[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11611]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          IRAN'S NUCLEAR DEAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. DeSantis) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeSANTIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to discuss one aspect of this Iran 
deal which I think is a fatal flaw, in addition to other fatal flaws--
but this one, I think, in particular--and that is the issue of 
inspections.
  Now, the crucial part of any type of deal dealing with nuclear 
disarmament involves inspections. You have got to inspect to make sure 
that they are not--that, in this case, Iran is not--building a nuclear 
weapon.
  Now, the best way to have done that would be to insist that the 
sanctions remain in place until Iran affirmatively dismantles their 
program, and then you have inspectors go in to verify that the program 
has been dismantled; and then as long as the program is, in fact, 
dismantled and they don't have a nuclear infrastructure, then the 
sanctions are relieved. The minute that they are caught trying to 
rebuild, then the sanctions go back on.
  But that is not what this deal is at all. What this deal is is a 
huge, huge influx of cash, hundreds of billions of dollars up front to 
the Iranian regime, which will be used, no doubt, much of that money, 
to fund terrorism and to expand Iran's influence throughout the Middle 
East.
  And we are affirmatively recognizing Iran's nuclear program. They are 
not required to dismantle their infrastructure, so they get to keep 
that. So a huge influx of cash, and they keep the nuclear program.
  You are not going to sell me once you go down that road, because I 
don't think they have a right to any nuclear material. But other people 
will say, well, as long as we can inspect, then maybe it is going to be 
okay. And here, in this deal, we don't even have legitimate 
inspections.
  Now, the administration has drawn a lot of red lines with this Iran 
deal. One of them was, of course we are going to have anywhere, anytime 
inspections, and they said that repeatedly. Just a couple of months 
ago, in April, Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Adviser, said the 
deal would include anytime, anywhere inspections. Energy Secretary 
Moniz said of course you have to have anytime, anywhere inspections.
  And then guess what? The deal comes out. Rhodes is asked on TV, what 
about anytime, anywhere? I thought that was part of the deal. He said 
we never sought anywhere, anytime inspections. So the administration is 
recognizing the reality that this deal does not include anywhere, 
anytime inspections.
  What it does have is a convoluted bureaucratic process that, if we or 
the IAEA or the U.N. suspect that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon 
in, say, one of their military sites, you actually have to petition to 
be able to inspect it. Iran gets to weigh in on whether they want to.
  There is a convoluted bureaucratic appeals process. Basically, Iran 
can drag it out for 24 days, and that is even assuming you get a 
positive resolution, which, by the way, is going to require the assent 
of Russia and China, and they may not even be willing to give approval. 
So even if you get that, that is 3-plus weeks where Iran will have the 
ability to conceal any of the offending conduct that they were 
suspected of. So the bottom line is a 24-day delay makes the 
inspections regime utterly useless.
  So this is a country that has sponsored terrorism consistently for 
decades. They have lied to the United Nations for decades. Then we are 
in a situation where somehow they should be able to block access to 
their potential weapon sites?
  The bottom line is Iran should not be able to interfere with any 
inspections for any reason at any time. Unless you have that, this is 
not going to be something that has any chance of success.
  And guess what. Not only are the inspections not valid, but you are 
lifting the arms embargo over a couple of years, and you are relieving 
sanctions on the Quds Force and Qasem Soleimani. These are designated 
terrorists. Our country has viewed them as a designated terrorist 
organization.

                              {time}  1030

  So the bottom line is, on its own terms, this deal will not succeed. 
It is a dangerous mistake. Congress has the ability over these next 60 
days to scrutinize it, to debate it, and, ultimately, God willing, to 
stop it.

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