e don't reauthorize it there is nothing, at least in that context to snap back to. so why don't you say that the administration supports under all of the same provisions including the president's wavers, the reauthorization of those sanctions, so the iranians know if they violate, that the snap back will also include snap back to what the congress passed. >> senator what i said earlier is right now the sanctions remain in effect we have a regime in effect. if iran complies, we will lift sanctions, and it's prematured to talk about extending a law -- >> this expires next year. iran's limitations go out eight years. so i don't understand how we ultimately have a credible belief that snap back means something if in fact you are not going to have the ability to

have those sanctions in place. let me ask this to the secretary. is the president willing to make a clear and unequivocal statement not that all options are on the table, because iran does not believe that's a credible threat, that under no circumstances will iran be permitted to acquire a nuclear weapon? secretary kerry? did you hear my question? the >> i apologize -- >> this is my question. is president obama willing to make a clear and unequivocal statement, not that all options are on the table, because i think if you talk to our intill against people iran does not believe there is a credible military threat that iran under no circumstances will be permitted to acquire a nuclear weapon. >> absolutely. he has said that. >> he said all options are on the table -- >> the president has said very

clearly under no circumstances will they be allowed to get a nuclear weapon and in fact i think ash carter reiterated very publicly, but can -- >> no i'm sorry. i have limited time. you have been with the iranians for two years, i have seven minutes. mr. secretary i'm seriously concerned about the lifting of the arms embargo that creeped its way into this deal. as i read the security council resolution on page 119, the ban on iranian ballistic missiles has been lifted. the new security council resolution is quite clear, iran is not prohibited from carrying out ballistic missile work it says iran is called upon not to undertake such activity. previously the council used mandatory language where i

said, iran shall not undertake any active related to ballistic missiles. why would we change the mandatory shall to a permissive call upon. we often call upon a lot of countries to stop certain actions in the u.n. that does not have the force of shall not, which has consequences if you do. is iran banned from ballistic missile work for the next eight years? >> they are -- >> no. >> well -- >> do you want toness -- to answer senator? >> yes, i will. [ laughter ] >> the exact same thank wage in the embargo is in the agreement with respect to launches and that is under article 25 of the u.n. and that is exactly where it is today, in the -- in the

language. but in addition to that iran did not want it and we insisted on it they are restrained from any sharing of missile technology purchase of missile technology exchange of missile technology, work on missiles, they cannot do that under article 41, which is chapter 7 and mandatory, and it does have the language shall -- >> i'm reading to you from the security council resolution that was adopted codifying -- >> yes, the security council -- >> and that security council resolution -- >> says call on. >> mr. secretary i'm reading you explicit language. i'm not making this up. iran is called upon -- >> correct. senator that is the same language as is in the embargo now, and we transferred it to this, and that's what it is.

>> not the same language as security council resolution 1929. i don't know why you wouldn't keep the same language. mr. chairman final question. i heard senator -- i don't know whether that is true or not. >> parchen, the whole purpose of understanding the military dimensions is not for iranians to declare culpability, but to understand how far they got along in their efforts. general hayden said we have estimates, but it is just that. is it true that the iranians are going to be able to take the sample? because chain of custody means nothing if at the very beginning what you are given is chosen and derived by the perpetrator? >> as you know senator, that is a classified component of this.

it's supposed to be discussed in classified session. we're perfectly prepared to brief you in classified session with respect to what will happen. secretary monese has had his team red team that agreement. but it's part of a confident agreement between the iaea and iran as to how they do that. the iaea says they are satisfied that they will adequately get the answers that they need -- >> if that is true that would be the equivalent of the fox guarding the chicken coop. >> i'm simply saying to you, we are confident the iaea has the ability to get the answers they need. do you want to say anything to that? >> mr. chairman? >> sure.

