[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10405-10408]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      NUCLEAR AGREEMENT WITH IRAN

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, the nuclear negotiations with Iran are now 
approaching a self-imposed deadline of June 30, just a few days from 
now. The negotiators chose that deadline when they concluded the 
interim accord 6 months ago and have reportedly been determined to 
stick to it to focus their efforts.

[[Page 10406]]

  At the same time, it may be the case that a brief extension deadline 
rather than a rush to a conclusion that would bring us to a bad deal is 
something we ought to consider. Senator Corker has told Secretary Kerry 
exactly that, cautioning him that there is no need so desperate that 
requires either accepting a bad deal or yielding to unacceptable 
Iranian demands. I don't necessarily oppose a short-term extension to 
reach a better conclusion or a better deal, but I have deep concerns 
about whether that will be the case, even if we extend for a small 
amount of time.
  I fear the Obama administration is not hearing the message that a 
potential bad deal could be in the making, and it raises great concern. 
I fear that yielding to one Iranian demand after another in order to 
secure a deal is exactly what the Obama administration has been doing 
in its negotiations. I fear that we will return from our Independence 
Day celebrations to take up a pending Iran nuclear deal that neither 
permanently foils Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions nor makes us or the 
world more secure. I fear this administration, so seemingly desperately 
eager for a legacy, will choose to define any Iranian deal at all as a 
great success for diplomacy, no matter how much it concedes to Iranian 
positions.
  In May, I and many of my colleagues worked hard to impose a 
requirement for the administration to present any Iran deal to 
Congress. Despite strong opposition from the Obama administration, 99 
of the 100 Senators were convinced that Congress must have the ability 
to evaluate in detail every aspect of a negotiated settlement and how 
it is to be imposed, how it is to be monitored, and verified. That is 
our core task once a deal is presented to us. It is an immensely 
important duty of historic dimensions.
  I hope and pray that each of us will evaluate the proposed deal on 
its merits alone and what it would mean for our Nation's security, both 
now and in the future when the terms have expired. Unfortunately, to 
take up that duty and perform that task, we will have to immerse 
ourselves in some of the arcane technical details that lie near the 
heart of such negotiations. I say ``near'' the heart rather than ``at'' 
the heart because the very central issue for me--and hopefully for my 
colleagues--is the nature of the Iranian regime, their proven, 
demonstrated ill will revealed by decades of murderous aggression and 
lying deceit. That is the proven record of our negotiating partner, and 
all their claimed commitments will have to be evaluated in that light.
  However, evaluating the technical details will present its own 
challenges and we need to prepare ourselves for those challenges. We 
need to take stock now of some of those details as they appear at the 
moment any deal is finalized. To do that, we will have to look through 
a fog of claims and counterclaims to see the outlines of something that 
is still evolving, even as it remains in the shadows. But with just 
those partial images, I have some deep concerns.
  First, it now appears from public comments that our negotiators--and 
especially Secretary Kerry himself--are no longer insisting that Iran 
come clean on its past nuclear weapons development activities. This has 
long been a central demand by our side, as often confirmed by our 
negotiators themselves. To cave on this demand would be a fatal flaw 
and should all by itself lead to rejection of the deal.
  Let me state that again. To cave on this demand that Iran come clean 
on its past nuclear weapons development activities all by itself should 
lead to rejection of the deal, if we do not achieve that goal.
  The International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, has been pressing for 
information from Iran about the past nuclear weapons programs for 
years. Recently, the IAEA Director General explained the importance of 
the issue this way:

       What we don't know [is] whether they have undeclared 
     activities or something else. We don't know what they did in 
     the past. So, we know a part of their activities, but we 
     cannot tell we know all of their activities. And that is why 
     we cannot say that all the activities in Iran is in peaceful 
     purposes . . . the Agency is not in a position to provide 
     credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear 
     material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude 
     that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.

