secretary secretary of state john kerry goes before the senate foreign relations committee as the obama administration tries to sell the nuclear deal to skeptical members of congress. ♪ this is al jazeera live from new york city, i'm stephanie sy and looking at live pictures from capitol hill, this is the hearing room where the senate foreign relations committee in a few minutes will begin questioning of secretary of state john kerry and jack lui and earnest monez and testifying

today about the nuclear deal with iran with the u.s. and five other world powers and tie ran a few weeks ago and go straight to libby casey on capitol hill what is the atmosphere leading to this hearing? >> a build up not just in the past week as we watched news of the nuclear deal come up but for months because congress knew this day was likely to come and this is the first public opportunity for members of the obama administration to talk directly to congress members who they really want to win over to their perspective and so there is a lot of build up to this very moment. now the administration has been briefing members behind closed doors and also tried to make some public pushes and saw president obama himself come out last week and talk about the deal but this is where the rubber meets the road stephanie and members of congress want the opportunity to ask genuine questions and also to show

constituents back home they are pushing the administration to get details, to make sure that they understand exactly what this deal entails and to find out if they can get behind it or not stephanie. >> we have already heard some very vocal criticism of the deal especially from republicans, in what area does it appear the deal will be most vulnerable to criticism during the hearing today? >> you know it's really a range of areas. there will be some concern over specific details, how much lead up time iran will have before inspectors from iaea come in, will iran have time to either hide their activities or go forth and create more of a nuclear presence but there will also be questions just about who this deal is being struck with. you know we just saw the israeli ambassador to the u.s. on capitol hill already this week meeting with republicans, pushing the message that don't

get less than the details, look at the big picture here a deal with iran israel says doesn't make sense because iran cannot be trusted so we will see criticism and some hard questions about the specific details and also about the bigger picture and we saw stephanie yesterday the one-year anniversary of washington post reporter jason's captivity in iran, that is getting a lot of attention on capitol hill as well. there are three possibly four americans held in iran detained and a lot of members of congress have concerns about how that is playing out against the back drop of this deal. >> just to be clear libby on what the legislation says about what power congress has in situation they can't change the deal, right, they either have to approve it or reject it? >> absolutely. now, it gets even more complicated and congress is very frustrated this week because on monday we saw the u.n. security council go forward and vote on this issue of rolling back

sanctions for iran. congress didn't have a chance to get a say before that happened and congress really has no authority. the white house wasn't listening to congress and wasn't taking cues from congress before that vote. what congress can do is they can vote to approve or disapprove of the deal. congress has 60 days to look over it that clock started this week so we will see them go on a recess and come back in september and they will continue hashing this out. we will see a very high profile vote likely in september, stephanie. and in congress is going to be looking carefully at this deal but there is a lot of frustration about just how much power they have. now the senate foreign relations committee where the administrations officials are testifying today did forward, they really pushed for a bill earlier this summer really in the spring that allowed congress to approve or disapprove. you are seeing some of the main architects of that language right here in this panel, republicans and democrats working together. congress really wanted a say.

but approving and disapproving only goes so far. here is one thing congress is thinking about doing, republicans would like to push legislation that would basically block the white house from lifting sanctions that congress has put in place in the past. and the president is going to be working hard to try to convince enough democrats, possibly some republicans but unlikely to get veto proof majority basically so he can make sure if he vetoed the legislation that members of his caucus would give enough votes that congress coulden over ride a presidential veto. >> i want to get more in a veto possibility in a bit but want to bring in our guest, iranian american journalist and thanks for being with us on the set. let's talk about the stakes in this hearing. how much does it matter whether congress approves or disapproves this deal given obama said he would veto disapproval of the

legislation? >> stephanie, just like it was spoken about, veto of president obama so far looks like solid because he would need one-third of the chambers to be able to you know just maintain the veto and so far it looks like he has it. but we have two months. it's an up-hill battle for let's say both sides. >> and is symbolism of it matter if congress decides to reject the deal? >> it matters especially if president obama has the votes to be able to veto it so i don't think either of the two sides would go down that road. like john kerry and moenz said and probably mention it today, it would be very bad on the american foreign policy and american diplomacy in the whole world because it's not just the u.s., let's remember it was the united states sitting together with other world powers and they all came together for an agreement. it's not just a deal it's an

