White House ‘Satisfied’ with Secret Iran Side Deal
(Worthy News) – White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Wednesday that the administration is well aware of an unpublished side deal that Iran negotiated with the International Atomic Energy Agency and is “satisfied” with the result, the Washington Examiner reported.
She said, however, that the administration does not intend to make the details of that deal public, and instead plans to share the information with members of Congress in a classified setting.
“The IAEA and Iran did reach an understanding,” she told reporters during a White House briefing Wednesday. While she said the documents outlining the deal “are not public,” the administration has been briefed on the documents and has unofficially signed off on them. [ Source ]
Lawmakers Demand Documents
Lawmakers said the inability of Congress to obtain the documents could violate the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act signed by President Obama granting lawmakers a 60-day review of “all related materials and annexes” associated with the nuclear deal.
House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican; Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican; and Rep. Mike Pompeo, Kansas Republican, wrote a letter to Mr. Obama on Wednesday demanding to see the side agreements.
“Failure to produce these two side agreements leaves Congress blind on critical information regarding Iran’s potential path to being a nuclear power and will have detrimental consequences for the ability of members to assess” the deal, they wrote. [ Source ]
Side Deals Include Iran’s Parchin Military Complex
One of the agreements covers inspection of the Parchin military complex, a site that the IAEA suspects was being used for experiments related to weaponization of Iran’s nuclear technology. The second details how the IAEA and Iran will resolve outstanding issues in determining the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program, Cotton and Pompeo said.
Although Rice and Kirby claimed that US negotiators were familiar with the contents of the IAEA-Iran agreements, Cotton and Pompeo said that they were told that the agreements would not be released even to the P5+1 member states who negotiated the broader deal. [ Source ]
Lawmaker: Kerry doesn’t know what’s in the Iran side deal
Rep. Mike Pompeo said Kerry told lawmakers that he has not read the side deals, never possessed a copy of them, and approved the nuclear agreement without knowing their details.
“These side deals were essential to getting a deal signed in the first place. Iran believed these side deals to be important to an overall agreement, and so should the United States. It is essential for Secretary Kerry to know what’s in the deal, and it is essential for the U.S. Congress to know what’s in this deal,” the Kansas Republican said. [ Source ]
Kerry to House: No vote means war against Iran
Secretary of State John Kerry told a packed meeting of skeptical House lawmakers on Wednesday that a vote against the Iran nuclear deal would be a vote to “go to war,” according to members leaving the meeting.
The Obama administration will use the next several weeks to pitch skeptical Republicans and Democrats on the deal before Congress considers voting on the deal. Votes are expected on a resolution to disapprove of the deal. [ Source ]