very, located it has many strengths and many with assist. -- many weaknesses. adequacy is over the of the iran deal. to try to solve the problem of problems associated with determining the verification of the allegations that iran had a nuclear weapons program in the past. and to do that in the context of the implementation period over the fall and winter, and is that verification effort going to well, is it going to strengthen the verification of the final deal, or is it going to create precedents and weaken the verification? what i would like to do is just quickly summarize a report we will either issue today or monday on this agreement, and also some general issues around

satellite imagery of the site. it's very clear that the iaea has reported regularly they have been undermined on doing effective verification. that is the starting point. large amounts of verifications. they do not know what has taken place, but there are now some satellite images. it's problematic for verification. i would argue that this deal has further complicated the verification of that site. it's not a public agreement. i worked on -- we have worked intensively on iran since 2002 and i have worked with many countries, iraq, south africa, worked with the inspectors in iraq in the 1990's. we have published extensively about other countries and used

iaea data. the iaea is a very secretive organization. but in the iran case, it has not been secret. iran has complained bitterly about that for years. it is saying the iaea is leaking confidential information. i think they could make this iran-i-8 deal public and release it to the member states in that would be consistent with what they have been doing on iran. i think the secrecy of it raises questions that you need to be -- that do need to be addressed. and also in my experience, they do excessively classify -- and they will do it for all of the same reasons. it may have nothing to do with the legitimate ones -- proprietary information, security information -- it can

hide embarrassing information. i would argue in this case it's a little embarrassing what this deal has. i think you have all had the chance to see the details. the associated press went to pretty great lengths to try to get a draft of it. they confirmed that was a last -- draft. at least they told me, i think the reported that the final deal was not that different from the draft. what you have is a situation where there will be videotaping of potential locations were -- where sampling would take place, and then the iaea would direct the iranians to take the samples and that's not the normal way to do things. if i could give the example in iran, a secret centrifuge research and development facility that iran did not was such a thing, the iaea got access and it brought in a very top level centrifuge expert who looked around.

and when they did the sampling finally, they didn't find any trace of enriched uranium in the areas that had been heavily modified. but in a secondary building, they found traces of enriched uranium. you need the eyes and the brain to look where to sample. i brought an example of sampling in north korea. i can't show it. this is actually a document -- maybe afterward -- this is a processing plant in the early 1990's in north korea. there north korea did not expect environmental sampling. it was a highly classified method that was unclassified as a result of the iraqi war in 1991, to strengthen the iaea . so they deployed it. you can see in the sampling, they are looking behind this box. again, north korea did not expect it. look for where it is dusty. the idea is it was not disturbed.

in this case, it would be look for where the paint doesn't look solid. that is very hard to do with a video camera. so i think a video camera opens up additional methods and it's -- methods of deceiving the iaea and it's not the normal way they have been doing it. i think that is a problem. the other is -- they are not getting access to the physical locations where samples are being taken. and the deal, as reported by the ap, says the director general and the deputy director general can go as a courtesy visit. now in my own work with the ap, and i talked to the journalists involved in this, he believes the deal that he was shown and able to transcribe, it has some errors in it, but they are at the margins and he has reported

that that is an accurate rendition. in congressional testimony, i know that u.s. officials have testified and i won't say who -- sometimes it's congressional congressmen have said -- the sampling would be done and the access would follow. so, the access is coming at a point where it is not as useful. politically access is important, but again, you want it to drive the inspection effort and the environmental sampling effort, not be done at the end of the process. what happens if there are other sites? there are other sites associated with these less civil military -- this verification of the possible military dimensions of iran's nuclear program. are they going to be subject to these kinds of rules when they go there? another reason you want access is to talk to the scientists said and engineers involved.

whether that will happen, i don't know. these are confidential arrangements. some people object to the word secrecy. to me it's all the same. technically it is a confidential agreement. but will they be able to do the job, which is to come to closure on verification of iran's past military activities by december 15? i think this agreement is -- is weakening that effort. in the broader scheme, the long-term agreement, you have to ask whether this is setting a precedent for that. i think legally with the additional protocol you could argue it is not. but iran has violated safeguard agreements many times. it has pushed the envelope.