  The Obama administration has long agreed with the IAEA that Iran 
needs to come clean on its past activities to create a baseline for 
understanding future activities under any agreement--an absolutely 
essential standard that has to be met.
  The U.S. head negotiator, Wendy Sherman--who, incidentally, 
negotiated the utterly failed deal with North Korea as well--told a 
Senate committee in 2013 that ``Iran must agree to address past and 
present practices, which is the IAEA terminology for possible military 
dimensions . . . we intend to support the IAEA in its efforts to deal 
with possible military dimensions.'' Later, she told the SFRC that ``in 
the Joint Plan of Action we have required that Iran come clean.''
  These are the statements of our negotiators. These are the 
commitments they made to the Senate and to the American people that 
these were the standards that could not be breached and that if it was 
not a part of the arrangement, then we would not accept this deal.
  So we are quoting here from the record of what policy and what 
conditions the United States has laid out before the Iranians that, if 
not achieved, are a nonstarter of a deal.
  Secretary Kerry has repeatedly said that the possible military 
dimensions of the Iranian nuclear program ``will have to be addressed'' 
and ``that Iranians will have to do it.''
  ``It will be done,'' he said.
  However, I was shocked to read last week that Secretary Kerry told 
this to the Department of State press corps:

       We are not fixated on Iran specifically accounting for what 
     they did at one point in time or another. We know what they 
     did. We have no doubt. We have absolute knowledge with 
     respect to the certain military activities they were engaged 
     in. What we are concerned about is going forward.

  First of all, this is completely misleading. It is a complete 180-
degree turn from what had been committed to earlier. As a member of the 
Senate Intelligence Committee, I can state emphatically that we do not 
have absolute knowledge of anything. That is not how intelligence 
works.
  Secretary Kerry's statement suggests that he may be misusing one of 
our most useful tools of statecraft--perhaps a more concerning issue 
than the statement itself.
  If we did have absolute knowledge of what the Iranians had done and 
have done to this date, we would not have spent the past years joining 
with the IAEA and the responsible international community to demand 
that Iran come clean. For the life of me, I cannot understand what the 
Secretary is thinking about when making such a claim. It is in total 
contradiction of a key facet--maybe the key facet of this deal.
  Now, suddenly we are backing away, saying ``We know everything'' when 
we have for years been pursuing with the IAEA to get the knowledge of 
what we do know and the IAEA basically saying to us: No, we don't know 
everything. There is a lot we do not know.
  In any case, I regard this new position as a blatant reversal of a 
key part of our negotiating objectives and a capitulation to the 
Iranians--a capitulation that reveals, perhaps, how desperate the 
administration is to secure a deal--any deal.
  The next point of concern is the type and pace of sanctions relief we 
seem to be dangling as an incentive for the Iranians to accept any 
deal. This issue is very complex technically, legally, and 
legislatively. One key point is that throughout these negotiations, the 
administration has consistently argued that any deal would lead only to 
sanctions relief regarding nuclear issues. But the fact sheet that the 
White House put out following the interim deal framework stated that 
U.S. sanctions on Iran for terrorism, human rights abuses, and 
ballistic missiles will remain in place under the deal.
  Let me say that again. The administration put out this fact sheet 
following the interim deal stating that U.S. sanctions on Iran for 
terrorism, human rights abuses, and ballistic missiles will remain in 
place under the deal.

[[Page 10407]]

