no trust, the inspection enforcement regime is particularly important. we need to understand how it works. do we have sufficient time to discover if iran is violating the terms of this agreement in order to take effective action to prevent iran from becoming a nuclear weapon power. that is a question we need to understand. we need to know the break-out times. we need to know what happens after the time periods. do we have sufficient opportunity to prevent iran from ever becoming a nuclear weapons state, the agreement they make under this agreement. are the inspects robust enough to deter iran from cheating and if they do will we discover and be able to take action? mr. chairman you raise the 24-hour window. i think all of us recognize there is going to be a protocol for inspection. that doesn't get us by surprise. but we need to know whether the 24 hour delay, knowing what iran is likely to do does that compromise our ability to have

effective inspections and i hope our witnesses will deal with that today because that is a matter of major concern. we need to know the answer to that. have we cut off all pathways for iran to obtain a nuclear weapon particularly the covert military use operations? we know that is a major concern. that is why the pmd is particularly important, the chairman mentioned the pmd and the work that iaei, our international inspectors. they have great credibility in this area. but we want to know whether they have the capacity to do what we are asking them to do and will they have the access they need because we need to know about the prior military dimension to go forward to make sure we can contain any opportunity they may use for covert activities and will we discover it and be able

to take action. these are questions we're going to ask. we read the agreement. and we still have questions. and we hope we'll get answers as to whether we have effectively prevented iran from using covert activities to develop a nuclear weapon. will this agreement provide us iaea with sufficient access to the people places and documents so we know their prior military dimension? are the snapback provisions for reimposing adequate if iran violates this agreement? that is an issue i hope we have a chance to talk about. at the end of the time limits in the agreement, iran will have the capacity to expand, as the chairman rightly pointed out to an industrial capacity and they can get to there in nuclear enrichment and uranium enrichment and that they can do. do we have sufficient capacity knowing their commitment for

nonproliferation, knowing the requirements of the additional protocols is that adequate to prevent iran and do we have a sufficient enough breakout time if iran tries to become a nuclear weapon state after the time period that we have sufficient tools to prevent them from becoming a nuclear weapon power. these are the questions we need to have answers to. there are other areas. i want to make sure the united states has the flexibility to impose none nuclear sanctions on iran for terrorism and human rights abuses and against the ballistic missile program. no one expects bad behavior to change on implementation date. we know who we're dealing with. will we be able to use the powers we've used in the past and build upon them, to take action against iran particularly in light that they'll have additional resources can we do that? and can congress work with the administration to strengthen those tools without violating

the jcpoa? i want to know how the administration is updating the regional deterrent strategy get activities and work with our partners to build up their capacity to counter iran, especially israel. the chairman mentioned the lifting of the international arms embargo. that is of great concern as to how it -- the impact on our regional partners. how will it impact an arms race in that part of the world. these are questions we need to get the best information we can in making our decisions. and lastly, let me mention this because i think it is critically important. what are our options? if the united states walks away from this? how will we be received internationally? will we be able to maintain effective enforcement of sanctions with our international partners and will iran come back to a negotiating table with a country that has walked away from an agreement?

these are questions that we need to understand. we need to know that the options right now, do we go forward or not and what are the options -- what are the consequences if we don't go forward, so mr. chairman we have a full plate and i look forward to hearing from our witnesses and i hope that the members of this committee will use the information that we get today to debate the issue, take the time that we have and do what is right for the american people and ultimately make the decision that we think is best to prevent iran from becoming a nuclear weapon power. >> thank you senator cardin i appreciate so much the way we work together on so many issues and the entire committee. with that, i know that our witnesses here today need no introduction. they are well-known not only here, around the world, in spite of our policy differences, i think each of us deeply appreciate the -- there may be not policy differences in some

cases, but we deeply appreciate the tremendous effort that you put out on behalf of our country, we thank you for being here today, we thank you for being willing to be here today as long as it takes for everything to get their answers. and with that i'd like to introduce collectively secretary john kerry, used to serve with us and sit on this side of the dais. ernie moniz who has been helpy in understanding the technical aspects of the deal and someone i think we all appreciate deeply. secretary lew who served in multiple positions here, has been certainly affirmed by this committee and several times and we thank you all for your great service to our nation in spite of some of the concerns that we have here today. thank you all -- i think you all understand the drill. take five minutes or so to explain, as i've looked at your testimony, i know it is very brief. just to warn people in advance,

i'm going to defer my questions, ben, and move to you, immediately thereafter and use my time to interject as things move along. so with that, secretary kerry. >> well thank you, mr. chairman. ranking member cardin. members of the committee and friends and former colleagues. we really do appreciate the chance to discuss with you the comprehensive plan that we and our p5+1 partners have developed with iran regarding the future of its nuclear program. and let me emphasize to everybody here this isn't just the united states of america. these are other nuclear powers. france britain russia, china. they have a pretty good understanding of this field and of the challenges and i appreciate the way in which they and germany which was the plus one, all came together and all contributed and all were part of

this debate. so you are not just looking at what this table negotiated, you are looking at what the international community, the p5+1 under the auspices of the united nations negotiated. and they are not dumb. they're experts, every one of them, in nuclear technology and ratification and verification, are spart people who spent a lifetime on this and they have signed off on this agreement. i'm joined by two cabinet secretaries who help was valuable in reaching this deal and i thank all of you in the role congress played. i was privileged to be the chairman of the committee when we passed the iran's sanctions effort and we remember the debate and we passed it ube an mussily and it played a very significant role in bringing iran to the table and in helping to make it clear that we needed to bring about a serious and productive negotiation with iran. from the day that those talks

gab we were crystal clear we would not accept anything less than a good deal and we defined it up front as a deal that closed off the four pathways to a bomb. the two uranium and the one plutonium pathway and the covert pathway. and so we set our standard and we believe we have achieved that standard. after almost two years of very intensive talks, the facts are all really crystal clear that the plan that was announced last week in vienna is in fact a deal that does shut off those pathways and provides us with guarantees through the lifetime of the npt and the participation of iran that we will know what they are doing. now, the chairman mentioned his opening comments some phrase about unless we give iran what they want. huh, folks, they already have

what they want. they got it ten years ago or more. they already have conquered the fuel cycle. when we began our negotiations iran had enough fissile material for 10-12 bombs. they had 19,000 centrifuges, up from the 163 that they had back in 2003 when the prior administration was engaged with them on this very topic. so this isn't a question of giving them what they want. it is a question of how do you hold their program back. how do you dismantle their weapons program not their whole program. let's understand what was really on the table here. we set out to dismantle their ability to be able to build a nuclear weapon. and we've achieved that. nobody has ever talked about actually dismantling their

entire program because that is when they talked about when they went from 163 centrifuges to 19,000. every here at this dais knows what the options are for actually stopping that. it is called military action. because they are not going to stop it otherwise. they've already proven that. they proved it during all of those years. so under this terms of this agreement, iran has agreed now to remove 98% of its stockpile. voluntarily, they will destroy 98% of the stockpile of the enriched uranium and dismantle two-thirds of the installed centrifuges and take out the existing heavy reactor and fill it with concrete. iran has agreed to refrain from producing our requiring highly enriched uranium and plutonium for at least 15 years and if they began to do that ernie

moniz will tell you, we will know it, immediately. iran has also agreed to accept the addition at protocol and that is an outgrowth of the failure of the north korea experience which put in additional access requirements proseissly so we do know what iran is doing and they have to ratify it before the u.n. sanctions are lifted at the end of this process, they have to have -- they have to have passed it. they have agreed to live by it from day one. they are going to live by the additional protocol. in addition, there are additional transparency measures we can go into in the course of this hearing. now, if iran fails to comply we will know it, and we will know it quickly and we will be able to respond accordingly by

reintroducing safrpgss and none of them are off the table at any point in time. so many of the measures that are in this agreement are there for not just for ten years not just for 15 years, not just for 20 years, not just for 25 years, of which there are measures for each of those periods of time but they are for life, forever, as long as iran is within the npt. and by the way, north korea pulled out of the npt. iran has not pulled out of the npt. remember that two years ago when our negotiations began we faced an iran that was enriching uranium up to 20% in a facility secret and buried underground and rapidly stockpiling uranium and installed 25,000 centrifuges and building a heavy water reactor producing plutonium at the rate to produce enough of

one or two bombs per year and experts assess the breakout time then as a result the int val required to rush to produce enough fissile material for one nuclear weapon was two to three months. if this deal is rejected we return immediately to this reality. except that the diplomatic support we have built with all of these other countries that we have accumulated would disappear overnight. let me under score the alternative to the deal that we have reached is not what i've seen some ads on tv is suggesting, disingenuously, it isn't a quote better deal. some sort of unicorn arrangement, involving iran's complete capitulation. that is a fantasy plain and simple. and our own intelligence community will tell you. every single department of our

intelligence department will reinforce that to you. the choice we face is between an agreement that will ensure iran's nuclear program is limited, rigorously scrutinized and wholly peaceful or no deal at all. that is the choice. the fact is that there are 189 nations that live by the npt. five of them are, as we know, the main nuclear powers of the u.n. and 184 of them are non-nuclear in power. but they live by it. and we have lived by what the iaea does with respect to ensuring the surety of what the 184 nations are doing, including 12 that enrich. now if the u.s. congress moves to unilaterally reject what was agreed to in vienna, the result will be the united states of america walking away from every one of the restrictions that we have achieved.

