Secretary Powell?
Mr. Hannah. I agree that the claim was false, yes.
Mr. Clay. Is it true that no U.S. officials ever personally
interviewed Curveball before we used--they used that
information?
Mr. Hannah. I don't know that firsthand, but I think the
CIA has said that this was controlled by a German intelligence
service.
Mr. Clay. Yes. And it is true that the Germans who were
speaking with Curveball could not believe you were using this
information publicly because he was so unreliable. Isn't that
true?
Mr. Hannah. That's the claim. That was never relayed to me
by the CIA. They were talking to the CIA, I think, at that
time. If they said that, it wasn't a claim that was relayed to
me.
Mr. Clay. Okay. Well, I have an article from November 20,
2005, from the L.A. Times, and it says this: ``The senior BND
officer who supervised Curveball's case said he was aghast when
he watched Powell misstate Curveball's claims as a
justification for war. 'We were shocked,' the official said.
'Mein Gott, we had always told them it was not proven.''' Mr.
Hannah, is that true?
Mr. Hannah. Is it--well, I don't have any ----
Mr. Clay. The Germans warned from the beginning that this
information was not verified.
Mr. Hannah. That's what historically it is reported.
Between their communications, between their intelligence and
the CIA, that's what the Germans have claimed.
Mr. Clay. But it got into the Secretary's speech, into
Secretary Powell's speech, you know? Your narrative was at best
misleading and at worst blatantly false. As a result, thousands
of people were killed and injured when this nation went to war
based on those false claims. You know, do you have any remorse
about that?
Mr. Hannah. I have great, deep remorse about any American
soldier that's lost, especially if it's based on information
that we put out in good faith, that our intelligence
communities and other intelligence communities around the world
thought was true and thought we were acting in the best
interest of the United States. So I do have great remorse about
what ----
Mr. Clay. Right, but it wasn't vetted. The information ----
Chairman Chaffetz. The ----
Mr. Clay.--you just threw it at the Secretary ----
Mr. Hannah. No, that's not ----
Mr. Clay.--and had ----
Mr. Hannah. That's not true at all, Congressman. It's not
accurate.
Mr. Clay. It is true.
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman's ----
Mr. Clay. It is absolutely ----
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman's time is expired.
Mr. Clay.--a grave mistake.
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman's time ----
Mr. Clay. I guess I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman yields back. And I would
also duly note that Mr. Hannah worked for President Clinton,
served as a senior policy advisor to Secretary of State Warren
Christopher as well.
So I will now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
Hice, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Hice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There seems to be a great deal of confusion as to the
purpose of this hearing, which is supposed to be about this
current administration White House narrative on the Iran
nuclear deal. In Mr. Samuels' article, Leon Panetta stated that
he, during his tenure as director of the CIA and Secretary of
Defense, never saw the letters that Obama covertly sent to
Iran's supreme leader in 2009 and 2012.
He goes on to say that he would like to believe that Tom
Donilon, then-national security advisor; and Hillary Clinton,
then-Secretary of State, had a chance to work on the offer they
presented. Mr. Doran, let me begin with you. Is there any
information confirming that Mr. Donilon or Secretary Clinton
worked on those letters?
Mr. Doran. None that I know of.
Mr. Hice. Okay. Mr. Rubin, is circumventing--let's use that
word--of relevant department and agency heads in major foreign-
policy decisions typical behavior for members of the National
Security Council and other White House staffers?
Mr. Rubin. It has become a problem that has grown with time
dating back administrations.
Mr. Hice. So this is common practice these days?
Mr. Rubin. This has become all too common, yes.
Mr. Hice. Mr. Hannah?
Mr. Hannah. I do think something has changed in that
regard. Just the fact that we have a deputy national security
advisor for strategic communications whose job is both to help
develop policy, it seems, as closest foreign-policy aide to the
President and the guy who is selling it, I think, is worrisome.
I have got to say that in our administration you can make--
maybe fault us for a lot, but the fact is that people like Karl
Rove, who was in charge of our communications, never sat in
National Security Council meetings. There was a pretty strict
divide between those two.
Mr. Hice. Mr. Rubin, back to you. How much undue influence
do you believe that these staffers have over national security
policy?
