♪ secretary of state john kerry goes before the house foreign affairs committee to try to sell the iranian nuclear deal. ♪ this is al jazeera america live from new york city. i'm stephanie sy. live pictures now from capitol

hill where the house foreign affairs committee is about to hear from secretary of state john kerry, jack lew, and earnest muniz. last week the three secretaries were grilled before a senate committee. libby casey is live on capitol hill. libby, good morning, last week's hearing did get testy at least at times. are we expecting the same today? >> stephanie we certainly are. the house republicans intend to go over their own set of questions, and we'll hear tough questions from democrats too. it wasn't just last week's hearings where senators used words like you have been bamboozled and fleeced. the rhetoric and conversation continued throughout the week. we heard ted cruz speaking on the floor last week calling for an amendment, saying that iran

must recognize israel before congress can sign off on this deal. that sort of thing won't happen and he got a lot of pushback even from some republicans over the weekend who accused him of using this issue to play presidential politics so we have seen the temperature get hotter but some are saying let's not let this get out of hand and let members use this as a grandstanding opportunity. we do have real concerns say members of both parties, stephanie. >> there are quite a few remembers on this house committee who have been actively speaking out already against the deal and the president. >> absolutely you'll hear from the chairman ed royce this morning, he compares the deal with iran to a deal with north korea and he said efforts to work with north korea have not worked. he says north korea has blatantly lied and any deal like

this gives what he calls a rogue state a stamp of international legitimacy. he also has concerns about the inspection procedures that will go forward. how often can they get in? is there too large of a window between when inspectors say we need to see a facility or a site and iran lets them in. and the top democrat on the committee has also voiced concerns about what happens down the road looking ahead, ten 15 even 20 years, what sort of guarantees are in place that iran isn't able to get away with something and continue its nuclear development, stephanie. >> one of the stanchest opponents is also the u.s. strongest ally in the middle east israel. is there a sense where a lot of

the opposition comes from the fact that israel does not support this deal? >> we are certainly hearing from israel. includes the ambassador with the u.s. has been taking meetings trying to advocate against the deal. prime minister benjamin netenyahu has been very outspoken in his criticism of this deal. but they'll also be listening to constituents back home. the house is expected to gavel out at the end of this week they'll be back in their district for a full month and a lot of members will be listening to how the constituents feel about this. the house is very crucial to president obama's aims here, because it is expected that the house and senate will vote to disapprove of president obama's deal. now that is not a guarantee, but it is likely. president obama will likely veto

that and the question is will congress have the two-thirds majority needed to overcome a presidential veto? that would be huge. to prevent that the president needs a third of the house or a third of the senate to push back. the white house has been pressing as well. president obama has been playing golf with house members. they have been taking private meetings. because it's house democrats that he really sees some opportunity to get the support he needs to be able to pushback against congress. >> it may also where he sees the vulnerability to his veto pow ere. libby casey stand by. i want to bring in a processor who studies modern iran at [ inaudible ] college. great to have you with us. you heard our correspondent say it is likely that the republican-lead congress will

disapprove of the iran nuclear deal. how would that impact the deal whether or not the president is -- vetoes it or not? how does it impact the optics of it? >> well i think the republicans would oppose anything. even if you had a perfectly good deal they would oppose it. as your reporter said the administration is looking for enough democrats to be able to basically override their objection. >> how would that go down in iran? >> it won't go badly. it will give some impetus for the diehards there to be more critical but i think they are under control there too. they are not going to sabotage it. i think what really down the road could happen is if the congress actually gets enough votes to override his -- the veto, then you can see down the road a major accident a crash,

because what is going to appear internationally is the administration had this deal with iran. iran was willing to accept it and it was not american administration that vetoed it it was congress that vieetoed it. >> we are seeing secretary kerry there, and the top democrat on the fore affairs committee. secretary kerry still on crutches from his bike accident. but he is hobbling in there, and he is likely the first to give a statement. and the energy secretary also happens to be a nuclear physicist. all right. stand by we're going to take a quick break here. we'll be right back with more live coverage on the house hearing.