let's say you go out and there is a suspect site. the clock starts kicking -- starts ticking. iran says no, you can't have access, but you can do the video monitoring and we will take the samples. what's going to happen? i would argue and worry, actually, that there are countries in europe that will have heavy investments in iran, and iran is going to be appealing to them to say, look, this worked in this case. you accepted it publicly. you supported it publicly. why can't it work here? do you really want to snap back sanctions over something that's proven or was acceptable in a highly controversial case like parchin? i would worry that the europeans may not stick with the united states. i think the u.s. will vote to snap back. but i think there's worry the united states -- the others may not. certainly you can't count on

russia and china. you just need one of the three to say, maybe we're not going to go with this. so i think it's also in the long-term, it's a problem -- the long term, it's a problem. finally, we want the iaea to be as strong as it can be. it can be incredibly strong. in north korea they nailed the north koreans to the wall with environmental sampling and other evidence to say they had an undeclared production of plutonium and separation of plutonium. they didn't know how much, but they had them cold. there have been other cases where they've done. that they caught them despite modification. but, iran's gotten better at modification. it's certainly learned. and i think we can't -- i think the electric example actually proves the case that you have to worry more about parchin. it doesn't prove the case that the iaea will find it no matter what. the iranians have learned and they are probably much better at

modification and undermining the iaea than before and so you want to make sure that the iaea goes into this long term agreement as strong as possible, it does address or satisfy the concerns over the possible military dimensions of iran's program and we get closure on that and we in a sense march into this agreement where the iaea has as much credibility as possible. i worry that the way it's going is they're going to have reduced credibility and that's going to give an advantage to iran, it's going to come back to haunt us. lee: thank you very much. that was a terrific introduction. one of the topics i want to come back, regarding the iaea's credibility and how this might be affected by that, but one thing i wanted to check before we went on to omri, when you were saying that the draft that the a.p. published, they checked that with, you were saying, the iaea verifying that that was close to that, or --

david: no. they went to member states. this is how this works. the iaea people -- let me not put words in a.p. they have sources, they're based in vienna. and they went to sources to verify. one can imagine, too, that -- well, let me end it there. i don't want to take any more time. lee: that story was sourced to officials from member states. specifically. omri, if would you like to pick up. fill out some of the --

-- and it has a range of dimensions that have to do with intersections between policy and politics, frustration on the hill. the administration is operating in an environment in which they've lost the benefit of the doubt with many lawmakers. both republican lawmakers and democratic lawmakers. and that comes from a number of places. it comes from frustration by lawmakers who believe that they were led, that they were essentially had their chains pulled for several years, for several years, of course, administration officials would go to the hill and they would testify that if only were they to be given breathing room for negotiations they would bring home a deal that robustly resolved the possible military dimensions of iran's program, that would lead to the shuttering of fordo, that would

lead very, very pointedly to any time, anywhere inspections. and members feel betrayed. they're saying openly that had they known back then that this would be the deal now, they would have pursued alternative legislative paths, including most prominently sanctions legislation. that's one place in which -- one reason that the administration has lost the benefit of the doubt. another reason is what members perceive to be simple dishonesty. they believe that the administration has repeatedly politicized intelligence as far as iranian cheating over the course of the jpoa, the interim joint plan of action. they believe that the administration is looking the other way on iranian sanctions busting of u.n. sanctions. they believe that they're not getting the information -- the united nations panel, which was supposed to monitor compliance, and various members of congress are not getting the information that they deserve. of course this has recently come

to a head in the last couple of days in the policy conversation when it comes to the politicalization of intelligence that has to do with isis. but that's also another thing that's in the air. which is to say they just don't trust the administration to give them accurate information. and then of course the third reason why they're operating in an environment of distrust is this specific debate over failing to transmit to lawmakers the side deals, the secret side deals, between the iaea and iran and, again, secret side deals is a loaded term. it's a term that's used by detractors and opponents of the deal but there was a moment, would have been two weeks ago, three weeks ago, there was a state department briefing at which an a.p. reporter finally got frustrated with the administration and said, can we stipulate that a deal that's classified we can call secret and a deal that's parallel we can call side? that kind of ended the debate about whether there are secret side deals but the other side prefers to not call them secret side deals and uses lines like,

this is not just secret, this is just the way adults do business. saying that to a lawmaker when they say there's a secret side deal is not a productive way to rebuild trust. that has occurred on a number of occasions. this specific issue, it takes place in a much broader environment and i don't choose your metaphor, underlines, highlight, puts an exclamation point at the end of, deep, deep, deep distrust on the hill toward the administration. which is one of the reasons why it has legs. why this idea of the secret side deals has legs. that's the political reason. the kind of public affairs reason, we'd call the communications reason, you know, if you quickly divide the town politics, policy, public affairs, politics is distrust on the hill. the public affairs reason has to do with how the administration approached messaging on this issue.