Mr. Rubin. As Mr. Hannah said, I believe that this
administration has blurred a line that has existed over
previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican.
Mr. Hice. Okay. Mr. Hannah, you mentioned in your testimony
earlier that with one bold move the administration effectively
made a radical shift in American foreign policy. Is that a
correct assessment of your opinion?
Mr. Hannah. Yes, it certainly is. Yes.
Mr. Hice. Okay. The question then comes down to who
ultimately is responsible for that shift in foreign policy.
Would you say it is Ben Rhodes, other staffers, or the
President himself?
Mr. Hannah. No, the policy toward Iran and toward the
general retrenchment for the Middle East seems clearly to be
President Obama's. He's in charge of that policy.
Mr. Hice. Okay. And yet there is some influencers appears
to be in his life. Ben Rhodes, as referred to earlier, is
recognized as the single most influential voice on foreign
policy to the President. So what kind of role did he have in
shaping this radical shift?
Mr. Hannah. I don't know. And I do want to add the caveat
that this is the shift presented by the policy, although I
think it is consistent, as Mr. Doran has said, with the general
thrust of the administration's policy toward Iran and toward
the Middle East since 2008. I just don't think it's been
presented that way. They want to remove and distance themselves
from our closest allies in the Middle East, including Israel,
and what they tell our allies and they tell the American people
is that their relationship is stronger than ever and they will
forever have Israel's back.
And that's justified by what's presented in the article.
And it's that contradiction that worries me so much about what
is really going on. Are we having a full and open debate about
what we want to do? You've got to hand it to Mr. Trump. At
least he says I want to get out of this place. It's too
expensive, it's too costly, our allies are too much trouble. I
want to distance ourselves from it.
Mr. Hice. So let me clarify what you are saying because it
is troubling to me as well, extremely troubling that the
American people, that Congress, that our allies, when there is
such a radical shift of the magnitude of this type of foreign
policy that the American people, Congress, and our allies are
not aware of it. So the only way--do you believe the American
people and Congress would support a shift that major had they
known about it?
Mr. Hannah. No. I think as Mr. Doran said--and Secretary
Panetta is in fact quoted in the piece as saying had they done
it, they'd have gotten the blank kicked out of them.
Mr. Hice. Absolutely. So the only way to pull this over the
American people's eyes and Congress and our allies is by
spinning the truth and maybe people get on board something that
is not indeed reality or truth.
Mr. Hannah. That is the extremely strong suggestion of the
article that you had to spin it ----
Mr. Hice. But yes, no, then right down the line, would you
agree with that assessment?
Mr. Rubin. Yes.
Mr. Hice. I will yield.
Mr. Doran. Yes.
Mr. Hice. Mr. Hannah?
Mr. Hannah. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hice. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield.
Chairman Chaffetz. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr.
DeSaulnier, for 5 minutes.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rubin, first, I assume you are vigorously opposed to
the Iran agreement?
Mr. Rubin. I'm opposed to it, yes.
Mr. DeSaulnier. And you have been all along?
Mr. Rubin. I thought that there could be a much stronger
agreement and we could have made much better use of leverage to
get a much more favorable agreement.
Mr. DeSaulnier. But you are opposed.
Mr. Doran?
Mr. Doran. Yes.
Mr. Hannah. Yes, I'd associate myself with Michael's ----
Mr. DeSaulnier. So just to be clear, for instance, former
Secretary of State Colin Powell, he has called the verification
regime ``vigorous in the agreement. These are remarkable
changes.'' And so we have stopped this highway race that they
were going down, and I think that is very, very important.
Would any of you agree with Secretary Powell's quote in his
view of this agreement?
Mr. Hannah. It reminds me of the statements in support of
the agreed framework with North Korea, which we now know did
not merit those endorsements.
Mr. DeSaulnier. So you wouldn't agree with it?
Mr. Hannah. No, I would not.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Brent Scowcroft, former advisor to
Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush, ``To turn our back on
this accomplishment would be an abdication of the United
States' unique role and responsibility incurring justified
dismay among our allies and friends.'' You would disagree with
that quote as well, Mr. Doran? Do you have any comment?