agreement. so coming out of an agreement a portion of the u.s. government sort of coming out of the agreement is going to look bad on the entire united states. and iranian side is trying very hard to maintain their end of the bargain. >> they are struggling too as well, hard liners in iran. let's talk about the iranian community that you cover, is there a ton of support for this deal? i certainly read a couple of stories from iranian american columnists who do not necessarily support this deal, what do you hear? >> i hear a mix of a lot of things. i was at a couple of community events with iranian american community and to think of it as the critics have more platforms i would say and have a louder voice and have been here in the u.s. for a longer time. they just have access and you know more knowledge of how to bring their voice. but the younger community either younger immigrants like myself or the second generation iranian immigrants i would say are more

with the deal. they are just more in tune with the younger population in iran and came with dance and happy and joyful for this deal and looking for a better future compared to what was behind them. >> well let's talk about that. if and when this deal goes through and sanctions are lifted and we should say they cannot be lifted during this 60-day review period, do you think the lives of ordinary iranians will be changed? >> definitely. you see the hope that has been injected with the sale into the psychological hope in the past two years has already changed it so much. iranian in tehran, the main difference is three years ago i looked at my life and i had no hope for a better year from today and now this hope has completely changed the psychology of society. even the market has responded to it. now when the sanctions are lifted, when a lot of iran's assets are unblocked when iran opens to the world it will have tremendous effect on the economy

and and. >> and hold tight there because i want to obviously secretary of state john kerry has just arrived in the senate chamber and you are beginning to watch coverage of the live hearings in the senate foreign relations committee on the iran deal. we have to take a quick break but i'll see you on the other side of that. this is a great place to work. not because they have yoga meetings and a juice bar. because they're getting comcast business internet. comcast business offers convenient installation appointments that work around your schedule. and it takes- done. - about an hour. get reliable internet that's up to five times faster than dsl from the phone company. call 800-501-6000 to switch today. perks are nice. but the best thing you can give your business is comcast business. comcast business. built for business.

♪ welcome back. the senate foreign relations committee has begun its hearing into the iran nuclear deal. secretary of state john kerry will be testifying soon but right now we are seeing an opening statement by the chairman of the committee, bob korker republican of tennessee. let's listen in. >> as when you ask it directly

to a witness, getting them to respond and if someone wants to interject they can indicate they want to do so but senators should feel free to say, no, i just wanted that witness and move on to the next to make sure we don't end up in a somewhat filibuster situation and fully get our questions answered. i want to start today by thanking our committee. we would not be here today, we would not have the information that we have today if we had not passed the iran nuclear agreement and review act. this would not be taking place. i think the american people now understand what this debate was all about. when congress put in place sanctions to bring iran successfully to the table as we did, we granted the executive branch something called a national security waiver.

and what that meant was the executive branch had the ability to waive our congressly mandated sanctions to suspend them until such a time as we permanently waive them down the road. as you now unfortunately over the objections of senator carter and myself unfortunately the executive branch went directly to the united nations this monday morning, something that certainly was not in the spirit of this but this was what was always intended. and i do want to say that while secretary kerry has often said well congress will have the ability to weigh this at some point in time prior to this law being passed and causing this hearing to happen today, we now read the agreement and realize what he meant was eight years from now we would have the opportunity to weigh this because that's what is stated in the agreement. so i want to thank everybody, all 19 members for coming

together unanimously, making that happen and giving us a role. it's a heavy lift as we know but a role that did not exist prior to that passing. i would like to say we had a briefing last night and i left there and talked to members on both sides of the aisle and i was fairly depressed after last night's presentation. with every detail of the deal that was laid out, our witnesses successfully batted them away with the hyperbole that it's either this deal or war and therefore we were never able to appropriately question or get into any of the details because every time we did it was either this deal or war. so i believe that to be hyperbole. i know the secretary last night pulled out a letter written in