and a great big green light for iran to double the pace of its uranium enrichment and proceed ahead with a heavy water reactor and install more centrifuges and do it all without the inspection and transparency inspections we have secured. everything that we have prevented will then start taking place. and all of the volunteer roll-backs of their program will be undone. moreover, if the u.s., after laboriously negotiating this agreement with five other partners were to walk away with those partners, we're on our own. our partners will not walk away with us. instead, they will walk away from the tough, sanctions regime they will help put in place and we will squandered the best chance we have to solve this problem through peaceful means. make no mistake, president obama has made it crystal clear we'll

never accept a nuclear armed iran. it is the only president developed a weapon capable of guaranteeing that and he has not only developed it but he has deployed it. but the fact is that iran now has -- we all don't like it -- but whether we like it or not, iran has developed experience with a nuclear fuel cycle. they have developed the ability to produce the fissile material for a bomb. and we can't bomb that knowledge away. nor can we sanctions the knowledge away. remember sanctions did not stop iran's nuclear program from growing steadily to the point it had accumulated enough fussil material to produce the ten nuclear weapons. by the way, they didn't choose to produce them, like north korea that created one and pulled out of the npt iran has

done none of that. the truth is the vienna plan will provide a stronger, more comprehensive, more lasting means of limiting iran's nuclear program than any alternative that has been spoken of. and to those who are thinking about opposing the deal, because of what might happen in your 15 or 16 or 20, remember, if we walk away, year 15 or 16 or 20 starts tomorrow. and without any of the long-term verification or transparency safeguards that we have put in place. over the past week, i've spoken at length about what exactly this deal is. i also want to make clear what this deal was never intended to be. first of all as the chief negotiator, i can tell you, i never uttered the words anywhere any time nor was it ever part of the discussion that we had with the iranians.

this plan was designed to address the nuclear issue. the nuclear issue alone. because we knew if we got caught up with all of the other issues we would never get to where we needed to to stop the nuclear program. it would be rope-a-dope. staying there for ever. negotiating one aspect to the other. and the highest priority of president obama was to make sure iran couldn't get a nuclear weapon. so we were disciplined in that. we didn't set out even though we don't like it, and i have extensive plans that i will lay out to you if you want them about how we're going to push back against iran's other activities, against terrorism, and support the contributions to sectarian violence in the middle east and all of those other things that are unacceptable. they are as unacceptable to us as they are to you. but i have news for you. pushing back against iran with a nuclear weapon is very different from pushing back against an

iran without one. and we're guaranteeing they won't have one. so we're working very closely with the gulf states. just today in saudi arabia, ash carter was there yesterday the foreign minister said that iran's nuclear deal appears to have all of the provisions necessary to curtail iran's ability to obtain a nuclear. that is saudi arabia. the emirates are supportive and the foreign ministers of iran is going to be in the emirates this weekend. so i would suggest that we are going to continue to press iran for information about the missing american, about the immediate release of americans who have been unjustly held and there isn't a challenge in the entire region that we won't push back against if iran is involved in it, but i will tell you it couldn't -- none of those challenges will be enhanced if iran gets a nuclear weapon. so the outcome cannot be guaranteed by sanctions alone.

i wish it could. but it can't be. and by the way, it also can't be guaranteed by military action alone. our own military tells us that. the only viable option here is a comprehensive diplomatic resolution of the type reached in vienna and that deal, we believe -- and we believe we will show it to you today and in the days ahead, did make our country and our -- will make our country and our allies safer and ensure the iran nuclear program remains under intense scrutiny forever and we will know what they are doing and it will ensure that the world community is united in ensuring that the nuclear activities will be wholly peaceful as we stay united in pushing back against the other activities in the region which we object to. we believe this is a good deal for the world. a good deal for america. a good deal for our allies and friends in the region and we

think it does deserve your support. >> thank you. secretary mon iz. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ranking member cardin and members of the committee. i do appreciate the opportunity to come here to discuss the jcpoa reached between the e 3, eu plus three and iran. the agreement prevented iran from getting a nuclear weapon, provides strong verification measures that give us time to respond if iran chose to violate the terms and fundamentally takes nob of our options off the table. i want to express that american's leading nuclear experts at the department of energy and laboratories were involved throughout the negotiations. argon, livermore, los ala motion oakridge, pacific northwest, sandia, sanda river, the y 12, and the kansas city plan all played important roles. the nuclear experts were essential to evaluating and developing technical proposals

in support of the u.s. delegation. as a result of their work, i am confident that the technical under pinnings are solid and the department of energy stands ready to assist in the implementation. the deal meets the president's objectives verification of the iranian nuclear program that is peaceful and sufficient lead time to respond if it proves otherwise. the jcpoa will extend for ten years, the time it would take tor iran to produce just the fissile material, one year from the current breakout time of perhaps two or three months. it addresses the enrichment and plutonium and uranium enrichment. and i would loik to make that the loosen parameters are maintains -- not weakened, but strengthened in the final agreement. this means restricting the number, type and location of centrifuges, dialing back the

r&d program and reducing the enriched stockpile from 12,000 to 300 kilometers of uranium fluoride and producing any fissile material and material is reduced from baton and fordow. and the one year brokeout time for accumulating highly enriched uranium. and something that we have not stressed but i want to add, at the end of the ten years iran will have far fewer than 19,000 centrifuges because they acknowledge the breakage rate if you like, and they will not have a large replacement capacity because of the agreement. in addition, iran will have no source of weapons great plutonium and the iraq reactor is transformed under international oversight and participation to produce far less plutonium than the current

design and no weapons grade plutonium in normal operation and immediate recognition if they try to deviate from that -- from that practice. furthermore, all of the fall -- plutonium fuel goes out of the country for the life -- the life of the reactor. this goes beyond the parameters in loussane, in several ways one, that iran could not contribute to the development of a explosive device and newt ran special sources. these commitments are indefinite and in addition for 15 years iran will not pursue plutonium or uranium or uranium alloy metal. because it will not engage in activities used for weaponed grate material for an explosive device an additional period

should be added to the additional stated breakout time line. the deal is not built on trust. it is hard nosed. hard nosed requirements that will limit iran's activities and ensure inspections and transparency and verification. i can ensure you this is not what iran wanted. it is a substantial dialing back of their program. to preclude cheating international inspectors will be given unprecedented access to all of iran's nuclear facilities. i guess we could make an exception if there were military occupation but that is not the case here. and any other sites of concern. as well as the entire nuclear supply chain from the uranium supply to the centrifuge manufacturing and operation. and this access to the uranium supply chain comes with a 25 year commitment and beyond 25 years, even after a quarter century of compliance with the peaceful program assuming we get there, we still have as we said many times, the additional

protocol in place to monitor iran's nuclear activities. but another thing that we have also in perpetuity is the adherence to modified code 3.1 which means they must notify the iaea before they start building any nuclear facility. this eliminates a kind of a loophole where one could do something covertly and then say -- oop we were planning to notify before we bought any nuclear material. they must do this now in the planning stage so it is nothing thing that we have beyond 25 years. the iaea will be permitted to use advanced technology and this was nailed down after laosan, and including realtime technology developed by our laboratories in this case oakridge played a major role, mr. chairman. if the international community suspects they are trying to

cheat, iaea can access any suspicious location. a 25 day process will ensure inspectors can get access. i would say that, unlike secretary kerry i did say the words any time, anywhere and i'm very pleased that yesterday a member of your caucus acknowledged however that the full sentence was any time, anywhere, in the sense of a well-defined process with a well-defined end time so i'm pleased that we have established that. in fact the iaea can request access to any suspicious location with 24 hours notice under the additional protocol which iran will implement. the deal does not change that baseline. the issue is then if there is an agreement not reached then when the iaea requests access this 24-day clock will start. and this is a new tool, a finite