so the administration does polling, both sides on this debate do a ton of polling. both sides very, very early saw the same three things popping up. one was the importance of science and expertise, which is why the administration never missed an opportunity, especially during the last few months of the negotiation, to emphasize that scientists agree with them. this kind of reached a point that caused a lot of people to smirk. secretary of energy moniz during the vienna talks went to -- i went portugal or spain, somewhere in iberia, for an award. he came back and then he tweeted a picture. it's now back to work to lock in an agreement based on hard science. anywhere that they could insert the term they inserted it because they saw that it boosted public popularity. the second thing that -- popularity. the second thing that both sides saw, how you described the

agreement really mattered. if you described it as iran -- they then by the way took that wording and started inserting it into their own polls or into the polls of validaters in order to boost the numbers. that was the second thing. but the third thing that both sides saw was that voters overwhelmingly dislike iran, iran has the lowest favorability of most middle east actors, highest unfavorability. but the reason they do it, the reason that -- what causes that dislike is distrust. so you ask people, why should the u.s. stand in opposition to iran? it's a standard kind of wording that we use. they cite all sorts of things. iran is dedicated to the destruction of the u.s., destruction of our allies, iran stones rape victims for adultery, iran hangs gays from cranes. but what's underneath that is distrust. they don't trust iran not to do those things. which is why you saw the administration develop the talking point that this deal was not built on trust.

if you go back to their materials, that develops very, very, very early because they were seeing the same things we were seeing, which is distrust is potentially toxic to support of negotiations with iran. the side deals agreement in the same way that in a political dimension reinforces pre-existing distrust among lawmakers, in a public affairs dimension reinforces public distrust. the reason that this is so toxic in terms of the white house's public affairs campaign is because it very, very, very precisely casts a spotlight on something that they very much do not want to play with, which is distrust of iran. and now there's the policy implications. david talked a lot about this in greater depth. one thing that i think it's important to note is that it's not just the policy community

that's concerned about the parchin arrangement becoming a precedent, the arrangement of course is videotaping, allowing the iranians to take their own samples and hand them over to the agency, and negotiating with the iranians on a limited number of samples that will be taken from a limited number of places. congressman royce sent a letter to secretary kerry in which he also discussed his worry that this would become a precedent. he cited specifically one of the paragraphs in annex one of the jcpoa. somewhere in the 70's, for give me, i should know this. 71 or 77. that talks about alternative arrangements that the iranians are allowed to offer when the agency requests access. representative royce asked -- told secretary kerry, i worry that this will become a precedent. so you have this side deals issue playing out really across

everything that counts in town here. politics, policy and public affairs. and in the last 48 hours, that has now become a legislative issue or at least an issue in the battle between congress and the president over the arrangement. so there's been a lot of talk on the hill, both among democrats and republicans, but in the context of this strategy, it's largely republican strategy, that the so-called corker clock, the 60-day clock during which congress has the right to review the jcpoa and if they feel so moved, to pass a resolution of disapproval, that that clock hasn't started. the administration and frankly leadership in the senate believe -- have stated that it started when the administration transmitted a number of documents relevant to their disclosure obligations. some of those have been leaked, some of those haven't. those involve things like the u.s.'s collapse on p.m.d.'s, it

involves arrangements, involves why the intelligence community believes that that collapse is justified. so we know the content of a number of these documents. they were transmitted -- they were transmitted within a couple of days of getting back from vienna. the clock, according to this reading, ends on september 17, which is the last day congress would have to pass a resolution of disapproval. there are many people who are now claiming that because of the nontransmission of the iaea side deals, that clock hasn't started. there was, until the last 48 hours, no real recourse for those people. they could complain they could say it was illegal. there wasn't much they could do. on tuesday, d.c. district court ruled for the first time ever, this was in the context of an obamacare case, that injury that's done to congress' article one prerogatives is in fact something that can be litigated. in more technical terms, they granted standing to the house to pursue claims of energy again -- injury against the president. that created the possibility, this has now been discussed by

several legal scholars, but it's being written about broadly, the main one is a "the washington post" legal blogger, and he has taken this, he's now written two articles that says that in fact the injury done to congress' article one prerogatives does constitute something that can be litigated. he published his first analysis of this yesterday, just afternoon, at roughly the same time, and i mean within 15 minutes, "politico" posted an article with a statement from speaker boehner saying that based on the new ruling, i.e., the finding that congress has standings to pursue litigation, he may well sue president obama or the house may well sue president obama over the nontransmission of documents. now, the reasoning is actually a little bit subtle. the reasoning is that the corker clock never started which means congress never had the ability to weigh in at all. so it's not your usual claim that it's illegal to waive