  Now it seems this limitation was not good enough for the Iranians, 
and we have caved again.
  Yesterday, the so-called Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, included 
this matter in his expanded list of redlines. He said that all 
economic, financial, and banking sanctions implemented either by the 
United Nations Security Council, the United States Congress, or the 
administration must be lifted immediately when the deal is signed.
  According to media reports, which have not been refuted by the 
administration since they began appearing last month, the Supreme 
Leader has won again.
  The emerging deal may roll back sanctions that had been imposed for 
these other nonnuclear reasons. According to these reports, based on 
leaks from the negotiating teams, 23 out of the 24 currently sanctioned 
Iranian banks will be delisted as sanctions targets, including the 
Central Bank of Iran. This is the Revolutionary Guard Corps-dominated 
institution that was sanctioned because of its role in money 
laundering, financing terrorism, ballistic weapons research, and 
campaign claims of bolstering the Assad regime in Syria. Removing 
sanctions applied to these banks will give Iran hundreds of billions of 
dollars that could be used for their terrorism activities in regional 
proxy wars.
  These reports, if true, constitute yet another reversal of clearly 
stated policy and yet another capitulation to the Iranians.
  No. 3, it appears that negotiators may be aiming at an arrangement to 
set aside the dispute about open, free access to Iranian facilities. We 
have long maintained that any agreement would have to give the IAEA 
such access--stated over and over to us through our briefings, by the 
Secretary, and by others negotiating this. What this means is open, 
free access anytime, anywhere. It appears this is not now the case. We 
have long maintained that the IAEA have access anytime, anyplace, as 
their spokesmen have often emphasized. President Obama himself 
reassured the region's nervous Arab leaders on this very point in an 
effort to gain their acceptance of the deal.
  In the meantime, once again Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, 
has stated emphatically that no such access would be granted, and other 
Iranian authorities repeated this redline that the Iranians have drawn 
in the deal and that we are capitulating to, one after another. Their 
Parliament even recently passed a law to this effect. It looked like an 
unbridgeable gap. Khamenei repeated this firm position again just 
yesterday.
  Some argue that Khamenei's declarations are part of the negotiating 
strategy. Well, if so, it seems to have worked. Anyplace access for 
intrusive inspection has been taken out. We have dropped ``anytime, 
anyplace.''
  The buzzword phrase that now is being giving to us is ``managed 
access.'' When I first heard that, I said, what in the world does that 
mean, ``managed access''? With this concept, it appears there would now 
be a mechanism that would evaluate requests for access to determine if 
there is a genuine need. Instead of anytime, anyplace, anywhere, for 
any reason, in order to verify that the Iranians are not cheating, that 
has turned into now a request for a search or for access at their time 
and their decision as to what the place will be or what the place will 
not be. This makes a mockery of the state of the original required 
demand for access at anytime, anyplace. ``Access where needed, when 
needed'' seems to be the new mantra--where needed, when needed, giving 
them plenty of time to make a decision as to yea or nay or to remove 
from those sites damning evidence of their pursuit of nuclear 
capabilities.
  Because this issue of access is crucial to the issue of credibility, 
verification, and compliance, it arguably is the most important 
requirement of all for an acceptable deal. Those advocating for the 
emerging deal are actually boasting that this artful dodging is a 
negotiating victory.
  Is there anything more we need to say about the weak and compromising 
negotiating strategy of those who are currently at the table 
representing the United States? I have just named and spelled out three 
major concerns regarding these negotiations, but there are many other 
aspects of the apparently emerging deal that separately and together 
show a pattern--a very disturbing pattern of constant retreat and 
capitulation by this administration in the negotiations with the 
Iranians. I won't go into the details of each of these, but let me just 
run off several other issues of major concern.
  One, the clearly inadequate timeframe for any agreement, the sunset 
clause--it is no longer a part of the negotiations; two, outrageously 
generous details of sanctions relief, both scale and timing; the almost 
laughable, specious claims of sanctions snapback provisions--whatever 
that means--once the sanctions regime has been dismantled; the number 
of and types of enrichment equipment to be retained by the Iranians; 
the types of enrichment activities that will be permitted in the 
thousands of modern centrifuges in the most fortified, bunkered 
facilities; fatal limitations on our ability to monitor and verify 
compliance; and the Joint Plan of Action provisions that Iran has 
already blatantly violated without any White House comment.
  My colleagues, once a deal is announced, it will be critical that we 
exercise the wisdom and courage to evaluate it honestly. My doubts 
about our ability to do so are aggravated by the public relations 
campaign we can foresee. Indeed, we have seen it before when the 
Clinton administration told us the nuclear deal with North Korea was 
``good for America.'' I was a Member of the Senate at that time. I 
raised a number of issues and concerns about whether this deal with 
North Korea was good for America. I did not vote to support that 
effort. Nevertheless, the treaty was agreed to.
  The framework agreement with North Korea, President Clinton said in 
1994, ``is a good deal for the United States. North Korea will freeze 
and dismantle its nuclear programs.'' North Korea will freeze and 
dismantle its nuclear programs. ``South Korea and our other allies will 
be better protected. The entire world will be safer as we slow the 
spread of nuclear weapons. . . . The United States and international 
inspectors will carefully monitor North Korea to make sure it keeps its 
commitments. Only as it does so will North Korea fully join the 
community of nations.''
  That is what was promised in 1994. That is what was stated to 
Senators on this floor in 1994--that we can count on the fact that we 
are going to know if the North Koreans cheat and we are not going to 
allow them to do that. How significantly this resonates now, all these 
years later, as we are assured by the administration and by Secretary 
Kerry: Don't worry. Everything is covered. Inspections will take place. 
They won't be able to cheat. We will know it if they do. The sanctions 
will come back on. We will snap back those sanctions, et cetera, et 
cetera.
  Some Members took a bite of that apple and regret that. I did not. I 
am sure not going to take another bite of that apple, and no one else 
should view this current negotiation with Iran without putting it in 
the context of what was done before. We have been here before. We need 
to learn the lessons from that. We now know that North Korea possesses 
dozens of nuclear weapons and the ballistic missile capacity to deliver 
those weapons. We now know they cheated blatantly and we did not know 
it. The so-called guarantee of verification was not accomplished and 
not achieved.
  So before making a final decision on the Iran so-called deal, we need 
to learn the lessons from the Clinton administration and the agreement 
with North Korea. The similarities between the secret negotiations then 
and the secret ones now are remarkable.
  In 1994, a key sticking point was complete access to nuclear sites, 
and then, too, we caved in order to get the deal.
  In 1994, the White House and major media outlets trumpeted a deal 
that would make the world safer--a victory for diplomacy over force and 
hostility.