time a new tool for resolving disputes within what we think is a short period of time and short is defined because of our confidence in environmental sampling that they could have to implement to detect microscopic details of materials even after attempts are made to remove the evidence of activities with nuclear material. and in fact histories provides a good example. in february of 2003 the iaea requested access to a suspicion facility in tehran. it was denied. negotiations dragged out for six months but even after that long delay, environmental samples taken by the iaea revealed nuclear activity even though iran had made a substantial effort to remove and kofrp up the evidence. and we have in addition conducted our own experiments to verify the ability to detect very very small traces of

uranium. the agreement will be implemented in phases, as has been said already. some ten years, 15 years, 20, 25 years and then as i've already described, the key transparency measures that stay beyond 25 years, of course, as long as iran is in the npt and if they were no in the npt every alarm bell would go off all over the place and appropriate actions would be taken n. closing, i want to acknowledge the tireless work of the negotiating team and led by my colleague secretary kerry. the u.s. agency -- the u.s. multi agency delegation worked together seamlessly and the e 3 -- eu plus three displayco hergs throughout this -- coheegs through this endeavor. the collaboration among the leading nations, in particular, the p 5 is crucial to ensuring that iran complies with the

jcpoa so as to avoid the reimposition of a major international sanctions regime and probably other responses as well. and i just want to say again the deal is based on science and analysis because of its deep grounding in exhaustive technical analysis carried out by our scientists and engineers. again, i'm confident this is a good deal for america and our allies and global security. to respond to ranking membering criteria, iran will be farther from a nuclear capability all of the time with rather than without this agreement. so again thank you for the opportunity to be here. look forward to the discussion. >> thank you very much. secretary lew. >> thank you mr. chairman. chairman corker, ranking member cardin, members of the committee, thanks for the opportunity to speak today about the joint comprehensive plan of action. a foreign policy decision of this significance deserves thorough review. i'm confident that a full and

fair debate on the merits will make it clear that this deal will strengthen our national security and thatle our allies. the powerful array of u.s. and international sanctions on iran constitutes the most effective sanctions regime in history. these measures have demonstrated to the leaders the kauft of cutting them off from the world's markets and crippling the economy. toz the iran economy is 20% smaller than it would have been than it remained on a pre-2012 growth path. the united states stood at this and with the bipartisan support in congress and this committee. together we established a web of far-reaching u.s. and international sanctions that persuaded iran's leadership to come to the table prepared to roll back its nuclear program. international consensus and cooperation to achieve this pressure is vital. the world's major powers have been and remain united in

preventing a nuclear armed iran. that unit of purpose produced four tough u.n. security council resolutions and national level sanctions in many countries and secured adherence to sanctions by countries around the world. the point of the sanctions was to change raurn p iran's nuclear behavior and holding out the belief if the world's concerns were addressed. once the iaea verifies that iran has rolled back the nurkt program and extend the break-out time to at least one year, phase sanctions relief would come into effect. there is no signing bonus. to be clear, there is no immediate changes to u.n. e.u. or u.s. sanctions. only if iran null fills the necessary conditions will u.s. suspended nuclear related sanctions on a phased in basis. sanctions that target third country parties doing business with iran. we must guard against the possibility that iran does not

uphold its side of the deal. that is why if iran violates the commitments once we have suspended the sanctions we'll be able to promptly snapback both u.s. and u.n. sarvegss. and since preventing the snapback requires a affirmative vote from the council the u.s. can enforce the reimposition of those sanctions. even as we phase in those nuclear sanctions relief, we maintain significant sanctions that fall out side of the scope of the nuclear deal including the primary u.s. trade embargo. with limited exceptions, iran will continue to be denied access to the world's largest market and we'll maintain powerful sanctions with sanctions with terrorism such as hezbollah, the backing of the assad regime and human rights abuses as home. just this week, treasury sanctions several hezbollah leaders targeting the front

companies and facilitators and we'll not be relieving sanctions on the revolutionary guard corp, the kurds force or some officials. some argue that it is premature until iran seizes the activities and the funds could be diverted for malign purposes. i understand the concern. but iran's ties to terrorist groups are exactly why we must keep it from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon. the combination of these two threats would raise a nightmare scenario. a nukts armed iran would be a far more menacing threat. if we can't solve both concerns at once we need to address them in turn. jcpoa will free us and our allies to check iran and those more effectively. by contrast walking away from this deal would leave the leading sponsor of terrorism with a short and decreasing nuclear break-out time.

we must also be measured and realistic in understanding what sanctions relieve will mean to iran. iran's $100 billion in restricted farm reserves which many fear will be directed for nefarious purposes constitute the country's long-term savings not the annual budgetary allowance. we estimate that after sanctions relief, iran are only freely access half of these reserves or about $50 billion. because over $20 billion is committed to projects with china where it cannot be spent and tens of billions in adollarsal funds are nonperforming loans to the energy and banking sector. as a matter of financial reality, iran can't spend the usable resources as they will likely be needed to meet international payment obligations such as financing for imports and external debt. moreover, president rowhani was elected on a platform of economic revitalization and faces a political imperative to

meet those unfulfilled promises. he faced travel a trillion dollars in pressing government obligations. iran is in a massive economic hole from which it will take years to climb out. meanwhile, we'll aggressively target any attempted by iran to finance hisezbollah or support military cooperations and enhancing our cooperation with our partners in the gulf. backing away from the deal to escalate the economic pressure and try to obtain a broader capitulation from iran would be a mistake. even if one believed that extending sanctions pressure was a better course than resolving the threat of iran's nuclear program, that choice is not available. our partners agreed to impose costly sanctions on iran for one reason, to put a stop to the illicit nuclear program. if we change our terms now and insist that the countries now escalate the sanctions and apply them to all of the iran's

objectionable actives they would balk and we would be leave without a nuclear deal and sanctions. and we cannot force iran to totally capitulate and impactable to believe we could impose such pressure after turning down a deal our partners believe is a good one. the joint comprehensive plan of action is a strong deal with phase relief only after iran fulfills the commitments to roll back the nuclear program and a powerful snapback built in later if they break the deal. the terms achieve the objective they were meant to achieve blocking the path to a nuclear bomb. this is an overriding national security priority and should not be put as risk not when the prosperities of an unrestrained program presents a threat to america and the world. thank you and we look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you all very much, senator cardin. >> once again thank you for your testimony. it has been stated many times

that the united states maintains its ability to impose sanctions relative to -- to support a terrorism human rights violations and ballistic missile issues and i've read the jcpoa and there are several paragraphs that give me concern. let me just read one and that is paragraph 29. where the parties will refrain from any policy specifically intented to directly or adversely effect normalization of trade and economic relations with iran. so sect lew, i -- secretary lew i want to get your assurance that we have full ability to use the tools of sanctions against iran for its support of terrorism, human rights and ballistic -- non-nuclear type of activities which include congressional action that congress might want to take. >> senator cardin it was a

matter of extensive discussion in the negotiations. we made clear in the negotiations that we retained the ability and we were going to keep in place sanctions on terrorism and regional destabilization and human rights violations. we are not lifting sanctions based on those authorities and not designating them for those reasons. we have made clear we reserve the right to put additional sanctions in place to address concerns about terrorism human rights and destabilize is. >> and we includes the congress of the united states. >> congress has authority in this area. i know there is currently legislation pending regarding hezbollah and we would work with you on legislation. the thing that we can't do is we can't just put it right back in place everything that was part of the nuclear sanctions and just put a new label on it. we have reserved our rights to put sanctions in place that

address those continuing malign activities. >> the iran sanctions act expires at the end of 2016. we will still be in the jcpoa period of time where snapback of sanctions is a viable hedge against iran's cheating. congress may well want to extend that law so that power is available immediately if iran were to violate the agreement. is that permitted under the jcpoa. >> i think if it is an expiration it is one thing, if it is well in advance it is another. i think the idea of coming out of the box right now is very different than what you do when it expires. >> the question is why would that be. it is allowed or not allowed. we'll get to that. se 24 days that you refer to and i appreciate your explanation but there are three types of activities that could take place

in violation by iran. they could be directly using nuclear material, in violation, and you've addressed that issue as far as the 24 days but it could involve weaponization or research, not using nuclear material. would the 24-day delay in those cases compromise our ability to determine whether iran is in compliance with the agreement? >> senator cardin again, the nuclear material i think we've addressed and is quite secure. clearly when one goes into weaponization activities, even there is a spectrum. in example, working with uranium weapon is still involving nuclear material and we would have strong tools there. when we go to other activities, without getting into too many specifics, they will still be a variety of signatures. for example, my second priority