the house foreign affairs committee is meeting. let's listen in. >> -- the administration was successful in blocking that legislation. so instead of us considering a verifiable enforceable and accountable agreement, we are being asked to consider an agreement that gives iran permanent sanctions relief for temporary nuclear restrictions. should iran be given this special deal? in september committee members will face the important decision of approving or disapproving this agreement. we will have that vote only

because of the iran nuclear agreement review act, passed in may, which the administration did not want. to be frank, the administration's preference has been to sideline america's eventtives -- representatives. so it was not surprised when the administration gave russia and china and others at the u.n. security council a vote on this agreement before the american public. that's backwards and wrong. we have heard serious concerns from experts about the substance of this agreement. first iran is not required to dismantle key bomb-making technology. does that make the world safer? second it is permitted a vast enrichment capacity reversing decades of bipartisan non-proliferation policy. does that make the region more

stable? and third iran is allowed to continue its research and development to gain an industrial-scale nuclear program once this agreement begins to expire in as little as ten years. that's a flash in time. and then iranian obligations start unwinding. does this make the world more secure? we appreciate president obama's effort to secure the most intrusive inspections in history, but it came up short. instead there is managed access with iran russia and china, having a say in where national inspectors can and can't go. the deal's 24-day process is a far cry from anywhere any time. and this provision expires too. while the administration has professed absolute knowledge about iran's program, it is a fact that we have been surprised

by most every major nuclear development in iran's history, and iran has cheated on every agreement they have signed. so i ask, mr. secretary, has iran earned the right to be trusted? this deal guts the sanctions web that is putting intense pressure on iran. virtually all sanctions disappear, and where does all of that money go? to the largest terror network on earth. gone are the sanctions on iran's nuclear program, but also on the bad banks that have supported iran's terrorism and ballistic missile development. and to our dismay iran won a late concession to remove international restrictions on its ballistic missile program and convention alarms impairing the security of the region and

our homeland. if this agreement goes through, iran gets a cash bah that sa a boost to its international standing and a lighted path towards nuclear weapons, with sweeping sanctions relief we have lessoned our ability to challenge iran's conduct across the board, as iran grows stronger, we will be weaker to respond. yes, the u.s. would royal the diplomatic waters if congress rejects this deal but the u.s. still wields the most powerful sanctions in the world. sanctions iran desperately needs relief from. i understand the effort the administration has put into this agreement, but these are about as high stakes as it gets so the committee must ask, if -- if we made the most of our pretty strong hand, or are we willing to bet, as the administration

has, that this is the beginning of a changed iran? these are complex issues and i look forward to what should be an extremely informative hearing and i now turn to the ranking member. >> mr. chairman thank you for convening this hearing, secretary kerry, secretary lou, secretary, muniz, welcome to the committee. thank you all for your service. i don't think anyone here doubts your commitment to the united states and your good intentions on this deal. thank you for the time you have taken over the last week to engage with members of congress on the proposed deal and thank you for your testimony today. congress gave itself 60 days to review this deal and i hope my colleagues make full advantage of this time to study this agreement, ask questions, and make an informed decision when the time comes.

we have had many months and many hearings to discuss the different aspects of a nuclear agreement with iran but we're no longer dealing with hypotheticals. we have a specific deal on the table, and we have to decide if that deal advances the national security interests of the united states and our allies. to answer that question to be fair we also need to ask ourselves what is the alternative? absent this deal with the international sanctions regime and the p5-plus-1 coalition hold together if this deal feels how would we get the iranians back to the table? but there are a number of issues i find troublesome. i hope the three of them will address them in your testimony. first i continue to have concerns that international inspectors will not have immediate access to undeclared sites. under the agreement, iran has 14