>> yes, as secretary kerry said this is a road map worked out between the iaea and iran. they have -- we -- we do not have the -- those documents that are -- as is customary, confidential between the country and the agency but clearly, they have -- they know that they must have and be able to articulate a process with integrity in terms of making the measurements, and being able to analyze them through their own laboratories and the network of laboratories including u.s. laboratories that do the analysis of these kinds of samples. >> let me just say -- analysts have always said the devil is in the details with the iranian nuclear deal and

what you just heard in that exchange between secretary kerry, and robert menendez is menendez getting into the details, asking very specific questions about this deal. libby casey is live on capitol hill. libby this is the most heated exchange we have seen this far, and it was from a democrat with some credentials when it comes to dealing with iran. >> absolutely. he long has played a big role in the senate foreign relations committee and has concerns about this. but that was expected as you said out for us. and we heard from senator marco rubio, bringing up a range of hypotheticals. what if for example, israel pushes back against this do we then side with iran? the administration saying no. and you're hearing some more heated terminology. we're hearing republicans getting bamboozled.

democrats saying that is completely inaccurate and if the u.s. has been bamboozled then all international allies have been as well. >> menendez made the point of the credibility of snap back sanctions. and lou isn't have a clearance to that. and the brought up the arms embargo, and then there is this issue of why president obama has not said more explicitly that if iran does not comply with the nuclear deal that the military option is on the table. other critics have also been saying that. do we know why president obama has not laid that out more clearly? >> well i think you are getting a sense from the administration officials that this is something that they don't want to start

hedging their bets on drawing more lines in the sand about, because then it puts the administration -- really locks them down into being very specific about what would happen next. so they are really trying to focus more on the details of this nuclear deal. and there were real questions about just how a lot of the processes would work. menendez points out that the iaea isn't divulging, how some of these testing procedures would work. senator corker the chairman comparing that early on to an athlete submitting his or own urine samples for drug testing, because there is a lot of question about how testing would be done how that would go for and whether iran would be providing those testing mechanisms or not.

secretary kerry saying we can't talk about that here. >> the lack of transparency on that end has drawn criticism as well. libby casey thank you. we're going to take a quick break and be right back with more live coverage on the iranian nuclear deal hearing.

welcome back. i want to bring our guest, an iranian, american journalist. it is striking, as you listen to this debate how often jason's case and how present that is in some ways at this hearing, because it has been year now since the "washington post"

bureau chief has been kept in prison. and there are quite a few senate members wearing pins that say free jason. should that be brought up? this >> yeah, it's amazing you notice that on senor to rubio and others. i think jason is used as a political pawn specifically in this dealing between iran and the u.s. and a possible deterrent of relations between the two countries. but on the other side he is also being used for a bit of a political agenda. this deal was not about human rights from the very beginning. of course iranians have had some claims and some gains that they wanted from this deal that they couldn't bring to the table. so both sides had to put aside a lot of other issues to just focus on the nuclear issue, and

this is what i think john kerry has also been repeatedly saying that they are trying to use other parallel channels. president obama has always -- also said that. but to bring that into this nuclear discussion -- >> it feels opportunistic. >> exactly. it's not very tasteful. >> all right. stay put we're going to go back in and listen in on the hearing. >> -- no i'm not sure. i apologize. i can respond for the record if you have a question there. >> i will send you a number of questions, because the recommendation really were for the department of homeland security and department of energy. are you familiar with dr. richard garwin? >> absolutely. everyone is. >> good. he testified before our committee yesterday about the threat of enp, and one of the

reasons i thought i would hold that hearing is now how i believe, the -- eventually iran will have a nuclear weapon. are you aware that iran has practiced ship launch using scud missiles? >> no. >> they have done that according to dr. vincent pry. so that could be conducted from a ship off of our coast, using a scud missile, and the fact that you as the secretary of the department of energy are not even aware of the 15 recommendations, basic recommendations, things like evaluating quick fixes in the event of an emt attack and for literally 20 to $70 million, we could protect 700 critical