Mr. Doran. Yes, I disagree with it.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Mr. Hannah, it strikes me that in your
response to some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle's
comments about your role with Vice President Cheney and the
agreement or the decision to invade Iraq, it was a mistake and
you apologized for that in your own way, but we should just
move on from that. Is that a misrepresentation of how you view
your actions?
Mr. Hannah. It's somewhat more complicated than that but
too long to explain.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Of course.
Mr. Hannah. But, yes, that--if the case depended on a
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that was false, and the
American people didn't understand the grounds on which we were
going to war, to take out a guy who was a horrible dictator and
a major strategic threat to American interests, that the
American Congress in 1998 passed a law almost unanimously
saying--the Iraq Liberation Act saying we've got to do
something to get rid of this guy, didn't say war necessarily
but it says we've got a big trouble with Iraq, we need to do
something about it.
Mr. DeSaulnier. But it was based, wouldn't you say, on the
assumption that there were weapons of mass destruction in these
mobile biological labs?
Mr. Hannah. No, in 1998 it was the Clinton administration.
You had Secretary of Defense Cohen standing up and holding up a
bag of sugar and saying if Saddam had this much biological
weapons, he would kill thousands upon thousands of people that
he represents ----
Mr. DeSaulnier. Right.
Mr. Hannah.--a major threat to the United States.
Mr. DeSaulnier. But that wasn't it ----
Mr. Hannah. That was the basis ----
Mr. DeSaulnier. But that wasn't the part of the discussion
we were having as a nation in order to commit ourselves to send
young American to war in Iraq. It was the weapons of mass
destruction, which you admit now was a mistake.
Mr. Hannah. Yes, that intelligence clearly was false. A
bipartisan commission ----
Mr. DeSaulnier. Right.
Mr. Hannah.--looked at it and said most of that was wrong.
Mr. DeSaulnier. So, on balance, comparing these two
processes, whether you think it is spin or not, the
consequences strike me as being much more significance,
obviously, to the decision to tell people it was based--we were
going to invade Iraq not because we didn't like Saddam Hussein,
although that was the case as well, but that there were
biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction versus what
we see with the Iran nuclear deal.
Now, you can assume as experts that this is not going to
turn out well, but to this point they are not equal in terms of
the negative consequences to this country and the stability of
that peace in the Middle East. Would you say? I mean, how could
you possibly say at this point?
Mr. Hannah. Listen, I would say that the--that you're
right, that war and the death of the--and injury of American
soldiers is a terrible, terrible price to pay. We haven't seen
a lot of Americans dying, but just take a look at the Middle
East right now after 8 years of this administration. It's hard
to say it's better because Americans aren't dying but half-a-
million Syrians have died, chemical weapons are being used,
Russian and Iranian influence ----
Mr. DeSaulnier. But that all was because of a decision that
you were very much a part of to get the country to go to war in
Iraq.
Mr. Hannah. Well, you know it's much more complicated than
that because it ----
Mr. DeSaulnier. No, it isn't.
Mr. Hannah. It is, Congressman ----
Mr. DeSaulnier. Not from my perspective. I am not an expert
----
Mr. Hannah. Okay.
Mr. DeSaulnier.--but I have gone to funerals of
constituents who are dead in their 20s and their teens because
you and Vice President Cheney encouraged the invasion of Iraq.
Mr. Hannah. It was because Iranian IEDs, Iranian EFPs that
killed Americans, not a narrative, and that is why it's ----
Mr. DeSaulnier. How did that action stop ----
Mr. Hannah.--so not understandable that we're letting Iraq
off the hook.
Mr. DeSaulnier. How did our invading Iraq stop those other
actions? You have sat here and testified they continue to
support terrorists in the region.
Mr. Hannah. We didn't invade the Gaza Strip, we didn't
invade Yemen, we didn't invade Syria, and yet we see Iran on
the warpath all over. And what this agreement did was take the
budget of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the hard
currency available to it, and increase it by an order of
magnitude.
Mr. DeSaulnier. They were doing that before. That is why we
went into Iraq is what you are saying. Yes, no?