2008 by the prior administration and i don't know if he will refer to that today but as i thought about it laying last night in bed i realized what he was really pointing out with that letter is unless we give iran what they want x, that is what really that letter was used for last night. so let me just walk through that. we have been through an incredible journey. we began 20 months or so ago with a country that was a rogue nation that had a boot on its neck and our goal was to dis dismantle their program. we've ended up in a situation where the deal that is on the table basically codifies the industrialization of their nuclear program. it's amazing, amazing transition that has occurred. and yet everyone here, not a person in this room including our witnesses, everyone here knows there is not one practical

need for the program that they are building not one. not one. we've not had a single scientist, not a single witness can layout any reasoning, not a single reason for iran to be developing this program from the standpoint of what it means to them from a civil standpoint not one. nine months after this agreement goes into effect we realize that after monday's u.n. adoption unless congress intervenes in 90 days this will be implemented and then six months after that in a total nine months from now all of the sanctions that exist against iran will be lifted. incredible. now, there will be a few remaining sanctions but the big ones that matter will be lifted. so access to billions and billions of dollars, their economy will be growing, they

will be shipping oil around the world, it's an amazing thing. and so what happens i think all of us figured this out as we went through the deal right now we have some leverage but nine months from now the leverage shifts to them because we have a sanctions snap back what they have if we ever try to apply that is what is called a nuclear snap back. the way the deal is structured they can immediately just begin, they can say well if you add sanctions we are out of the deal and immediately snap back so it goes to them. the possible military dimensions and most of us call it previous military dimensions because we know they were involved in that basically that has no bearing per the agreement and i know our witness will say well if they don't deal with this properly it won't implement but according to the agreement it has no bearing whatsoever on whether the sanctions are removed or not. and yet that was such an

important piece for everyone to know. any time anywhere inspections and last night we had witnesses saying i never witnessed that it has been part of our mantra from day one, a part of their mantra from day one, anywhere, any time inspections. now we have a process that they are declaring is 24 days but we all know that is not right. 24 days begins after by the way the iaea has found violations that they are concerned about and then you give iran time to respond to that and by the time it kicks in there is a 24-day process but it could be months and as we know in laboratories when you are developing a nuclear war head that is about this big, it's very easy to cover things up like that. and all the focus has been on finding uranium and there are other aspects that are difficult to find. i know they said this is the most comprehensive inspection

regime we ever had. that is not true. that is not true. i've talked to secretaries of state and others we had a far more comprehensive and inspection program in iraq far more and didn't serve us particularly well. we have written a letter asking for additional materials that we don't now have. one of the items we don't have is regarding the agreement between iran and the iaea and my incentive is we will never get the letter so the inspection entity we are relying upon to find out whether iran is cheating we are not going to have access to that agreement. let me just say this we do know one of the characteristics is very interesting. we have a professional athlete in chattanooga that spends about a month there.

he is incredibly the role model. he is incredible integrity. he is a role model to the world. and i was talking to him a couple weeks ago about the program that professional athletes go through for drug testing. it's incredible and that is any time, anywhere. there are qualities to this that unfortunately i'm told i cannot get into. but there are qualities to this program that would not be unlike causing causing athletes to send in their urine specimens in the mail and us believing that is coming from them. so, look i've got some questions. i want to talk a little bit about who we are dealing with here. most of us have been to iraq many times and i'll never forget

this general oderano in baghdad. and every time we would visit him in baghdad he would have on his coffee table the ifps. and they were used to mame and kill americans. they were laying out. they were made the ieds. they were laying there on the coffee table, every single one of them made by iran. once we developed the technology by the way to counter that what they did next was develop something called an efp explosively formed penetrator. now, what they do is they have an explosion that heats up copper to go through a piece of machinery to mame and dismember americans. this was all iran. every single bit of it. we have all been out to walter

reed and visited these incredible heros that lost in some cases two arms and a leg. some cases two legs and two arms. we see them all over the country. they are living with this today. this is the country that we are dealing with a country that created some of the most disturbing types and methods of maming americans that has been seen and tried to kill an ambassador here in washington d.c. not long ago. we know that. ben and i went with others the other day to see something at the holocaust museum had put together. a young man named ceaser had taken photographs of the sierran prisons, syrian prisons which by the way iran supports syria was

not even -- bashar assad would not be in office today if it were not for iran. we went over and envisioned the torture that has been photographed in the chronicle and many of you have seen it on the internet. it's an amazing thing. it is happening right now by the way as we sit here. some people might say that was iraq and i don't know should we have been there or not. this is happening this very second with the support of iraq do you understand that? peoples genitles right now are being amputated. people are being electrocuted. this is happening this very second. in a prison in iran. i mean in syria that iran is supporting. some would say we haven't done as much as we could to stop it because of these negotiations. when i was in college i wasn't a particularly good student, first part of college i was interested

in sports the latter part i was interested in working, i learned one thing, i learned about the critical path method and i built buildings all over the country and i learned you could start with something like this and you layout a vision and you build it out and you begin with the end in mind and put first things first as sort of the critical path. and what i've seen our secretary do is i know he has developed a tremendous warmth with iran's foreign minister zarif and talks about it often but what i think has actually been done in the negotiations is codify a perfectly aligned pathway for iran to get a nuclear weapon just by abiding by this agreement. i look at the things that they need to do the way it's laid out and i don't think you could more perfectly lay it out.