transformers that could help us recover from something like that i'm highly concerned -- >> well sir -- >> as you sit there as secretary of energy not even aware of these recommendations that were made public in 2008. seven years later, we have done nothing -- virtually nothing to address these 15 recommendations by the commission. >> first of all, if i may say, i don't know that report and clearly many of them must apply to dhs and dod, however, on the transformer question, if you look at our energy review published in april, we do identify emp as a risk to transformers and we're beginning to try to work up a response to that. >> so again, why did this deal -- my point being -- will provide a number of questions on the record to make sure we start taking action to provide some

protection. we have heard 50 billion to 100 billion, 104 billion, that in our terms doesn't seem like that that much but it's 13% of iran's economy. if for example, the american economy had an interjection of 13% of our economy, that would be $2.4 trillion. so this isn't chump chang chang -- change. but what this deal does is it interjects tens of billions 13% up front of iran's economy into the economy of the largest state sponsor of terrorism, so when the senator said, you know, we have them right where we want them, i agree. we certainly didn't want them with centrifuges but this strengthens their hands, and from that standpoint i'm highly concerned. >> can i respond to the point

about the -- the iranian assets? >> let's be clear what those assets are. it's not money we are giving to iran. it's iran's money that sits in other countries that was locked up because of international nuclear sanctions designed to bring them to the table to negotiate a nuclear agreement. so all we have gone through in trying to analyze what that is it's not us giving them money. if there's a nuclear agreement that meets the criteria that the sanctions were designed to achieve, that was the reason they were locked up. we think it's about $50 billion. there's at least $500 billion of domestic demand. they can't possibly scratch the surface of that need. so we have never said there isn't a penny that will go to malign purposes. the assessment that we have

there, that our intelligence community has is that it will not be a change in direction, that it will be on the margin not the kind of increase that you are describing. >> and by the way, senator -- >> before we move into senator sheen, i do want to say that we haven't lifted our sanctions on the arg, which has a nuclear file, and is the entity that carries out all of theater richl on iran. what we did was we lifted sanctions in all of the financial institutions they deal with, they are going to be the number one beneficiary of the sanctions lifting. so we didn't lift sanctions on them. it's like not lifting sanctions on a holding company, but we lifted sanctions on the entity that give them money. this is almost chump change

compared to what will happen over the next decade. >> mr. chairman can i just respond. we're not lifting sanctions on a bank that was sanctioned for reasons related to terrorism -- >> but many other banking entities and others that we rely upon, we have -- >> but if they violate the terms of our sanctions, they could be sanctioned. we have not said that any of those institutions are protected. and in terms of the snap back we have enormous tools with or without the iran's sanctions act to snap back sanctions through the ndna sanctions. >> okay. i would like to move to center sheen by saying. they disagree.

france britain, the e.u., disagree. the tools we have through the nuclear file cannot be applied. the other countries disagree. matter of fact the most accurate assessment of this deal from what i have been able to read has been coming from iran. >> but if iran violates it those sanctions could come back and we have the ability to sanction on other grounds, so it's not a fair conclusion that institutions that continue to engage in funding terrorism are immune from those kinds of sanctions. that's just not correct. >> i stand by my assessment as do the other countries who negotiated the deal with you. >> actually the other countries -- >> i'm just going to stop. senator shane. >> thank you, mr. chairman and ranking member carden.

thank you to our witnesses for your testimony today, and to the negotiating team for the tremendous effort that it took to get us to this point. before i ask my questions, and i do actually have questions. i -- i just want to say that i don't think it's to the benefit of this committee, this congress or the american people for any of us to impugn the motives or intellect of anybody involved in this discussion. i think people have strong views about how they feel and it's appropriate to express those views, but to -- because someone disagrees to you, to suggest that their motives are not in the best interests of this country, or that their intellect is questionable i think does not advance the debate in a way that it should be advanced. so mr. chairman i appreciate you and the ranking member and hope we will keep this debate in a

civil discussion. i also want point out for the record that everybody on the committee voted for the iran nuclear review act of 2015. so while i'm sure all of us had concerns about everything -- some of the provisions that were in it it was voted for by the committee unanimously. now to go to my questions, i want to secretary monese follow up on the issues that were raised about the past iranian nuclear activities. because that's an area where i certainly am not clear about, how we can be confident that the iaea is going to be able to get the information it needs. so can you speak to that a little bit and talk about why you believe that we're going to have the information that we need? >> well, again, senator, really