Mr. Hannah. No, I'm saying you are trying to ----
Mr. DeSaulnier. You said ----
Mr. Hannah.--blame a narrative on the fact that Iran has
been the leading state sponsor of terrorism according to the
U.S. Department of State since 1984, and to try to somehow
distract from that and distract from a false--a narrative of
false moderation is counterproductive, I would argue.
Mr. DeSaulnier. I just have to tell you in all honesty I
feel like I am in a replay of a sequel of Dr. Strangelove here,
and it would be nice to have a balanced discussion about this.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Chaffetz. I would agree with the gentleman. It
would be nice to have a balanced discussion. That is why we
invited Mr. Rhodes and we invited the participation of Senator
Cotton, who is on the other end of the spectrum. But when the
White House refuses to make them available and Democrats call
no witnesses, we can't have that discussion. That is what a
shame about today's hearing.
I now recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Russell,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Russell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In dealing with the Iran nuclear issue, I am saddened that
rather than look forward to how best secure the United States
from a real nuclear threat, we see a progressive attack on our
entry into Iraq to cloud the issue. It is almost like the
classic page from the Communist playbook that advises ``admit
nothing, deny everything, and make counteraccusation.''
I take exception to the twisted narrative that our entry
into Iraq was based upon bad faith and false pretense. If an
abusive neighbor attacks everyone in his neighborhood and then
threatens them with total destruction, are we to believe, as
progressives seem too, that we should sit idly by and not take
action to secure ourselves from such threat?
The truth of the matter is that Saddam had technical
capacity to develop a bomb. In the summer of 2003 I have
firsthand knowledge that the 1st Battalion, 36th Infantry,
along with special operations forces, they secured a Zippe
centrifuge, which is of the highest order for refinement of
nuclear material, and it was smuggled out of Europe. They
obtained technical drawings and hardware from the garden of
Saddam's nuclear physicist Dr. Mahdi Obeidi. Dr. Obeidi's
account of Saddam's threat is well-documented in his book The
Bomb in My Garden, an account the CIA describes as largely
accurate and balanced.
I remember as I served in Iraq during that time as we were
hunting for Saddam that this would be major news as the Zippe
centrifuge and technical drawings would come to light. Instead,
it is largely hidden to this day.
It is also interesting to note that senior leaders and one
in particular who relayed to me that during a major Syrian
flood he was directed by Saddam to move material to an eastern
Syrian site. This was material of both a nuclear and a chemical
nature. It is interesting that that very site was attacked
during Operation Orchard by the Israeli Air Force, and that
site was completely destroyed because they were making a
nuclear reactor. Again, the silence on these issues is
deafening.
As one of the commanders that helped track down and capture
Saddam Hussein, it is very emotional for me to hear Members of
this Congress condemn our efforts, but it is not surprising.
From day one, as we sacrificed in the field, progressives in
this Congress condemned our efforts with progressive leaders
even going so far as to declare that the war was lost while we
buried our friends in the field. That steady drumbeat forced us
to bury friends not only there but ship come home and put them
in Section 60 of Arlington, and then we come home to watch
politicians, many still in office, destroy what we fought for.
They persist even today, Mr. Chairman.
I will never regret bringing a dictator to justice, and I
am proud to have played a part in it. History, should we even
allow it, will judge us and our efforts in Iraq kindly. I am
not sure the same can be said of Congress.
Now, we turn to yet another nuclear threat with Iran. Dr.
Obeidi, in reflecting on our security, stated that to succeed
``illicit nuclear programs share a common weak spot. They need
international complicity.'' In Mr. Rhodes and this
administration, it appears he provided and they provided all of
it to Iran.
Mr. Rubin, how and how early did the administration start
talking about minimizing congressional oversight of the Iran
deal?
Mr. Rubin. I am not privy to the internal discussions
within the administration, but it appears from secondhand
sources almost from the beginning.
Mr. Russell. I have passed the Iran Terror Financier Act,
the only real effort to oppose the nuclear deal, which now sits
in the Senate. And with Mr. Rhodes' exposure, the need for
congressional oversight, there are key provisions in my measure
and it sits in the Senate. That language even today could be
acted upon by the Senate that would provide us key oversight on
any decisions.