on the weaponization list would be explosively driven newt ran sources and i think there are -- there are tell tale signs that i think we would have access to -- or the iaea inspectors would have access to. clearly as one get news other areas such as computer modeling that is a very different kind of detection challenge. and in all of these cases to go to undeclared sites, we're going to rely upon our intelligence capabilities and those of our partners to be able to point the iaea to suspicious activities but there are non-nuclear signatures but it does get for complicated. >> thank you. secretary kerry, could you elab more on the capacity after the time limits in iran's obligations after the time limits on the nuclear enrichment

toward a weapon -- weaponization of a nuclear weapon. i understand they still have obligations under their nonproliferation treaty and they still have obligations with the additional protocols under the npt and can you tell us what a breakout looks like after the 15 years and what assurances do we have that we'll be able to detect and take action before iran becomes a nuclear weapon state after the 15 years? >> well first of all senator after -- throughout the entire life of the agreement, the additional protocol provides for the right of access. that is where the 24 hour notice for access comes from and they have to respond to it. so if we had any intelligence regarding suspicious active or a suspicious site, shared, i might

add, among any, all of the p5+1 and israel and countries in the region, we'll have an incredible amount of sources for them, we could put the ax to them and they have to respond to that and if they don't respond to that then we have the ability to convene, to vote to put back in place sanctions or to take other actions if we deem that appropriate. but -- >> after the 15 years? >> yes. but let me just fill out for you -- we also have a 20-year component which allows us televised tracking of their centrifuge production of the roeltors and bellows on the centrifuges and a 25-year remarkable insight which is a access and monitoring, tracking of the life of the uranium cycle, so from the mining, the mills, the yellow cake

production, the gasification the center fudge, out into the waste, we will have an ability the iaea will have an ability to appropriately monitor that every step of the way. so if we have x-amount of raw uranium or if there is x amount of milling taking place and some is diverted and we don't see it going into the place it next has to go to, we're going to have extraordinary insight into that. and under that, under the protocol and under the iaea process for civil nuclear programs, all of the facilities are declared because it is a civil nuclear program. as such there is literally 24/7 visitation in those sites. they are not even request sort of situations. it is only for the undeclared facility about which you have a suspicion that you have to go

through the other process. but we'll have amazing insight because they are living by the npt or allegedly they are going to live by the npt and that is what we have to make sure they are doing. and we have day-to-day insight into that. and i might add to our colleagues, under the interim agreement, by the way a number of people called a historic mistake and a tragedy and you heard all of the same rhetoric you're hearing now the same people asked for us to keep that in place two years later because it has worked. and the fact is, iran has lived up to every component of that over the course of the last years. they've -- they've reduced the 20% uranium, they undid iraq and so on and so forth. i won't go through it all now. so we'll have this level of insight which i think is not being examined and understood enough. nothing ends at 15 years. simply the size of the stockpile

limitation ends and the enrichment and they with enrich further but we'll have insight into that enrichment. a nuclear program requires enrichment at 5% or so that is the high end of it. if you start to enrich higher, up around 20% you are talking about the tehran research reactor or other things but there is no rational whatsoever for enrichment above that and we'd have insight into the enrichment program to know if they are going somewhere else. red flags go off and we'd be all over it and be able to respond. we would have months to respond to be honest with you. and the breakout team never goes down to a level below to have a level to be respond and i think ernie can speak to the full breath of this scrutiny. >> mr. chairman, may i ask one foot note because it is -- it could be a collateral benefit of this agreement is that going to

the uranium supply chain safeguards i want to add this is something that the iaea wants too much much more broadly and this would actually be a first in moving towards cradle to grave safeguards. >> i might add there are some other firsts that unfortunately we cannot talk about relative to some of their procedures which i alluded to. and i would say to mr. suggest, yes, people have said this would rather keep jcpoa in place, but that doesn't mean that people like jcpoa in first and so i just want to clarify that. senator risch. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, senator cardin, who i have the highest respect for made a statement which i really agree with and that is that we really need to leave emotion out of this and i couldn't agree with this more. this should be done in a nonemotional way but that

doesn't mean we need to leave common sense out of this with all due respect. we've gone from the mantra of no deal is better than a bad deal and i've heard everybody say that a couple of few and now we've gotten to the point where, well, you have to accept this or else it is war. the mantra has changed dramatically. and all i can say is after reviewing this, even in a cursory fashion, anyone who believes this is a good deal really joins the ranks of the most naive people on the face of the earth. ith the people that we are dealing with here, with the history they have of cheating and everything else, anyone who can say this is a good deal -- i know the justification is well, it's not perfect, but it's not even close to that. i join the chairman in this in a closed hearing yesterday, we have been told we have no choice

in this because we in a closed hearing yesterday, we have been told, we have no choice in this, we have no choice in this because we have s gone from the position where we wi started, where we had iran we're isolated and they were viewed on un the world stage as a pariah.this if we don't go along with this, we're told, the other e. negotiators are going to go along with this and the united states will be isolated on this issue and we will be the pariah on the national station. where these negotiations have taken us, from a situation where we had iran exactly where we wanted them to now if we don't go along with this, then we are other going to be the isolated pariah character on the national stage.e to h well, look, the other thing that was so important in this was verification. we have to have verification. everybody said this is the number one thing on verification.the riy here well, everybody here knows that there is a site called parchin, and it was the subject of these

negotiations and parchin is g designed, and i heard the secretary say that they're going to ensure that their nuclear ambitions are only for peaceful it purposes. how in the world does parchin fit that?ey parchin was designed and operates as an explosive detonation place. and they designed a detonation trigger for a nuclear weapon. parchin stays in place. does that sound like it's for peaceful purposes. let me tell you the worst thing about parchin, and you agreed to not even taking samples there. iaea can't take samples there.test they're going to be able to test by themselves. even even the nfl wouldn't go along with this. hav how in the world can you have a nation like iran doing their own testing? i know secretary moniz, who by the way, i think is one of the brightest guys i know has told us, don't worry we're able to

watch it on tv and there's a r the good chain of custody for the samples that are being taken. trust are we going to trust iran to do this? this is a good deal? this is what we were told we were going to get when we were told that don't worry, we're going to be watching over their shoulder and put in place verifications that are 're absolutely bullet proof. we're going to trust iran to do their own testing? i this is absolutely ludicrous. the one thing that bothers me thers incredibly about this is the billions of dollars that iran's going to get. hav we've been briefed on the fact and that while they've been in this horrible financial condition, le and we have f gotten them to a horrible financial condition one of their national priorities has been to support terrorism. they have supported hezbollah, hamas, the houthis, with financial aid, military aid,

with every kind of aid there is. everything that we're trying to ing do in the world has their fingerprints on it trying to do us in. so, these billions of dollar going to be put back in their hands within, i'm told, about nine months.r and again we were told yesterday, it doesn't matter what we do.ter, a congressnd go ahead and do your thing, it doesn't matter, because we don't have control over this matter, and it was the other people sitting at the table that have control over the money and no matter what we do they will release the billions of dollars.ble dmai got well, i got to tell you, this is a very heavy lift when you sleepnd at night and you say, well, i am going to vote to release $50 billion. started at $100 billion and now down to $50 billion. whatever it is. knowing a portion of that money is going to be directly transferred to people who are going to try to kill americans and going to try to kill people

innocent people an ad are trying to kill our allies. to say this is -- to be able to walk away from this and say that a this is a good deal is ludicrous. with all due respect, you guys en have been bamboozled, and the american people are going to pay for that. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator boxer. >> can we respond at all to any of that? t [ laughter ] >> my time's up, mr. chairman. susp i suspect we will hear lots of responses.ll >> well, isn't there time built in for answers or comments? for >> i'm more than glad for you toanswer take as moment to answer -- we'll make sure this gets a full and nning fair hearing so -- >> yeah well let me start at that the beginning here, the comment good was made that -- what is it naive if you think this is a good deal. this is an article from the "washington post." i urge you all to read it.fo how the iran deal is good for

israel according to israelis who know what they are talking about. i urge you to read it. it says here a host of prominent members of the country's security establishment have comein sup out atpo various stages of the fforts negotiations in support of the obama administration's efforts. in an interview this week with the "daily beast," the former head of israel top security agency suggests israel politicians were playing with fears and a fearful society and he p he praised it as a measure to curb the iranian threat. i don't think he is naive. he praised the fym haladid. the former chief of israel's spy agency, hailed obama's victory. folks, you can throw it around, and senator you said we had them exactly where we wanted them, tl 19,000 centrifuges and enough bombs

missile material for 10 to 12 bombs?e em? is that where we wanted them? of what was the purpose of the sanctions? sanc >> to dismantle their operation. >> i was chairman when we passedhairma those sanctions and our purpose e was to bring them to negotiations, so we negotiated. and i guarantee you, for the first 15 years, you have unbelievable restraints that make it impossible to even think about making a bomb. n't do a they can think about it, but can't do anything about it. so at the end of 15 years, you have every option that you have today.it.e enyear your decision is whether you want those 15 years to be right now or take the 15 years and figure out whether or not this is going to work. that's really the choice. i don't know what you mean by we had them right where we wanted them. w to to what end? >> before i turn to senator boxer, i want to give you time i do want to say that i think iran has done a masterful job.