from my perspective, mr. secretary, i'm sorry. not unlike a hotel guest that leaves only with a hotel bathrobe on its back. i believe you have been fleesed. in the process, of being fleeced what you have really done here is turned iran from being a paria to now congress congress being a paria. a few weeks ago you were saying that no deal is better than a bad deal. and i know that there is no way that you could have possibly been thinking about war a few weeks ago. no way. and yet what you say to us now and said it over and over yesterday and i've seen you say

it over and over on television that if somehow congress were to turn this down if congress were to turn this down the only option is war whereas a few weeks ago for you, for you to turn it down the only option is war. i don't think you can have it both ways. let me just say this if congress were to say these sanctions cannot be lifted it wouldn't be any different than the snap back that we now have where in essence the united states on its own, the united states on its own can implement snap back but my guess is the other countries as you've stated before wouldn't come along and we have to decide which way that it is. i know you speak with a degree of destain about a regional partners when you describe their reaction to this deal. but one of the things we have to remember is if we had actually

dealt with dismantling their nuclear program they wouldn't be responding in the way that they have. but not only is this not occurred, in addition we are lifting the ballistic missile embargo in eight years. i have no idea how that even entered into the equation but it did at the end. we are lifting conventional weapons embargo in five years. and in a very acute way with language in the agreement, unbelievably we are immediately lifting the ballistic missile testing programs. we are lifting that ban. so i have to say that based on my reading and i believe that you have crossed a new threshold in u.s. foreign policy where now it is the policy of the united states to enable a state sponsor of terror to obtain

sophisticated industrial nuclear development program that has as we know one real practical need that is what you are here to ask us to support, i look forward to your testimony and the appropriate questions afterward. senator carter. >> well first, mr. chairman, thank you very much for convening this hearing. i want to thank secretary kerry and monez and lui and your team and wendy sherman and many others who devoted the last two years to negotiating with iran incredible service to our country, incredible sacrifice to their families. and we thank you very much for your dedicated service, your hard work and what you have your service to america. the iranian nuclear agreement and review act that senator korker reviewed to passed

earlier this year was an effort by the members of congress to set up the appropriate review for potential deal with iran. we are extremely pleased that after very difficult negotiations we were able to get unanimous vote of this committee, get the support of the white house and we believe we accomplished two major objectives in passing that statute. first, of course we set up the appropriate review for congress. it allows us to take action or we don't have to take action. it recognizes the fact that the sanction regime was passed by congress and that we have a role to play in regards to implementing any agreement as we now see in the jcpoa that congress has a role to play. so it is set up in an orderly process. and this hearing is part of that

process. it took you two years to negotiate this agreement. it took you two months in vienna to get to the final details. we are on day four of our review of 60 days. i have not reached a conclusion. and i would hope that most members, i would hope the members of the congress would want to get all the information, allow those who are directly involved to make their case. we have hearings set up next week and the following week and we will get outside experts, many of us have taken advantage of that opportunity in the past and i would hope that we will all use that opportunity before drawing a conclusion. this is a very important agreement from the point of view of u.s. foreign policy. iran and the region is critically important to the united states security. but there is a second objective to the iran nuclear review act and that is to concentrate all

our effort on the bad guy, iran. and speak with unity as much as we could in the united states. so our negotiators could concentrate on vienna and not on washington in dealing with getting the very best possible agreement. and i must tell you, mr. chairman i looked at the framework that was agreed to in april and looking at the final agreements that we have gotten today and our negotiators got an awful lot particularly on the nuclear front which is beyond my expertise. we got things that there were many rumors during these last couple months of what was going to be in this agreement and how it was going to be taken in the april framework that had been strengthened since the april framework so i just want to applaud our negotiators for taking the strength of our unity and turning it into