sanctions. if that occurs then it would obviously change the policy -- it would radically change the policy environment. for instance, one of the things that the iranians are counting on is a stable regulatory environment that would encourage companies to enter. it's difficult to see how companies could enter in a political environment in which there's bipartisan opposition in both chambers of congress to the deal and a legal environment that is uncertain. i think on that point -- lee: thanks. that's fantastic. do you know, i mean, if speaker of the house boehner, if he'd been moving on that before the "post" piece? is this something they were talking about before? omri: there were definitely discussions at the beginning of the week and beforehand about a possible litigation strategy but they usually ended with the idea that congress would not be able to find a way to have standing and it would just get bounced out of court. now, if you read the "politico" article it specifically cites the reasoning behind this new

district court finding. but -- lee: were they all waiting for this decision to come down? omri: i think they'd been looking for ways to enforce what they consider to be their prerogatives. one of the weird things about the kind of politics around the corker-cardin debate, and the side deals specifically that we're discussing today, is not meeting the corker-cardin requirements, which is to say, not turning over all of the documents that are relevant to the deal, is disobeying congress' prerogatives on a piece of legislation about congress' prerogatives. right, it's not just not enforcing legislation. it's not enforcing legislation that's specifically about enforcing legislation. and that was passed by enormous majorities. vetoproof majorities. and so i think that there were discussions about how to enforce congress' prerogatives that were ongoing, certainly there were discussions on wednesday before "the washington post" piece came out. but "the washington post" piece

provided a rationale or at least outlined a rationale that had not existed. without being grandiose about this, in the history of the republic. this is a new thing. lee: very interesting. thanks, that was terrific. mike, if you can round us off. and give us an even larger picture that we already have here. michael: sure. omri just said that it's the first time in the history of the republic, but it reminds me that any issue of significance in american politics eventually finds its way into the courts. that's the kind of prediction that political analysis that i would like to produce. something that remains true forever. lee: i love someone tweeted that. michael: i love david albright's analysis. i said to them before we came in. there's two personalities in the world. hedgehogs and foxes, i think.

he's a fox. he sees complexity, he likes to talk about complexity. i like to lump things together and make them very simple. so i'm going to simplify what he said and turn it into a crudely political statement and say that the administration caved in -- on serious inspections with regard to the possible military dimensions of the iranian program. the question is, why did they cave and what does it mean? what do these secret side deals mean? how come adults are doing business in this manner? for me, this whole question of the secret side deals epitomizes the entire approach to the nuclear question. or you can see, you can see imbedded in this or reflected in this the motives and the approach of the administration

to the whole thing. let me -- that's a general statement. let me give you the specifics. one of the fascinating -- a lot of people are saying about the administration, when they see things like this, when they've caved on what we might call the more coercive measures of the agreement, so the inspections and verification and snapback and so on, when you look closely at these mechanisms, they evaporate. our colleagues here at hudson did a very good analysis of the so-called 23 days that the iranians have in order to oppose any effort to inspect a nuclear-suspect site. and under their analysis, which i think is very convincing, the 23 days quickly becomes many, many, many months. possibly even longer.

because of the inability to bring this process to an end at any point and to actually coerce the iranians into getting what you want. as david sort of suggested, at a certain point, you find yourself, when you're pushing up against the iranians, the only option you have is, for lack of a better word, the nuclear option of blowing up the whole deal in order to get what you want from them. so it isn't a very effective mechanism. when people look at this, at the way that the administration has caved on these coercive measures, there's a tendency to say that we were bamboozled, that the iranians are master negotiators, they play chess, we play checkers. we're just smalltown american simpletons and they live in this complex middle eastern environment and so on. but actually the people running our government are more clever than that. they're not smalltown simpletons and they know what they're doing.

they are presenting what is actually one kind of agreement as another kind of agreement. because as omri has told us, they've done -- and as i'm sure he's correct -- they've done extensive polling of the american people and they found out that the american people don't trust the iranians. and they don't want a u.s. strategy that is based on trusting the iranians. but the fact of the matter is the president decided almost from the moment he got into office, possibly even before he got into office, that we need the iranians as a partner in the middle east. and the logic is absolutely simple. the president, the most important decision that the president made about the middle east, about iran, was one he made when he was campaigning and that is that he was going to pull the united states back from the region. the minute you say you want to pull the united states back from the region, you are done as the leader of a serious policy

designed to contain iran in the region. the only way then to affect that pullback is to come to some kind of accommodation with the iranians. the biggest problem you have is their nuclear program. so they needed a way to put the nuclear question off to one side. well, they got down to the serious business of aligning with the iranians against isis and other -- that's the bad isis, not the good isis that david runs. against isis and other actors. so, that's what this agreement in my view is really all about. yes, they do want to stop the nuclear program. that is a goal of the obama administration. but it is not the only goal they have and it's not the primary goal. the primary goal is to pull the united states back from the

middle east and to come up with a regional security architecture that will allow the united states to stay out. these two goals have been working simultaneously all along and at a certain point they run counter to each other. because in order to pull the u.s. back they've got to reach an agreement on the nuclear program. and the iranians picked up on that and they recognize that getting the agreement was more important for the administration than anything else. and they realize that they could use it to their advantage and they can come up with -- the iranians could offer solutions that were not really solutions, that the administration would accept in the end. so you get to see the amount of creative intelligence that has gone into this on the part of the administration in order to present to us something that is really something else is startling. the side deals is a great example.