days to grant access. if iran refuses access after that time then members of the joint commission could take another week to resolve the iaea's concerns. after that iran has three more days to provide access. so we're already nearly a month after inspectors first wanted access, but if iran continues to say no another month could go by. that potential length of time gives me pause. i would like to know how we can be sure iran cannot use these delays to sanitize sites and get away with breaking the rules. already we're seeing iran's leadership declare that military sites will be off elements to inspectors. if this iran's version of transparency during the implementation of the agreement, we're getting off to a bad start. i'm also troubled by reports about how the arrangement reaches between iran and the

iaea on how parchen will be inspected, and sunset on the ballistic missiles and advanced conventional weapons. i was disappointed to learn that after a maximum of five and eight years respectively they will be terminated. i would like to understand why we allow this to happen and what we can do to ensure this doesn't make a terrible situation in the region get even worse. i'm also concerned about what iran's leaders will do when sanctions are phased out and new resources come flowing in. we're talking about tens of billions of dollars. of course i would like to see iran's leaders use this money to help the iranian people but even with tough national sanctions in place, iran has bolstered hezbollah, shia militias hamas and the assad regime. if this deal goes through, how

would you propose to keep this new-found wealth out of the hands of terrorists and tyrants. next while i'm glad iran will be limited in its development of advanced centrifuges for eight years, i worry what happens down the road. iran could quickly move towards the next stage of its enrichment activities. i would like to know what other provisions in the deal if any will mitigate this risk. finally, i have a fundamental concern that 15 years from now, iran will essentially be off the hook. if they choose iran's leaders could produce weapon's grade, highly enriched uranium without limitation. this amounts to iran being a legitimized nuclear threshold state in the year 2030. my big question is this what happens then? are we back to square one?

is this deal just pushing the pause button for 15 years? i must also say that i have trepidation, barely a week after the iranians signed the deal with us there was the supreme leader the ayatollah, chanting death to america, death to israel you would think that perhaps they would keep quiet for a week or two or a month, but he went back to business as usual. how can we trust iran when this type of thing happens? so i'm looking forward to hearing from our distinguished witnesses on these issues. again, i thank you for your service and hard work. and i yield back to the chairman. >> thank you. we're pleased to be joined by john kerry, ernie muniz, and jack lew.

before being appointed of secretary of energy dr. munoz was at mit where he was a faculty member since 1973. from the director of the office of management and bucket, jack lew now serves as the secretary of the treasury. the witnesses full prepared statements will be made part of the record. members here will have five days to submit questions. and we have most of the members present here. i know we all recognize the gravity of this issue. we want everyone to have a chance to question the secretaries. to accomplish that i would ask everyone members and witnesses, respect the time limit, and that means leaving adequate amount of time for witnesses to answer your questions. and nothing requires full use of

your time. we will begin with a summary of secretary kerry's testimony. mr. secretary. >> well chairman royce, ranking member engel, and all of the members thank you. we appreciate the opportunity to be here to frankly clear up some misinterpretation misinterpretations. i know one ad i have seen on tv has at least three or four major, absolutely totally incorrect facts on which it bases the ad and with all respect to both the chairman and the ranking member there are conclusions that have been drawn that don't match with the reality of what this deal sets forth. and we happily look forward to clarifying that in the course of this hearing. that's what it is all about, and we welcome the opportunity. we are convinced that the plan

that we have developed with five other nations accomplishes the task that president obama set out, which is to close off the four pathways to a bomb. and i think as you listen to ernie muniz particularly on the technical components and see the whole deal i really believe that, that is a conclusion that everybody can come to. not saying they will but can. i'm joined by obviously two cabinet secretaries, both ernie and jack were absolutely critical to our ability to do this. the treasury department's knowledge of the sanctions has been exemplary. and as jack will let you know we're not talking about 150

billion, or a 1 billion, we're talking about $55 billion that will go to iran and we'll go into that later. but from the day that our negotiations begin, mr. chairman we were crystal clear that we would not accept anything less than a good deal one that would shut off all of those pathways towards fissil material for a nuclear weapon. and the facts are pretty clear that the plan announced this month by six nations in fact accomplishes that. all of those other nations have nuclear power or nuclear weapons. and all of them are extremely knowledgeable in this challenge of proliferation of under the terms of this agreement, iran has agreed to remove 98% of its stockpile of enriched uranium,