and given your talking point with the 19,000 centrifuges, tenntrifu of which arege operating, but we all know they're antiques. they're antiques. and so we all talk about the of number of centrifuges, but this deal lays out their ability to continue research on the ir-2bs. >> for a peaceful program. >> let me finish. i let you talk. they said the ir 8 is their future you know the ir-1 doesn'toperate operate most of the time and it's slow, they want to get rid of those.they d so they did a masterful job of getting the west and other r countries to focus on something over here that is of no use to them.thway

while they're able to draft them as an agreement that allows them a pathwayin so they could put in a covert facility and enrich in levels and pace they never can imagine.ec with that, secretary boxer. >> mr. chairman, if i may add, i must say every element of the of rnd program is rolled back in time.ight the fact is they right now -- they are very active in all of these areas and it's significantly delayed. that's a fact. >> and it is a fact in year eight, they're given the time -- >> i'm sorry -- hat's >> in year eight, and that's why the president said in year ten zero breakout. >> never a zero breakout. >> but sir it's an incorrect characterization, i apologize for saying in year eight they are in industrial activity and it's a small cascade they can start to do years after their current plans. >> and many people thought it was going to take that long for them to even have the capacity as

i to do that. so as i mentioned from accredit cal path standpoint, they have been brilliant. >> are you ready for me? okay.een colleagues, put me down as someone who thinks iran is a bad and dangerous actor. and i don't think there's one invo person involved that doesn't believe that. and so that's why i believe we curb need to curb their nuclear ambitions. i think it's essential. i don't think the american am people want another war and at the end of the day i know some disagree with this.gree wit i think that's -- at the end of the day, that's really the action. which everybody tiptoes around. now, you know -- i support the right of my colleagues to say anything they want, but you have bu sat there and you have heard two of my colleagues go after you

with words that i am going to repeat. you were fleeced. one said.sai the other said you have been bamboozled.sulting, so putting aside the fact that i think that's disrespectful and insulting, that's their right to do. there are other ways to express your disagreement, but that goes to your core as a human being and your intelligence, and i think you are highly kerry fo intelligent. let me ask you, and if you could answer yes or no, and i know it's hard for you, secretary kerry for you to do so because we're senators and it's not our way and then i can get through the rest of my list. so my colleagues think you were etthe my fleeced and bamboozled, and that means everybody was fleeced and

bamboozled, everybody, almost everybody in the world. i want to ask you, does the united kingdom, our strong ally support this? >> yes. >> does australia, one of our rong strongest allies support this accord? >> yes. >> does germany support thishi accord? >> yes. >> does france support this accord? >> yes.>> d >> does new zealand support this accord? >> i have not seen their statement. >> well, they're on the security council, are they not, and they ey voted for it? >> oh, you mean in the vote -- yes. >> well, either by voice support or a vote.it did jordan voice its support in their vote? >> yes.. >> did spain, did nigeria and lithuania? >> yes. >> yes. you get the drift.if if you were bamboozled, the world has been bamboozled. ridic that's ridiculous and unfair and wrong.you can you can disagree for sure with aspects of this agreement, but i

think we need to stay away from that kind of rhetoric. now, i have the agreement right rhetoric here and i have read it, and one thing that i was surprised as i sat down to read it, i thought, you know, will i be able to understand this document. it's very understandable. so i want to say -- cite a couple of things in here.theaffir iran reaffirms under no circumstances will iran ever msn seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons. that's one phrase.level th another one is, and -- that's -- this one is number 16. iran will not engage in activities including at the rnd ul level that could contribute to the development of a nuclear cluding explosive device, including uranium or plutonium and that's in this accord.iuacco so one of the things i want to do is send out a message to

iran. not to the people of iran, who i think are really good people, but to those folks there that are so dangerous, and that is you said it real clearly, and if you don't live up to it, i guarantee you the consequences will not be pretty, and i think e not that's an important message that go has to go out, because they signed it and they said it and it the whole world is watching them. secretary kerry, i authored the u.s. israel strategic partnership act, and president obama signed both. and the enhanced cooperation security act. so proudresi of that and president obama signed bot h of those.ith and it means that we stand we shoulder to shoulder with our closest ally and we know israel does not like this agreement. i am very glad you read those read

comments of the paper. you can watch all of this hearing online at c-span.org and don't at 8:00 eastern on our companion network c-span. we'll now take you live to the pentagon where department of defense bob work and others will brief reporters on live anthrax specimens that were accidentally transported to labs in the u.s. and at least two in the country. live coverage on c-span3. dod and continental laboratories inside the united states as well as overseas. and after that as i said, i'll take a couple questions and then turn it over to the experts. since 2003 the department has periodically shipped those inactivated or killed samples of bacillus and thracis or anthrax

spores to laboratories. we do this to protect our troops, our allies and partners and the american public from the threat of biological attack. we do this because we know in the past some nations have pursued biological weapons. and we can't be certain that they will not be used in the future. on may 22nd of this year, the centers for disease control and prevention cdc, notified us that a commercial research facility had supposedly unactivated samples that rained live anthrax spores. we quickly determined that the sample originated from utah. and it was shipped to the army's edgewood chemical billion center in maryland. two days later, after consultation with the cdc all shipments of activated biological agents or what we not were deactivated at the edgewood

facility were halted. and the very next day, we expanded that to include a moratorium on all shipments of inactivated anthrax material to and before all dod laboratories on 26 may cdc began an investigation into what happened at dougway and edgewood. three days later i initiated a broader review of dod laboratory procedures processes and protocols of deactivated spores that this was a procedure of the more serious problem of the biohazard cdc procedures. i direct eded frank kendall. frank assembled a team, the bios are actually in the report. this is an expert team that included representatives from the department of agriculture

energy, defense, homeland security. the federal bureau of investigation, academia and industry. they conducted a comprehensive review of all procedures, processes and protocols on the four laboratories or at the four laboratories that work with inactivated anthrax spores. and particularly those procedures that were associated with the enactinactivateenactinactivate of those live spores. the review on the way and the department and cdc worked together to test and retest every single inactivated anthrax batch that we retained in our inventory. now the review team reports their findings and recommendations to frank on the 13th of july, ten days ago, and after his thorough review, i

have to say thorough review, i received his authorize endorsement yesterday. and the secretary of defense discussed the report and implications and what we might be be doing and i'd like to share the findings and recommendations of the review. the review showed since 2003, our four dod laboratory eradiated a total 149 batches of live anthrax spores and reported them as inactivated and safe for subsequent testing. every one of those batches have been accounted for. and either tested or destroyed. 53 of the 149 batches are no longer in dod inventory. again, we've been doing this since 2003. and they were not available for testing. any recipients of those batches who still have any samples on

hand are told to destroy them. now, that left us with 96 of batches to test. 17 of those 96 tested possible for the regrowth or presence of live anthrax. and every one originated from dougway. of the total batches in dougway's inventory, more than half tested positive. 17 of 33 batches of dougway were tested positive. now, obviously, when over half of those anthrax batches that were presumed to be inactivated instead proved to contain live spores, we have a major problem. and the numbers confirm this judgment. at this point we know that over the last 12 years 86

laboratories in 20 states. the district of columbia and seven foreign countries ultimately received what was supposedly inactivated spores that were live and all originated as i said from dougway puden grau. i expect those numbers to increase. the 86 labs that we reported today included all inactivated anthrax samples that were received directly from dougway by laboratory. however, these receiving labs could in turn send samples to other laboratories to help them end their procedures or testing and cdc is responsible for tracking those secondary and tertiary shipments. and we expect to hear the results of their work very very

soon. those will increase our numbers. we will continue to work with cdc and update our website to reflect cdc's findings as soon as they become available. now, we are extremely fortunate that the live anthrax samples came in liquid form. anthrax has spores, and is therefore generally transmitted through spores in the air that we breathe. coming in liquid form in extremely small amounts, vials about this size, they had come into contact with those handling those extremely low concentrations in those samples. this helps explain to us, why, over a 12-year period, there's never been a single incident of infection. we are very fortunate because of