first of all, you subcontract out some of the work to the iaea so you can say, well, nothing to do with me. i haven't seen those agreement, don't even know what's in them. it isn't part of some kind of secret arrangement that i have with the iranians. the other thing that they've done, which you can see if you read closely in the text of the agreement, is they have sequenced the issues so it looks like we're getting something that we're not actually getting. the sequencing in time is that the iranians have to answer the iaea's questions about the possible military dimensions of their program and the iaea will submit a report by december 15 and it's only after that, the submitting of that report, that we get implementation day for the agreement. that's the point at which the sanctions are removed from the iranians. that sequencing allows the administration to stand and say with a completely -- complete sincerity, complete straight face and total honesty that the

lifting of the sanctions will not take place until after the iranians submit their answers to the iaea. totally true. what it doesn't tell you, though, is that it makes it sound like there's a conditionality applied here. that the iranians have to answer questions that actually satisfy us about -- and actually satisfy the iaea in some significant way, that we now know about the possible military dimensions of their program. but that's not what's going to happen. the iranians are going to submit answers. the iaea is going to submit a report and then the sanctions are going to be removed. regardless of what the iranians say and regardless of what the iaea puts in its report. now, both actors, the iranians and the iaea, recognize that recognize that they

will be putting the united states and the entire p5+1, all of those european foreign ministers who have already been to tehran with trade delegations and so on, will be completely discomfited if the iaea says, you know what, the iranians stiffed us again. so the iranians are do their best to come as far toward the iaea as they can without actually delivering anything that the iaea really wants and they'll be under enormous pressure to produce a report that will not embarrass the americans and the other p5+1 partners. but even if he does implementation day still goes forward. because as the agreement is written, there is absolutely no conditionality. and that to me, that is what i say when i see it's reflective of the whole agreement. the president of the united states wants an agreement with iran and he wants an agreement with iran for reasons that have to do with nuclear questions, but even more so for reasons that have to do with the whole position of the united states in the middle east.

and you can see this falling, you can see this unfolding before your eyes right now with the russians and the iranians coordinating in an increase in their support for the assad -- their direct military support for the assad regime. this is the direct outcome of the strategic concept of the americans, of working together with the russians and the iranians to try to tamp down the worst pathologies of the middle east. at some point we should start debating that concept. the administration has not come clean that that is the strategic concept that it's working. the president has not come clean. when asked if he thinks this agreement is going to lead to a greater flexibility of the iranians in the region, he says, the administration talks out of both sides of their mouth. they're saying, we hope that happens but that's not why. we don't trust them. we think the agreement stands alone as it is. is it is why they're doing it. they are doing it because of

this larger concept and the larger concept is flawed. i'd love, lee, if later on we could talk about why it's flawed. but it's flawed and in the end it won't work. lee: this is what i do want to come back to. but david had -- i was going to ask him to comment even if he didn't volunteer to comment, on what you were saying about the iaea. david: i think my organization were split. i think what michael is saying is this is all cynical exercise. and the argument is, look, iran has modified parchin. the iaea is very unlikely to find anything. what are we talking about in the end? i don't want to get too technical but it's a testament of an initiator made out of uranium. it may have three grams, four grams of uranium in it. that was then blown up 13 years ago or more. and iran's had three years to eliminate any traces of that. and you see it all over the

area, that they've done cleanup, they know where it went, they know the weather patterns that day, they know what they need to do. and they have had experience at cleanup at other sites. so they can -- so the cynical version is, they're not going to find anything so who cares if this is a weak deal? just get through this. get armando to place the iaea flag at parchin and say, we have access. another side of my group wants that, look, every step of this process we want the iaea to be doing the most rigorous verification possible. we want to make sure their credibility is strong, we want to make sure that if they go to parchin and they say we didn't find any uranium, that they can say it's because of, you know, modification and we believe that's true. or maybe they'll find uranium. maybe they'll get lucky. and they'll find uranium.