The President acted unconstitutionally. While he is free to
make agreements and have negotiation, he is not free to bind us
with treaty-like obligation. Do you think that if we pass the
key provisions out of the measure that currently sits in the
Senate that would increase that oversight? As was noted last
week by Politico, do you think that it would be helpful in
deterring and at least making what we do have better?
Mr. Rubin. Yes. And very briefly, the strongest, most
effective actions that have been taken by Iran both under the
Clinton administration with executive orders and under the Bush
and Obama administrations have been the unilateral American
sanctions rather than the watered down United Nations Security
Council resolutions, even though the Bush administration
achieved a number of those as well.
Mr. Russell. Thank you, sir, and thank you, gentlemen, for
your service and thank you for being here today.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. Mr. Russell, we thank you for your
service and your sacrifice and your time serving this country,
and we are better for it. Thank you.
I now recognize the gentlewoman from New Mexico, Ms. Lujan
Grisham, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Lujan Grisham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thanks for the opportunity to talk about what I think
is really important in this agreement and issue, which is
making sure that we are holding Iran accountable, that we are
clear about what those accountability issues and measures are,
and not just how that is being communicated but how that is
being verified.
And my only disappointment in the hearing today, Mr.
Chairman, is that we are having conversations about what-ifs
but we are not talking to the folks--with no disrespect to the
panel members--about really who is enforcing, who is
accountable, and certainly for my constituents and the number
of individuals that I spoke to with expertise in this area
either as concerned citizens or organizations and the
administration and people outside of the administration, that
is my core focus.
And in fact, as part of the hearing of this nature, I was
more concerned and more--I would like information about the
reductions in the uranium stockpile, the status of the
centrifuges in Iran, the monitoring and detection measures that
the U.S. has, and then our allies have also been doing. Does
anyone on the panel have any specific authority or expertise on
any of those issues because you are directly involved in that
accountability?
Mr. Rubin. Are we serving a government right now or am I in
IAEA? The answer to that is no. However, we have dedicated
years to the study of these issues and so could give
suggestions if you would like.
Ms. Lujan Grisham. Well, and I appreciate that. For
example, I have spent 30 years in the health care industry, and
I have a variety, I think, of very credible opinions, but at
the end of the day I am not your physician so I can't talk to
you about your specific health. And what I really think is
important with, again, no disrespect, gentlemen--and one of the
things that I appreciate about this hearing is that we tackle
tough subjects. I expect that in this committee. I expect that
of the chairman, particularly in this issue, keeping America
safe, being clear that we will make sure that everyone is
accountable, that we are clear about what the risks are, I
think that those are all incredibly valuable things for us to
be paying attention to.
And I can tell you that my constituents back home, in
addition to the country, expect that from me. But to know
exactly where we are more than opining based on--again, no
disrespect to your credentials, far better than mine on these
specific issues directly--but again, I think, Mr. Chairman, we
ought to be talking to the individuals who are absolutely
responsible for assuring, verifying these issues so that we
know exactly what we are dealing with because they are actually
doing it.
What can we be doing better to make sure that we are
getting that information and that our accountability
enforcement efforts are what they ought to be and that we have
a way bipartisan to weigh in to reshape them productively if
need be? Anyone?
Mr. Doran. I totally agree with you. I agree with
everything you have said, and I think that I would like to have
a discussion with those people. But the administration has
worked to obfuscate this entire--the agreement and all the
processes around it. And I think that's one of my main messages
here is not that I'm the expert on centrifuges or that I'm the
expert on sanctions and so on. It's that those of us who would
like to understand what is happening are not being given the
information we need. We can't have an open and honest debate
about this because we really don't have the key facts. And I
think if you read my prepared statement, you'll see that I've
made, I think, a pretty cogent argument to that fact.
Ms. Lujan Grisham. Anyone else?
Mr. Rubin. Well, what I would say is when surgery goes
awry, oftentimes the doctors will conduct an after-action study
about what went wrong. Likewise in the private sector,
businessmen will practice negotiations and look at what they
might have done better. In the U.S. military, sergeants,
majors, and chiefs will berate soldiers from making mistakes
not for a political ax to grind but to make them better
soldiers and sailors.
What the State Department has not done in the last 60 years
is conduct an after-action report about high-profile diplomacy.