those circumstances there are no known risks to the broader public. a healthy person would have to purposely ingest drink the sample or inject it. and would have to do it several times for them to become infected. now second carter myself and the senior leadership of the department take absolutely no comfort in this fact. by any measure, by any measure, this was a massive institutional failure with a potentially dangerous bio toxin. so the first thing we had to know was why did it happen. the review concluded that there were three main causes to this failure. the first and the most broadest one and the one that surprised me perhaps the most is there is no national standard at all for, or any standard to guide us for the development of protocols processes and quality assurance

measures in the preparation of an inactivated anthrax spores, they just don't exist. even though laboratories across the country do this routinely. said another way, as i said there is no national standard. so each of the labs had to make their own protocols and test them for their viability. now, obviously in the other labs, it seemed to work, dugway it did not. we believe we know why. there's a combination of large production volume low sampling volume on the testing for inenactinenact that vasion and between the time that dugway radiated and declared it dead and then the test to conclude it was. that's why we think there was a

high likelihood at dugway for the problems to occur. and the numbers seem to bear this out. third, there are no biological procedures standard across the dod. that's another thing that surprised me a lot. and this is partly due to the fact that the laboratories are under different chains of demand. and this is something that we have to take care of. so given these findings we obviously, as a department have a lot of work to do. we have a lot of work cut out for us. the american public expects more from the department of defense. and we expect much more of ourselves also. secretary carter has made plain to me and all the senior leadership of the department, that he expects these issues to be dealt with swiftly and comprehensively to ensure that a failure of this sort never happens again. accordingly, i am taking the following actions. i've directed under secretary kendall to first work with dod

stakeholders and the cdc and all other relevant departments and agencies in the u.s. government to develop standardized radiation viability testing for all labs that work with spore-producing organisming like an flex. i'm telling them to ensure that there's sufficient fund for the biological program to support the development of these standardized radiation and viability of protocol. if he feels it is not enough, we will

actions that contributed to the unintended shipment of live anthrax spores. within 30 days, as secretary of the army and in coordination with the secretary of the navy three of the labs report under the army, and one of the labs report under the navy. develop an implementation plan for addressing the specific recommendations of this report. particularly on quality assurance, peer review and program management. and to provide quarterly updates on the progress to me. review laboratory emissions and chains of command to provide policy organization and recommendations to ensure there's a consistent application. as i said, one of the things is that they're across two different military departments

and across four different chains of command. so, we need to address that so we have standardization across all four. i've also asked the secretary of the army to assess the optimal distribution of production activities in dod laboratories that support the chemical and biological defense program mission. finally, i designated the secretary of the army as the dod executive agent for the biological select agent or toxin or what we call b-sap bio safety program. the secretary of the army will be responsible for the technical review and establishment of these bio safety protocols and procedures and he will have the authority to ensure their strict implementation. i've asked the army to designate a certified biological safety officer to execute this responsibility for him. now, until all of these recommendations are addressed,

in place and under secretary kendall has told me that they have been addressed, i've directed a moratorium -- a continued moratorium on the handling on testing and shipment of inactivated anthrax. that will continue. except for the development of the standardized peer review protocols. -- identified institutional and procedural failures we urgently need to address. we are shocked by these failures. i want to stress for you that dod takes full responsibility for these failures. we are implementing changes and recommending the establishment of procedures, processes and protocols that will prevent such

a biohazard safety failure from ever happening again. in fact, we hope that the lessons that we are learning will encourage the development and establishment of a national inactivating. there is no known risk to the general public or to our allies or partners or servicemen and women. we continue to partner with the cdc to ensure that safety guards are instituted. once again however this statement in no way is meant to minimize the severity of this. it was absolutely inexcusable. in closing, let me say that secretary carter, myself and the senior leadership of the department want to commend the laboratory that first notified

cdc of this problem. and set this review in motion. was because of their notification, that the department was able to take immediate action and to stop all shipping of inactivated anthrax to assess our procedures processes and protocols and to begin to institute the needed changes that were so obviously needed. in doing so, they helped ensure no one was affected by anthrax. with that, i'd like to open it up for a few questions. barbara. >> i think i heard you mention the fbi. and i have not heard that the fbi was involved in this until today. you can tell us, number one why did you bring the fbi into it? number two, you have this accountability review, it is an army review, if i understood you correctly. if this has gone on for years with no one noticing what makes you believe the army can

adequately investigate itself? why are you not doing an independent review? who do you think is responsible? you must have some idea. it can't be just the bureaucracy. and my third question is how can you be certain standing here today, that there are no other germ biological chemical hazardous agents that the department deals with that aren't facing the same problem? how do you know it's just anthrax? >> there's a lot of questions in that one, barbara. let me start the fbi, obviously, we wanted to make sure that this wasn't the result of a bad actor who was doing this on purpose. and we were able to determine that that was not the case. second thing responsibility. this first review was designed primarily. when i asked the question on the 29th i said how in the world could this happen? i was more interested in finding out what was the cause of the problem. and that was the focus of the

review. after doing the review frank made the recommendation and said, look although we didn't have -- although we didn't know the viability standards were false we need to get to this. but still, there were things happening at dugway that obviously, we should review more closely. that's why we then asked the secretary of the army who's responsible for the dugway chain of command to execute the accountability and investigation into why it happened. >> why did you think it doesn't need to be an independent review since dugway's had no problems in the past, that for some reason the army hasn't noticed in years? why not an independent review to assure yourself of full independent investigation? >> full confidence in secretary mccue. and i expect him to be able to review this in very great detail

and provide recommendations to us on exactly if there is and who is responsible for these lapses at dugway. >> are there other agents out there with the same is -- facing the same problem, how do you know it's just anthrax? >> well, i might ask frank to do this. we were looking at all spore-producing organisms. but we were focused obviously, on anthrax. we have very high had confidence in the shipment of this material. we have very high confidence that it's being handled within laboratories by trained people. we feel that our protocols that are established, or being followed the problem that has shown up in this review. we have to look at the protocols we saw and make better standards. so, i have a very, very high confidence, at least at this point, that there are no other issues that we're unaware of.

jim. >> mr. secretary, what was so different than the protocols and procedures at dugway, than the other four installations that could have caused this problem? and in this investigation, did you find any evidence of malfeasance, negligence, among those who were responsible for that testing? >> let me take the second one first, jim. there was no findings of malfeasance or wanton you know, misuse of protocols. it was the protocols themselves that were at fault. now, the protocols at dugway were particularly problematic. this is a production facility so 86 of the 149 batches were created in dugway. it is our primary production facility. they would make large concentrations -- i mean, large batch sizes. so the sizes of the batches were larger than the other three

laboratories that generally worked with smaller samples. then there are radiation procedures obviously, didn't work. and the time between the time they eraitt raiddiated the samples and tested for viability was too short. so a combination of factors with reason of 50% of their batches ultimately proved to be live. >> but who is ultimately responsible for that? >> the technical director -- >> if i might, this is unfortunately a very complicated situation. anthrax is a very unique organism. it's the only organism like it considered a biological agent. because it exists in a spore situation, spore form it is harder than a bacterial virus about to kill and know exactly where you are in that process. the processes at dugway were not

as rigorous as processes at some other places, but not by an enormous margin. the team that he led found differences in there that were indicators of factors that individually or a combination could have contributed to the fact they weren't as successful at killing the anthrax. but the thing that stood out for us at dugway was that a fairly large proportion of the sample that eradiated turned out to be positive in their tests. about 20% according to records. that should have been a clear indication to people at dugway that something was wrong. the number should have been much, much lower than that. there were that things that happened in the history there was enough evidence from me in the report from the review group that individual accountability should be assessed by a body. the inspector general of the

army for example. we did it it was a 30-day review. it was not an in-depth detailed investigative review of the kind you want to have before you find somebody comparable and take corrective action. that's what the army did do now. >> and so i think you all understand the concept of undercommand influence. it's not appropriate for any of us who speculate on who might be responsible. or even if there say single person responsible. we will leave that to the investigation to inform us. and then we will take action as necessary. >> yes, sir. >> what kind of deadlines are -- is undersecretary kendall dealing with now with the new work you've given him? there must be some doubt that no one is at fault otherwise why conduct the internal investigation. and you said with -- you said

the protocols were at fault and not the employees up here at the podium. so you slightly contradicted yourself just now by saying that we don't know if personnel -- it's the fault of personnel or not. you can just expand on that, please? >> dugway followed the procedures that were in place in dugway, as far as we know. that's based on just a 30-day review. as frank said, what happened were the procedures were the primary culprit. we believe there were indicators that people should have known there was a problem. so, that is why there is -- we can say that there was nobody who was doing it on purpose. they were following what they considered to be the correct protocol. but it was the responsibility of the laboratory to figure out whether those protocols were correct. that is what the investigation will tell us. so i don't see there's any -- i don't see there's any contradiction in our position