but then you've got to show that that uranium was related to an experiment related to nuclear weapons. that's another problem i didn't get into. but that attribution is nontrivial. there is a lot of uranium in the world. you've got to detect it and attribute it properly. you want them to be doing the most rigorous methods possible in order to grain credibility in their findings. the other -- and then what michael's saying is, this is a box checking exercise. the administration said you're not going to find -- we know they had a nuclear weapons program. we don't really care about the past. we care about the future. and let's just get through this. and get the sanctions off. i know i've been briefed by white house officials who say

they do care. we're a very technical organization and we've dealt with technical people in various countries on this. we don't deal with the policy and the p.r. parts. and i know that by march, february -- no, march -- february, march, april of this year, that what i was being told in briefings by white house officials or -- was different than what n.g.o.'s were being told by more senior white house officials. and i even complained about it and the answer i got, well, you just have to understand it's different. lee: can you say how it was different? david: i don't want to go into any samples per se but it's over -- this would be -- let me use this. this would be an example where i'm told it does matter. if the iaea's concerns are not addressed and we can talk about what that means, it may not mean what you're thinking, that sanctions would not come off. but listen to secretary of state kerry. others are told, and you hear

him say, what happened in the past doesn't matter. is that my phone? oh, i'm sorry. i thought i turned it off. so i think -- lee: it's not secretary kerry. [laughter] david: yeah. the bottom line is that we don't know. in fact, when i commented on this difference in the briefings, my reaction was, look, the people who are briefing these n.g.o.'s, i think they're really spinning them. i mean, i'm kind of disturbed by how the arms control community has bought into a lot of stuff to win this fight. that is compromising their, i believe, their integrity. but the bottom line is that the people who are higher are spinning, where the technical, scientific people are lower. and i believe they're not. but who's going to control the decision on implementation day?

that's really the issue. there's no meeting scheduled among the p5+1 to sit down and say, you know, they've addressed the iaea concerns. it will be up to what happens in the u.s. government mind on implementation day to make a decision on whether this condition would stop the lifting of sanctions. >> are ready to predict what will happen. [laughter] >> i'm not ready to predict what happens. we've approached this very differently. he used an example of fox or whatever. michael: hedgehog and a fox. david: we see it very differently. scientists in washington are constantly confronted with the reality of, if you're going to make a mistake, do it right. and what happens is that we see our role as we see problems and that we also want an integrity to the process. we do want it more transparent, of course. but we want an integrity to the process that the work is done rigorously and that it can with stand review. i think that motivates our work

to a great extent. and that's also why we're neutral. we want to be able to look at the strengths and value those. we want to look at the weaknesses. and just get into it without thinking or hearing a voice in our ear, oh, my god, you support the deal, you better not say that. i can tell you, we get beat up all the time because left wing groups use our work or i guess right now the, in this debate, we've had these fights before on the aluminum tubes in iraq. august, september, 2000, our -- august, september, 2002, our work, say questioning the aluminum tubes used in centrifuges was certainly not appreciated by the right wing. and we took a lot of abuse for those positions. on the syrian reactor, we thought the site bomb by israel -- we thought the site bombed by israel was a reactor and many in the left attacked us.

and went after us. for that. and we see this case today on the iran deal, particularly this summer, where the left i think is attacking us and it's in the similar vein. they're defending things that really shouldn't be defended. this deal has problems that have to be faced. and i think the iaea is one of them that you need to find a way, and this is where maybe i'm not as pessimistic as you, maybe it's just optimistic, the iaea has to find a way to strengthen what it's doing over the next several months. you're not going to change this iaea parchin deal or iaea-iran parchin deal. it's in place. they can try to make the best of it. they can then try to get access to other sites. they can do a rigorous job on the verification of the possible military dimensions issue. and try to come out of this with the strongest report possible in december and that can withstand criticism. lee: omri, i think you wanted to follow up.

omri: this issue of what the white house was telling -- you know, most of the think tanks in this city have attempted to work with the administration in order to point out flaws over the previous two years and so on. that's happened both on the nuclear side, the stuff that david works on, but also in the context of the sanctions regime and so on. and there really was, the dynamic really did develop where the white house would be telling its validaters, these n.g.o.'s, one thing, and would be telling these experts that were trying to contribute a different thing. experts would show up with concerns like p.m.d.'s, with concerns like, you know, the iranians will push back against inspections, with concerns like what are you doing allowing the iranians to produce heavy water reactors after 15 years out of the agreement? and the experts would be told one thing and then the n.g.o.'s would be spun up and told something different. lee: i want to check. just make sure whadavid was saying, the experts were being

told something by lower level officials who were themselves scientific or technical experts. omri: largely but not always. >> but they were saying, as politically --g, omri: perhaps one of the gentlest things he could say was being spun up. -- as david was saying, more politically motivated. perhaps one of the gentlest things he could say was being spun up. then toward the end, especially the final days of vienna and after vienna, something very distressing began to happen which is that all of the excuses that were being provided to the white house validaters, to these n.g.o.'s, to go out and validate were actual concessions that got built into the agreement. so we do know on which side the actual text falls. on one side -- when it comes to things like p.m.d.'s, the possible military dimension of iran's past nuclear work, you know, experts were being told, of course these matter, we need them to baseline the program, we