This goes across administrations. So, yes, we can say that this
is what the IAEA needs to be looking for, that they need not
only to be looking at declared nuclear facilities but also
undeclared nuclear facilities, that there has to be independent
testing of Iran--of work being conducted on Iranian nuclear
military sites and that there has to be extraterritoriality in
the inspection in case Iran takes some of its lab work to North
Korea.
Those are all specific things which could be done, but we
have to go broader and look at why diplomacy hasn't worked.
Let's have the State Department be introspective. If they're
not going to do the due diligence, the Congress should.
Ms. Lujan Grisham. And I appreciate those points, and my
time is up, but in response, again, without having that
expertise in this hearing, we don't have a debate based on
facts. And I might disagree with you about our efforts in what
I am going to call complex and high-level diplomacy and maybe
on some points I am not, but without having those individuals
before this committee, we are ill-equipped to do that.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. I concur with the gentlewoman. That is
why it is so frustrating when Mr. Rhodes, who is at the center
of this, was, as of Monday, going to appear and then suddenly
executive privilege is claimed and they decide not to have him.
So you are right. The Congress is kept in the dark because the
administration won't share the information with us.
Ms. Lujan Grisham. And, Mr. Chairman, with--and the
chairman is very patient with me and this is not a place to
debate that, and I appreciate the chairman more than he knows,
and I mean that earnestly, but again, I am not sure that Mr.
Rhodes is the right person. But we do. We need to continue to
have an effort to get facts so that we are not speculating
about where we are in enforcing this agreement. And that is all
of our responsibility.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman, for again giving me maybe the
last word, and thank you for being patient with me today, sir.
Chairman Chaffetz. Thank you. I thank the gentlewoman.
I now recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman,
for 5 minutes. Microphone, please. Microphone.
Mr. Grothman. Could we have slide 3?
[Slide.]
Mr. Grothman. Okay. I better read it over here. The easiest
way for--okay. This is a quote from a New York Times article.
``The easiest way for the White House to shape the news, he
explained, is from the briefing podiums, each of which has its
own dedicated press corps. 'But then there are sort of these
force multipliers,' he said, adding that 'We have our
compadres. I will reach out to a couple of people and, you
know, I wouldn't want to name them. I will say, hey, look, some
people are spinning this narrative that this is a sign of
American weakness.'"
Well, since he won't name them, Mr. Doran, do you want to
take a shot at who was he speaking of when they talk about the
administration's compadres in the press who helped them spin
the White House narrative and who in the press do you think he
is kind of referring to there?
Mr. Doran. I wouldn't want to speculate on individuals. I
would just note that in general the major newspapers and the
major networks have supported the line coming out of the White
House. And one of the things that Mr. Rhodes drew our attention
to and I think it's important to focus on is the blurring--as a
result of the fact that newspapers and networks are reporting
foreign news from Washington, we have this blurring now of
opinion and news so that the line that Mr. Rhodes is putting
out find its way into news articles and that it also finds its
way into opinion columns at the same time, which then they had
a kind of mutually reinforcing effect.
But we also find at the same time that only about 13
percent of Americans actually believe what they're hearing
anymore, and I think we can draw our own conclusions about
that.
Mr. Grothman. Well, having been here for 14 months, I don't
believe anything I read in the paper around here, but the major
papers, do you believe like the New York Times, the Washington
Post, would you consider those major papers you are talking
about?
Mr. Doran. Yes, you can see like--I'll give an example. You
know, recently, the Saudis put to death this cleric Nimr al-
Nimr, a Shiite. The line that you got universally in the
newspapers, in the news articles, and in the opinion pieces and
then on the networks was that there's a huge Saudi sectarian
escalation which is destroying relations with Iran. All the
things that Iran is doing around the region, flexing of its
muscles like Dr. Rubin described, we're not hearing about. And
I believe that that was news reported out of the White House.
I'll just say one more thing about this, too. Because of
the rise of the internet, we have all these nontraditional news
sources now that people go to, and it puts enormous pressure on
the serious reporters that are out there. I mean, I'm thinking
of people like David Sanger and Michael Gordon of the New York
Times. These are very serious reporters, right? But they know--
and if they don't know it and if they're not thinking about it
directly in their own minds, their editors know that if they
don't--that if they take a line that is hostile to what the
White House is saying, the White House can go to Vox or to
BuzzFeed or somewhere else and give the story.