here. >> are they the same at dugway as they are at the other facilities? >> yes, they were. as i said, there were different procedures in each of the facilities. they were all in different chains of commands. and one of the findings was, we need to discover a dod activation protocol across all four of the laboratories and that's undersecretary kendall has to do. to your point, there is no deadline. frank kendall has as much time to do this, the moratorium will stay in place as long as needed with one slight caveat. if at some point it is interfering with our biological and defense program then secretary kendall will take that into account and make adjustments necessary. but his first requirement is to standardize the first protocols implement them across the department, tell me that they're

scientifically sound. and a very, very high confidence that they will identify problems like this in the future and will prevent them from happening again. and in the meantime, the moratorium will continue. we will work with the cdc. everything is contained inside laboratories. there's no more shipment of this sample sizes. there are no more working on it. so, in the meantime, frank's job is to make sure that these are implemented across the service -- i mean, across the department. [ inaudible question ]. >> oh, no he will come to me and make a recommendation on when the moratorium should be lifted. and it will be based on science. and the best scientific knowledge that we have, using cdc and all of the experts of the department of defense to tell us which way it will go. i will turn this over now to the people who actually conducted the review. frank is intimately aware of all

of the details. the doctor was the actual author of the report. so if you have any specific questions here, you can ask them. >> sounds like given the systematic area, doesn't this suggest that they should not be involved in anthrax? these standards that you talked about they were minimal standards that apply. they were using unusually large batches, minimal testing. these aren't just arbitrary standards. they are standards that can be done through math. you know how many spores are in a batch and you know how much radiation can be used. where was that decision made that you would use unusually high batches and usually low standards? and we're not given an answer on how that decision was made. what i don't understand is who made that decision and if dugway was in the business of doing that systematically for a decade, even if there were

warning signs that it was not working why is dugway producing any anthrax at all? >> well dugway is not producing any anthrax, they're not shipping. i will turn this over to frank to answer your specific questions. as i said, this is a failure that the department of defense is taking full responsibility for. and we need to understand and establish procedures to make sure this won't happen again. i'm confident that frank is going to be an elitist, to a point, where we will be able to tell you, and the american public, that we have solved this problem and it will not happen again. thank you. i'm going to ask commander franca jones to join me up here. she's the chief officer for the review. i want to say a couple things

that may clarify this a little bit, about dugway and the procedures there. dugway did not depart dramatically from what others were doing. it used the same level of raid yeah roughly. lower than another laboratories but roughly the same level. and it's there in the report that's available now, there are the details of what each laboratory did in all of these areas. they used a smaller sample size for their testing to verify that the deactivation was successful. apparently the fact that was still live anthrax in the samples that were eradiated. they did testing more quickly probably because of the process they were doing. they were doing more work in this area than other labs were because of the purpose for which they were doing it. also their samples were contaminated more with other organisms in other ways than others were more purely used for research instead of field

testing, if you will, in laboratories. so there's some differences that are understandable. they existed for a reason. in general, dugway's protocols were lower in some areas and processes a little different but not drautmatically so. they did not find any negligence or gross negligence. so this is a deeper problem than that. when i read the report of the review group what struck me, though, is that there were indicators that i think the typical leadership at dugway should have seen and understood -- and should have been a gauge to them that something was wrong. and that they needed to look more closely at their procedures. too high percentage of their batches were tested positive when they looks at the variousfication test. when the review team asked them the answer they got was 2% or 3%. that's a significant difference one of the fundamental characterics about anthrax and

spores and treatments for spores is that it's a statistical process. when you're doing this process the technical leadership at dugway should have fully understood that and because of that the implications have a higher failure rate. that's what caught my attention when i read the report. that's why i recommended a more formal recommendation. what i recommended to the secretary, the microbiology organization and the life sciences commission as well as the chain of command at dugway be essentially investigated in a more formal investigation. hopefully that will help you understand. >> thank you. you can explain the moratorium process, how that will affect business going forward? and what it would take i guess, to lift it even as it continues? >> in the short term, it will not have much of an effect. basically, this is closing down some research for some short period of time.

and some of the testing we do to verify that laboratories have the capability to test for anthrax successfully. there is still research going on with live anthrax, with proper protections for live anthrax. so this special category of inactivated anthrax, that work has been ceased until we get this sorted out. there's going to be a more scientific body of research to carefully understand how anthrax responds to radiation, and how the tests to verify that anthrax has been inactivated. i hesitate to guess how long that research will take. but it will not be done instantaneously, it will take a body of time. >> you mentioned the

varification test. the 2% was that a lie or was this just a -- >> it was a mistake. we will not call it a lie at this point. the team was asked a question how large do your organization pale a verification test. >> the entire facility actually with the tendencies in the report, you can see what the actual dialogue was put but it was a simple misunderstanding on their part what the actual failure rate was. and when you ask for specific data to support that failure rate, the data showed that it was significantly higher. >> there was also an incident a few years earlier at dugway in which a -- apparently a live sample had gone through their process. and not been detected. so they had some earlier indications that they might have a problem as well.

>> did anybody discover the verification test? >> basically after you do the radiation, you take a sample from the radiation, you attempt to grow it. and if it's alive it hasn't been inactivated then it will grow. you but it in a medium. and one of the differences in the procedures is how the degree of nutrition or type of material that you put the spores in after they've been eradiated, some of them use a broth. right here. >> deputy secretary work praised the maryland lab that first brought the problem to the attention of cdc. my understanding correct me if i'm wrong, it was a contract lab. my understanding also from previous reporting and statements out of here is that when it tried to grow anthrax

it was surprised that -- culture anthrax, perhaps, it was surprised that the anthrax grew. why would a lab getting what has been told are dead anthrax spore, why would any lab try to grow anthrax? >> we need to confirm but perhaps in this case, when anthrax is shipped in an evacuated form it's accompanied by a certificate indicating it's not live anthrax. i think in this case it was received without that certificate. because they did not have the certificate they went ahead and did that test, am i correct? >> this wasn't part of acquisition process. so to test the laboratories to see if the system worked against the anthrax. they were sent blind inactivated samples. so they didn't know what the identify of the sample was. so in this case, they didn't receive the death certificate. because they hadn't received the death certificate, they assumed

it was live. they sent it out to be cultured and in fact the culture came out positive. [ inaudible question ]. >> this was not issued as a blind study. >> yes. >> so it should have been a death certificate or that shout have been? >> no, because it was part of a blind testing for acquisition, it didn't have a death certificate. so the test equipment whether working appropriately or not can be identified this is in fact anthrax. >> so the samples went through something like 86 select labs. i'm just wondering how select is this process with that many labs, are you going to be creating that with labs where you ship dangerous pathogens to? >> this is part of a broader program that's designed to protect the country. we had the anthrax incident that

everybody knows about here at the capitol, of course. out there the country people are concerned about the possibility of anthrax being used. and if an incident happens anywhere, people want to be able to test as quickly as possible to determine that the substance as suspected is anthrax or not. so a large number of labs like to have this capability. you want to -- >> sure, if i can add one thing, because this was believed to be inactivated, we were not intending to actually use laboratories that may already be registered with the select agent program. we're trying to grow new partners in technology. and for that reason, they were in many cases trying to show new technologies for detection and diagnostics against anthrax worked. and thus, we were sending them an inactivated material to show them that their technologies would work. knack, we weren't trying to grow a body of laboratories that would use dangerous pathogens we were attempting to grow the

technology for national security. >> some of these samples were sent down to second and third laboratories is that correct? how confident are you that you're going to eventually gather all of these things together? or are they going to be missing forever? >> cdc is completing that work. i think we are fairly confident that the laboratories have been notified to treat all of this as live. and we will get to all the laboratories where we they received the sample. it's just going to take some time. part of the problem is this prock is decades, ten years. we've got to make sure we've called everybody. i think we will catch all of the labs. i can't absolutely guarantee that. and i think the cdc is conducting the secondary and tertiary lab reviews. right here. >> i just wonder about how did

it happen -- the failure, for example, anthrax was shipped to south korea, the base in the u.s. base? so i just wonder about how did it happen? and the second question is, do you have a measures to prevent delivery failure again? >> it was unintended delivery. and it was anthrax that was believed to be inactivated and not live and not able to be grown. it went to an air force base in korea. and to a laboratory on that base for testing there. and i don't think it ever went or would have gone anywhere else. so, this was a mistake. as the secretary said, it was a serious mistake. it should never have happened. it's an inexcusable mistake, and we're taking actions to correct it. >> i'm also a korean