[[Page 10408]]

Those who did not see this as something that was going to be enforced 
were called warmongers.
  Here is the choice, war or peace. Some choice. North Korea promised 
to forgo their nuclear weapons ambitions, and although I could not vote 
to support President Clinton's request, enough of the Senate did to 
approve the agreement with North Korea.
  Now we know they have between 20 to 40 nuclear weapons, possibly 
miniaturized, ICBMs--intercontinental ballistic missiles--to put them 
on and recently tested submarine launch missiles.
  Another lesson is the time gap between the heralded diplomatic 
breakthrough and the revelation that we had been taken to the cleaners. 
It took years to learn what we had really done in North Korea and not 
done in North Korea.
  The failure of a bad deal with Iran will not be evident to most of us 
for years perhaps--perhaps even 10, 11 or 12 years, even when President 
Obama concedes that Iran's nuclear breakout time will be zero.
  In fact, such a delay--in the unlikely event Iran actually complies 
with a deal--is the stated objective of the P5+1 negotiators--to impose 
a delay of a decade or so on Iran's nuclear weapons program. That is 
what they will define as success.
  But we must remember this: Today's brutal, unhinged, nuclear-armed 
North Korea is actually a product of misguided and naive American 
diplomacy, sold to the Senate as something other than what it was. We 
now know the agreement with North Korea was not a diplomatic victory 
but a diplomatic and policy failure, an absolute failure. My deep 
concern is that this time many will, once again, see the emerging deal 
as a great victory for diplomacy, no matter what it contains.
  The utterly false claim that it presents a choice between peaceful 
resolution of a dispute and war, as a consequence of not arranging and 
agreeing to a deal, will be a central part of the discourse and 
salesmanship that will confront us as Senators. Those opposed will 
potentially be labeled as war mongers.
  It is good of us to remember something that was said by Winston 
Churchill leading up to World War II: Peace at any price does not lead 
to peace. It only lengthens the path for war with far greater 
consequences in terms of cost or blood.
  So, for us, we are going to have to stand up to those who posit the 
false choice between peace and between war. We have a more difficult 
obligation of historic consequences, looking to the following decade. 
Such a duty must not be guided by party. It must not be guided by 
politics. It must not be guided by deference either to the White House, 
our own leadership or even our constituents.
  We must look at each and every detail of any agreement presented to 
us to reach a judgment on whether this so-called deal with Iran will 
prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. Then, and only 
then, we must decide on that basis whether to approve or reject the 
deal that will be presented to us by the President and his Secretary of 
State. To do anything less than fulfilling this obligation and this 
duty that each one of us has, will be a failure of our duty as a U.S. 
Senator, with historic consequences if we get it wrong.
  My hope, prayer, wish, desire, and admonition is that each one of us 
sees this as something with historic consequences that will affect not 
only the future of our Nation and our people but will affect the future 
of the world. Therefore, we must give full attention and every ounce of 
our best wisdom and judgment in determining, not for political or party 
or any other reason--other than finding out and determining whether 
this deal is acceptable or not acceptable and make our yes be yes and 
our no be no and well reasoned, well judged, and well decided.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.

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