don't know how far the iranian s got, there are all kinds of technical details like it's important to know what kind of bomb design they were working on because that goes into calculations of how much uranium they need in order to produce that bomb which is the breakout calculation. so there are all kinds of experts saying, of course we need to resolve these p.m.d.'s. and then there was the spin that was, it crystallized in secretary kerry's statement to a teleconference which is, we have absolute knowledge of iran's past nuclear work and we don't need the iranians to tell us what they did. one was spin and by the way he was roundly, roundly criticized for that and the state department spent the next week walking back that statement. and yet that is the reading that was transmitted to congress. we know that among the documents that were submitted to congress, pursuant to its corker-cardin obligations, there were two documents that dealt with the p.m.d.'s issue at least two. one of those documents said,

we've come to the conclusion that -- it's unrealistic and unnecessary to force iran to come clean on its past nuclear work because the u.s. intelligence community has judged that it has sufficient knowledge to detect an iranian breakout and to enforce the deal without having the iranians come clean. and then it said, for an explanation why, please see subsequent classified annex. so that's the first thing that, i believe it was the "wall street journal," that reported the existence of those documents. bloomberg view subsequently reported on the contents of that other document, the one that purports to explain why it is that the i.c. judges that it doesn't need iran to come clean on its past nuclear work and it turns out that that assessment is premised, without exaggeration, without hyperbole, it's premised on near total iranian cooperation with inspectors over the lifetime of the deal. right? in a very precise way, trust the iranians. so, when we talk about this very, very frustrating process that occurred as the jcpoa was

coming together, where experts were being told one thing and white house validaters were being told another, one of the distressing things is that by the end, the spin had become the u.s.'s position. the experts' view that we need iran to come clean on its past military -- on the past military nature of its nuclear work was abandoned in favor of this spin that we know enough about what happened in the past and all that matters is the future. lee: thanks. mike, i think you wanted to respond. michael: i just wanted to say that the picture that david presented of lower level technical experts being committed to their job and thinking the best of all this, in contrast to -- and not being influenced by political considerations, and higher level officials having a

different view, is built into the d.n.a. of the obama administration. of course it exists in any administration, to a certain extent. but it's really heightened in the case of the obama administration. i think everybody now recognizes this. for a while it was only i think critics of the administration who said this. now i think everyone can see it. there is the president and four, five close people around him, and then there is everybody else. and the president and his closest advisors are often not sharing with the everybody else, some of their greatest concerns and calculations. we saw just in the last couple of days, there's a fascinating article in "bloomberg" about the russian move, the russian military move in syria. and first reaction of the state department, when this happened, was to go to the russians and the bulgarians and to protest them giving the russians

overflight and staging rights for the russians to supply their forces in syria. but according to rogan, the president was very unhappy with this because the state department had run out and done this without consulting him. so my takeaway from that is that the president has one view about the relative advantages and disadvantages of what the russians are doing and the state department has another. and the president hasn't shared his thinking about the value of the russian and iranian actions in syria with the state department. and he's not going to do it. he's not going to do it because, precisely what omri explained to us, is that the american public does not trust the iranians and the u.s. strategy that is based on coordinating with the iranians is going to be politically illegitimate. lee: let me ask you, mike, you worked in the bush white house and we understand that this is a

fairly -- it's not an unusual phenomenon, the idea that a white house and state department don't necessarily see eye-to-eye. these are different bureaucracies. with different ideas. the white house is political appointees and state department is a permanent bureaucracy. how is this different? michael: it's different in that -- sorry, just to connect the dots. that's how you get to what david was saying before. you get actual technical experts who are presenting what the administration is doing with respect to -- on the basis of technical considerations and the traditional nonproliferation concerns that the u.s. government has, when those nonproliferation concerns are not what's actually motivating the government at the top. the difference is this.