dismantle two thirds of its installed centrifuges, and destroy, by filling it with concrete, the existing core of its heavy water plutonium reactor. iran has agreed to refrain from producing or acquiring highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons forever. how do we enforce or verify so that is more than words, and particularly to speak to the ranking member's question what happens after 15 years? what happens is forever, we have an extremely rigorous inspection verification regime because iran has agreed to accept and will ratify prior to the -- to the conclusion of the agreement and with -- if they don't, it's a material breach of the agreement, to ratify the additional protocol which

requires extensive access as well as significant additional transparency measures including cradle to grave accountability for the country's uranium, from mining to milling through the centrifuge production to the waste for 25 years. bottom line if iran fails to comply with the terms of our agreement, our intel community, our energy department which is responsible for nuclear weaponry are absolutely clear that we will quickly know it and we will be able to respond accordingly with every option available to us today. and when it comes to verification and monitoring there is absolutely no sunset in this agreement. not in ten years, not in 15 years, not in 20 years, not in 25 years, no sunset ever. now remember two years ago,

when we began these negotiations, and a lot of people are -- are kind of forgetting conveniently sort of where we are today. people are sitting there, saying oh my gosh in 15 years this is going to happen or whatever iran is going to have the ability to have a capable nuclear power. folks when we began our negotiations we faced an iran that was already enriching uranium up to 20%. they already had a facility built in secret underground in a mountain that was rapidly stockpiling enriched uranium. when we began negotiations they had enough enriched uranium for 10 to 12 bombs. already they had installed as many as 19,000 nuclear centrifuges and nearly finished building a heavy water reactor that could produce one to two bombs a year.

experts put iran's breakout time when we began, which remember is not the old breakout time that we used to refer to this any context of arms control, breakout time as we have applied it is extraordinarily conservative. it is the time it takes to have enough fissile material for one bomb it's not the amount of time to the bomb. so when they say they'll have one year to a certain amount of material they still have to design the bomb test do a whole bunch of other things and i think you would agree no nation is going to consider itself nuclear capable with one bomb. so if this deal is rejected folks -- by the way, the existing -- when we started negotiations the existing breakout time was about two months.

we're going to take it to one year, and then it tails down slowly, and i'll explain how that provides guarantees. but if this deal is rejected we immediately go back to the reality i just described, without any viable alternative. except that the unified diplomatic support that produced this agreement will disappear overnight. let me underscore the alternative to the deal that we have reached is not some kind of unicorn fantasy that contemplates iran's complete capitulation. i have heard people talk about dismantling their program. that didn't happen under president bush when they had a policy of no enrichment and they had 163 centrifuges they went up to the 19,000. our intelligence community confirms -- and i ask you all to sit with them -- they will tell

you, that is not going to happen. so in the real world we have two options. either we move ahead with this agreement to ensure that iran's nuclear program is limited, rigorously scrutinized and wholly peaceful or we have no agreement at all, no inspections, no restraints no sanctions, no knowledge of what they are doing, and they start to enrich. to be clear, if congress rejects what was agreed to in vienna you'll not only reject all of the restrictions we have put in place -- and by the way, nobody is counting the two years that iran has already complied with the interim agreement, and complied comet -- completely and totally. we have reduced their enrichment to zero, but if this is rejected we go back to the ability to move down that road.

you'll not only be giving iran a free pass to double the pace of its uranium enrichment to install new and more efficient centrifuges, but they will do it all without the transparency measures that we have secured. everything that we have tried to prevent will now happen. now what is worse? if we walk away we walk away alone. our partners are not going to be with us. they'll walk away to the sanctions that brought iran to the table in the first place, and we will have squandered the best chance he had. president obama has made it clear that he will never accept a nuclear-armed iran and he is the only president who has asked for and commiss