all i can say is that the iaea is very strong technically. every inspector since like 1980 has been trained at the national laboratory in terms of nuclear materials measurement, techniques, et cetera. they have a very strong reputation which they need to guard to make sure they have a process of integrity. there's nothing unusual here. there's no side agreement. this is the way it works. the iaea negotiates with the country. what we have achieved in the negotiation is to get iran to the table with them. because without satisfying their requirements by october 15th to satisfy the agency there will not be any agreement going forward. that's -- that's very clear. so after years of stiffing them

to use a technical term then what we have done is forced them to the table. they went to tehran the senior people who do safeguards, et cetera, and they came back and -- and feel that they have a process with integrity. now, again, in this environment, i can only say that the -- and i will say flat out -- i personally have not seen those documents the chairman referred to. i had something of an oral briefing general one. with that we have assembled a national lab team to think through the kinds of process that we anticipate, and to recommend steps that might mitigate any risks. but again, ultimately we rely upon the iaea they will make a report the director general has committed to trying to get that out this year this calendar

year. and that report is where one will see what their conclusions are, and what the basis for their conclusions are. >> senator shane can i get this to you. this is the iaea road map. it lays out the agreement between iran and the iaea as to what they are going to do and when and how. >> that would be helpful, and can we have it introduced for the record? >> i would like that very much. >> before or after that report is produced will the intelligence community either here or in our other partner countries weigh in and assess whether they believe that that report reflects an accurate discussion of iran's past activities? >> well, i would have to defer to the intelligence community for their reaction but i can assure you that our doe experts

will be looking over this very very carefully. >> thank you. secretary lou can you commit that there will be no sanctions relief -- i think you have said this, but just to be clear again -- until iran has provided the iaea with this information, and the access that's required? >> absolutely senator. until iran has completed all obligations, we will not be relieving any of the u.s. sanctions nor will the international sanctions be relieved. >> and i don't know who wants toing respond to this but at the time we began the negotiations, what was the best estimate of our intelligence community about the time for iran to break out with a nuclear weapon? >> the best estimate was two to three months. >> and was there agreement among our intelligence agencies about that estimate? >> by -- yes, pretty much. there was a disagreement with a

couple of other countries, but not in our intel community. >> and as we look at -- if this agreement goes into effect is there an estimate from our intelligence community about how long it might take to get to a nuclear weapon at the end of this agreement if iran decides to pursue that option at the end of 15 years. >> well senator, the breakout time as it is used in this negotiation, is a hybrid of the traditional understanding of breakout time. breakout time in arms control has usually been referred to as the time it takes to get a weapon. we have been dealing only with the amount of time it takes to get enough material to produce one weapon. you still have to produce the weapon. and most people don't guesstimate that a country is going to be satisfied with one

weapon. so there is a lot of time beyond that. so we have been operating with a huge safety cushion here. and we will have one year of breakout time for material for a weapon for at least ten years, and then it begins to tail down but not as a cliff. it begins to tail down as we go through the next five years, and then we are, indeed arriving at a point where iran has achieved normal status. >> and, again, can you answer whether all of our intelligence agencies are agreed on that particular breakout period? or is there a difference of opinion? >> no our intelligence community and the energy department and everything worked this very very hard and it's a very precise formula, which feeds in the most rapid possible

rate by -- by looking at the numbers of centrifuges, all kinds -- the amount of enrichment the capacity of enrichment. it's a complicated formula. >> it also includes capacity to rebuild all of the infrastructure they are taking out. i might add beyond the 15 years, where there are severe constraints, in terms of visibility, i remind you that for 20 years there is still the containment and surveillance activities for any centrifuge sensitive parts manufacturing. they will all be tracked -- labeled tracked, et cetera. and for 25 years the uranium transparency. and it's like follow the uranium and the centrifuges. >> thank you. >> the president was really