correspondent. i understand it was a mistake. everybody can make a mistake. but what would you say to those people raise that it was a possible violation of the international treaty like a biological weapons condition or state of forces agreement? >> i'm not aware that there was a violation of any agreement. there's internal no intentional violation of any agreement. i'm not a lawyer, so i can't tell you exactly what the agreement says or how this will be affected by this. but i can ensure you that this was an error. it happened for a variety of reasons that we talked about. and it was done for the best of reasons, to ensure that we're to protect people in case of an anthrax attack in korea or anywhere else we ship it. >> you mean an anthrax threat on the korean peninsula why you

send it to south korea? >> the concern is about biological attack by others obviously. either terrorist groups or nations. and the threat unfortunately, of biological attack exists covertly for a number of reasons. >> are you going to resume shipment to south korea once the moratorium is lifted? >> right now, there's no commitment to do that. anything that we do do i can assure you will be in consultation with the korean government. and there is a task force now working with the korean government to discuss the specific events that happened. go ahead. >> you say they were able to issue that -- what is the -- >> i am sorry, i didn't understand the question. >> most korean announcers say

they will bring this anthrax issue to the u.n. security council. >> oh, i can't talk about north korean actions or what they're going to do. i can say that this was brought -- this is believed to be deactivated anthrax is brought to be there for defensive reasons to test against buys.ios. that's the reason it was brought there. thank you very much. secretary of state john kerry, energy secretary ernest moniz and treasury secretary jack lew testified today about the iran nuclear agreement. their appearance before the senate foreign relations committee followed closed-door members only briefings they gave yesterday. we'll show you all of today's hearing in its entirety beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern on our companion network c-span.

this weekend on the c-span network, politics, books and american history. friday beginning at 12:45 eastern, c-span's live coverage of the national governors association meeting. that's followed by a session on state strategies on tourism and economic development. guests include robert nutting, chairman of the board of pittsburgh pirates and the resident ceo david allen. and on c-span starting at 9:45, the governors address the nation's opioid crisis. with mary bono. and later, the governors discuss how to stimulate their state's economy and its impact on the employment rate with u.s. department secretary thomas perez. sunday evening at 6:35 eastern an interview with former governor of rhode island and democratic presidential

candidate lincoln chavfee. and ralph nader he sent to presidents george w. bush and barack obama. and on sunday, ten years after hurricane katrina. on american history tv c-span3 sunday morning, we commemorate the 50th anniversary of lyndon johnson's signing of the 1965 medicare bill. our coverage includes how the president was able to get the bill passed phone conversations between johnson, his aides and politics and strategy. and the signing of the build at the harry s. truman presidential library. saturday night 7:15, u.s. historian lawrence cavern on the hist of computers and hackers. get our complete schedule at

c-span.org. when congress is in session, c span 3 brings you more of the best access to congress with live coverage of hearings news every weekend, it's american history tv traveling to historic sites, discussions with authors and historians and accounts that define the nation. c-span 3, coverage of congress and american history tv. was a member of the 9/11 review commission. the heritage foundation hosted this let me thank you all for coming. it's actually a nice day, so i guess thank you for being inside on a really nice day. there couldn't be a more timely time for this event we had

breaking news yesterday about significant terrorist figure being taken out in syria. so evaluating the state of the threat and how, and what's going on is particularly in light of potentially a deal with iran and how does it change the middle east, couldn't be a better time to do this. couldn't be a better group to talk about this. we have a terrific panel and congressman mccall, so, what we'll do is, i'll introduce congressman mccall up. he's going to make some remarks and then -- it's not that we never get to talk, but we're going to have a conversation so we can flesh out some of the issues. there are just so many. and then we like to bring everybody into the conversation and we'll do that for 15 minutes or so and then we're going to bring the panel up and continue with our panel. so, sometimes you just have to read the bio. one time i was introducing secretary rumsfeld and i forgot the bio and i went up to introduce secretary rumsfeld

without the bio, and i said, here's the secretary. so, i actually have the bio here. it's really important. like introducing secretary rumsfeld, just walking through congressman mccall's bio is important. because what he's done and the expertise he brings to this issue and homeland security is very admirable. he is the -- serving in his sixth time as a representative in the tenth district in the u.s. congress. in 2013 he began the beginning of the 113 congress he became the chairman of the homeland security committee, which has oversight of the department of homeland security and all the core missions of protecting the american people from terrorist attacks. he is also the chairman of the u.s./mexico interparliament tear group. this is a group that discusses issues involving the two nations. he serves on the committee of foreign affairs working to assure national security is strong.

he recently discussed a whole range of issues including the key issue of countering violent extremism. he has a -- he was also the cofounder and cochair of the congressional high tech caucus and the cyber security callucus and commissioned the chair, developed recommendations to president obama on cyber security. so having been involved in this enterprise that we call homeland security, you know since 9/11 there are few people who have invested eded themselves more in this really important mission so, we're honored to have here today, and please join me in welcoming congressman mccall. >> thanks, jim. i want to thank heritage and we're also honored to have

attorney general ed meese here. i joined the justice department as he is transitioning out. and what an honor it is to see you, sir. one thing jim left out, i have five teenagers. so, when it comes to homeland security issues, i feel like i have a lot of personal expertise on the home front. but i want to thank the heritage foundation for having me. i can't think of a better forum to deliver this speech. i normally don't give prepared remarks, but in this case, i am. and i'm going to cover a lot of territory, but we will have a very robust q and a, healthy discussion and dialogue about the many issues facing the nation. you just mentioned the strike yesterday, where we took out the leader of the khorasan group.

that was hugely significant. one of the biggest external operations threats to the homeland and to the united states. and i commend our military for their efforts in doing that. you know, last week, terror did strike in the american heartland. and this was the type of event we've been worried about, probably the most. a radicalized suspect not only the radar screen, launching an assault here on u.s. soil. killing united states marines and a sailor. and this individual was inspired by hateful ideology and he attacked soldiers who risked their lives to protect us in the name of freedom and our hearts go out to the families and friends who were killed in chattanooga. our consolations are not outweigh their loss, we can honor the memory of the victims

by confronting the root of the violence we saw last week and refusing to allow complacency to follow in the wake of terror. and that is why i'm here today. i'm here to tell you that radicalism is on the rise. and war is being brought to our doorsteps. if it happened in chattanooga, it can happen anywhere, any time. and i agree with british prime minister david cameron, who said this week that we faced a struggle of our generation. a deceitful perverted brand of islam is expanding globally and at a great cost to the free world. and we need to act decisively to defeat it. first, i'll talk this morning about how this new age of terror has altered the security landscape on the home front, and spread rapidly throughout our communities. then i will address the second front in our struggle with extremists, overseas and how

important it is for us to take the fight to the enemy and challenge its ideological core. but first, i'm disappointed to announce that i believe we are losing on both fronts in this war against islamist terror. our enemies have the momentum. and they have thrown us offbalance. the numbers don't lie. last year was the deadliest year on record for global terrorism with attacks rising by 35% over the previous year and terror deaths worldwide nearly doubling. the motive power behind the terror surge is the rise of isis and its affiliates as well as tall al qaeda's persist end. by any measure we have failed to turn the tide against them. their global recruitment has soared. their territory held or expanded and the number of plots against us has spiked. the pace is so staggering that i

directed my committee staff to begin issuing a monthly terror threat snapshot. cataloging the rise in extremist activity. since the president declared isis to be the jv team of terror early last year, the group has inspired or directed more than 50 terrorist plots against the west. isis also went from a single terrorist sanctuary to having a direct presence or affiliates in 18 countries. the group's rapid rise has inspired more than 25,000 citizens from at least 100 countries to flock to syria as foreign fighters sfighters, a figure that has tripled -- tripled -- since last july. and officials now estimate that more than 250 americans have sought to join or succeeded in joining extremists in syria.

terrorist groups have succeeded in spreading their influence because they have evolved. gone are the days of bin laden where extremists plotted through couriers and caves. we are now seeing a new generation of terrorists. radicalizing and recruiting online across borders. americans are especially concerned that we are losing on the home front where groups like isis have started to permeate our society. with terrifying speed. there are people right here in our country intent on striking from within. captivated by an evil and twisted ideology that drives vulnerable minds into unconscionable acts of violence and hate. we have seen more than a dozen isis-linked terror plots in the united states, including recently this warted plans to set off pipe bombs on capitol hill behead law enforcement

officers conduct mass shootings, detonate bombs at new york city landmarks and live stream a murderous rampage at a college campus. we even disrupted terrorist plotting to attack july 4th celebrations in the united states. in fact, more than 60 isis supporters have been arrested or indicted in the united states -- in the united states -- in the last year. that's more than one per week. and now the fbi director says that he has open isis investigations in all 50 states. the majority have never set foot in a far away safe haven and were recruited by isis online or distributed the group's social media propaganda. and with over 200,000 isis