So even reporters that I think we would all agree are
extremely serious reporters are under pressure, I think, not to
report a story that's going to harm their access to the White
House.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. And just so we understand, we mentioned
the New York Times and Washington Post by name, but because
they feed the Associated Press, just because I don't get the
New York Times and Washington Post doesn't mean that that is
not the article that I am getting, say, in almost any other
major newspaper around the country, correct?
Mr. Doran. Yes, it replicates itself immediately.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. Now, when he talks about his compadres,
do you have any opinion if he is talking about anybody in the
think tank or policy world?
Mr. Doran. Well, the two that were mentioned in the article
were the Ploughshares Fund and NIAC, but it is not hard--you
know, if you followed would happen on Twitter when this article
came out, the friends of the White House and the friends of the
echo chamber, you could identify the echo chamber by seeing how
they pounced immediately on the article, picked out one or two
little facts that they could criticize, and built a whole, I
think, specious argument that the author had a political agenda
in this. And then that narrative then was spun out of social
media and into the mainstream media.
Mr. Rubin. If I may say very quickly, sir, I don't know
David Samuels, the author of the article, but to criticize him
for not being supportive of the Iran deal illustrates the
problem of an echo chamber because journalists saying that only
sympathetic journalists that can cover the administration, that
itself is a sign of a much greater problem. Huge problem.
Mr. Grothman. Can I play video here or are we done with our
time?
Chairman Chaffetz. Let me go to Mr. Palmer ----
Mr. Grothman. Okay. I want to come back. Yes.
Chairman Chaffetz.--and then if you want to come back, we
will come back.
Now, we are going to recognize the gentleman from Alabama,
Mr. Palmer.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we have about
worn this out. We have covered everything from Iran to the fact
that I think Mr. Meadows establish very clearly that we were
lied to by this administration, perhaps even with contempt.
But I want to go to something else that I think is really
at the core of what we ought to be talking about, and that is a
key promise from the administration is that the Iran nuclear
deal would provide the public and lawmakers with assurance that
Iran was meeting its obligation, and Iran's ability to engage
in proliferation would the substantially mitigated.
I mean, we can go back to the Rhodes statement that it
would be the strongest inspection regime that any country faces
in the world. We could go to what the State Department posted
on the Web site, that the International Atomic Energy Agency
would have regular access to all of Iran's nuclear facilities,
that they would be providing the IAEA with much greater access,
that it would require--that they be granted access to
investigate suspicious sites or allegations of covert
enrichment. But that is not what has actually happened.
I want to share with you that after the deal was
implemented, the International Atomic Energy Agency published
its regular report on Iran. I think it came out in February.
And the report contained less information than the IAEA had
regularly provided about Iran before the deal was in place. In
fact, when asked about these gaps, IAEA Director General Amano
said that, in fact, the deal restricted the IAEA's ability to
report publicly about Iran's nuclear program.
Mr. Rubin, given that, how much confidence do you have in
this deal?
Mr. Rubin. I have very little confidence in this deal for
reasons that I've outlined in my written testimony. It falls
far short of the most rigorous inspection regime ever, and the
danger isn't just in Iran, very briefly. The danger is that it
permanently dilutes the standard by which other potential
proliferators are held.
Mr. Palmer. But would you agree that General Amano's
statement validates the concerns that you expressed about the
deal from the very beginning?
Mr. Rubin. Yes, I would.
Mr. Palmer. Would you also say that, given this statement
from the General Amano, that the exaggerated concessions that
this administration claims that they obtained might be called
into question as well?
Mr. Rubin. Yes, I would.
Mr. Palmer. You know, we have been talking about echo
chambers, we talked about misrepresentations. I go back to the
statement that Secretary of State Kerry made that he was the
chief negotiator. We know that the framework of the deal was
already in place before he really got involved, these
statements that have been brought out in the New York Times
Magazine article, but what we really haven't talked about is
the fact that the deal is a fraud, and Iran could be on a path
to a nuclear weapon.
And here is something else that we haven't really discussed
that I think we need to be talking about, too, is that
according to Ben Rhodes that this deal also is part of a plan
to abandon our friends and allies in the Middle East. Does that
give you some concern, Mr. Rubin?
Mr. Rubin. Yes, it does.
Mr. Palmer. How about you, Mr. Doran?
Mr. Doran. Absolutely.
Mr. Palmer. How about you, Mr. Hannah?
Mr. Hannah. Yes, very much so.
Mr. Palmer. Do you believe that the Obama administration
withheld information from Congress about the deal
intentionally?
Mr. Rubin. Yes, I do.
Mr. Palmer. Do you believe that was in violation of the
Corker-Cardin agreement, the law that he signed into law
himself?
Mr. Rubin. It absolutely was, and on top of which the
Corker-Cardin amendment was written in such a way to prevent
this from happening. And unfortunately, the administration
simply broke the law.
Mr. Palmer. I couldn't agree more. Peter Roskam, the
gentleman from Illinois, introduced a House resolution and
argued that very point. The House passed that resolution that
this deal was illegal from the get-go because the Corker-Cardin
law required that all information be provided to Congress,
including the side agreements, and it clearly wasn't.
I think there is one issue, really one question that we
need to ask, and I will ask each one of you to answer this. Do
you believe this deal has actually assured Iran a path to
developing a nuclear weapon?
Mr. Rubin. Yes. At the very least it leaves Iran with an
industrial-scale nuclear program upon the expiration of the
controls, and the administration went into this knowing that
the Iranian regime was not moderate.
Mr. Palmer. Mr. Doran?
Mr. Doran. I agree with all that.
Mr. Palmer. Mr. Hannah?
Mr. Hannah. Yes, I agree with Michael's conclusion.
Mr. Palmer. Mr. Chairman, I am not sure it is the
jurisdiction of this committee to look into the ramifications
of that possibility, but I do think that is essentially what we
should have been talking about this entire time. And the fact
that this administration misled Congress is one issue that I
think we need to pursue, but I think at some point Congress
needs to look at what our positions ought to be going forward
in regard to Iran.
I yield back.
Chairman Chaffetz. I totally agree with the gentleman and
appreciate his perspective. And he is right. That is the
ultimate fear that we have is that Iran, not a friend of the
United States, not a friendly partner within the world
community, that they are even more so on a pathway to develop a
nuclear weapon, and that is what is scary.
We will go one more time to Mr. Grothman of Wisconsin.
Mr. Grothman. Sure. And we will go one more time to Ben
Rhodes--I mean, not to Ben Rhodes, to Michael Doran.
Ben Rhodes commented on the White House's desire to avoid
scrutiny. And I would like to look at video clip D and ask you
a question about it.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Grothman. Okay. How do you feel the process
circumvented the transparency with Congress?
Mr. Doran. They structured the deal so that they could take
it to the Security Council and effectively move out on it
before Congress ever really got to look at it.
And there's a second dimension to what we just heard that's
disturbing. That was Ben Rhodes talking to a group of
progressive activists and telling them what was coming down the
line and giving them the talking points about how to support
it. I mean, that--what you just heard was Ben Rhodes talking to
the foot soldiers that are going to create--that are--in his
echo chamber.
Mr. Grothman. Tell us again what those foot soldiers are.
Mr. Doran. I'm sorry?
Mr. Grothman. Tell us again what you describe those foot
soldiers ----
Mr. Doran. Oh, those--in this case these are progressive--
this is progressive groups. I don't know the exact--what we're
talking--they regularly briefed dozens of progressive groups.
I'm not talking about pseudo-experts on nuclear proliferation
and things that that. I'm talking about just grassroots
progressive organizations to get--to help them carry the water
politically.
But it's one of these blurring of the lines between rules
that I don't think we saw in previous administrations where you
have somebody who's in charge of communications but yet sitting
at the table with the Secretary of Defense and sometimes
telling the Secretary of Defense that he's wrong and then going
out and talking to domestic political groups and telling them
how to go militate in favor of the foreign policy of the
administration.
Mr. Grothman. Okay. Thank you.
Chairman Chaffetz. I thank the gentleman. I thank you all
for your attendance here, your participation, your expertise in
illuminating what is a very disturbing situation.
The committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:46 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
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