i talked to a high level of official about a year ago. i gave him my thesis that the united states is aligning with iran. i pointed to a number of different examples where i saw that happening on the ground in iraq, syria, and lebanon. and so on. he said, you've got it totally wrong, mike. the thing about barack obama is that he approaches the region like a lawyer. each problem in the region is a separate file, so there's an iranian nuclear file, there's an iraq file, there's a syria file, there's the palestinian file and so on and so forth. and he adamantly refuses, he treats each case on a case by case basis and refuses to make a connection between the different cases. and i look at that, that's what it looks like if you're a high level official in the obama administration dealing with the president. "new york times" famously described the president in a meeting about syria where he was

thumbing through his blackberry, reading, distracted while this discussion about whether the united states should arm the opposition was going on or not. my view on that is the president had in fact connected up all of the dots. he just wasn't sharing the connections that he had made with his officials. he was allowing meetings like this one to go on, allowing the bureaucracy to do different -- to do its thing, to keep everybody busy, because he knew that the siegel most important -- the single most important thing was what he said in a letter to the wall street journal -- don't worry, mr. supreme leader, the united states will not do anything on the ground in syria to harm assad. this is the guarantee he gave to khamenei. if you look now, for a couple of years, we have been arming and

training the syrian opposition and have spent $500 million on training. we produced what? 54 soldiers who have actually signed a declaration saying that they won't do anything to harm assad. nowhere has president obama gone out in public and said, i'm not going to do anything to harm assad because i made this promise to khamenei, because i don't want to do anything to throw a wrench in the works of the iran deal or because i want to coordinate with iran in the region. he hasn't said that publicly and he hasn't told that to his officials in the syria meeting where everything is going around. he let that meeting go around and around and around and finally, when the national security -- the major members of the national security council said, we should arm the opposition, he said, no, i don't want to do it. he ate up months and months of government time debating this issue and then nixed it and that's what's happened time and time again.

all that matters in the end is what we do or don't do to stop iran on the ground in these areas. and as long as he is comfortable knowing that we can make sure that we don't do anything to stop them, he gets what he wants without ever declaring what it is. lee: david, i was going to ask you a question unless you wanted to say something, just wanted to change, just wanted to change tracks a little bit. does the parchin deal, does the parchin side deal, secret side deal, does this hurt the iaea? i don't think the administration is necessarily looking to hurt the organization, but do you think it does? david: the short answer is i'm worried it does. but i think there needs to be some background. the united states has tremendous influence with the iaea. but it doesn't pull its strings. and kind of as a background, i don't know if you remember in the press there was discussion

that the negotiators were going to put in -- create a list of sites and people that the iaea would get access to. and that that was going to be kind of -- the reporting was it was going to be hard-wired into the deal. they went to the iaea and they said, look, we have our own list. in essence, kind of pushing back. i don't think the negotiators really knew what to do. so, i would think that this iran-iaea deal was not done with the approval of the united states. again, this is just my own experience. i don't think they would have said, go do this. they have been pretty clear in meetings i've had, they want access to parchin. they don't -- some of them don't think anything will be found. lee: i want to be clear, the u.s. does or the iaea does? david: the u.s. wants access the iaea to have access to parchin. they want the iaea to have access to other sites that are associated with p.m.d.

and the reason is simple. iran can't create precedents that sites in iran are off limits. the safeguards agreements do not distinguish between military and civilian sites. under the traditional safeguards agreement, the iaea can go where it needs to go and there's no such distinction. it can ask to go to a military site. the board wouldn't have said, you can't do that because it's a military site. it never would have done that. so the united states has strongly wanted to have the precedent set that iran can't deny access. but they want a deal. and so this gets into a very complicated debate. how's the u.s. going to react? i think part of the problem i've seen from, again from europe is that i think both sides are so

distorting the facts, i mean, let me be honest, that it's hard to have an honest debate and an objective debate about this. we live on the left. that's where we are. i'll admit it. my group wants nuclear disarmament. and we see iran and north korea as the front line of efforts to get nuclear disarmament. not wrestling with u.s. nuclear weapons stock pile sides, so we're deeply committed to these causes traditionally associated with the left. and we're deeply disturbed by how the left has bought into positions and says things that don't even -- aren't even consistent with their own views. secrecy at the iaea, that's traditionally a left view, iaea needs to be more open. large centrifuge programs, millions, hundreds hundreds of thousands of centrifuges in iran in 15 to 20 years. i mean, most of them are anti-nuclear power or at least

don't buy into large sensitive enrichment programs in dangerous regions of the world. and yet they did. and have. so i think there is a need to pull back from this kind of polarization, to have a more honest discussion. and in that i would say that the implementation of this deal does matter and that the united states and others, the public, should be pushing that the iaea do a rigorous job, they recover from this iran-iaea or this parchin deal and that they push hard to get access to bolster their credibility. and make sure, with the support of the member states, that they march into this, you know, postimplementation day agreement as strong as possible. and then i would say, what do we do? this is a town that works with congress. i would hope that congress does create legislation that puts in conditions to make sure that the deal is implemented better.

it seems very chaotic. that the u.s. sanctions would be removed with these concerns. you could have one on another issue. you could have the policy of the united states. doing thisccept iran with a large -- and i emphasize large -- he could have some, centrifuge program. in a dangerous region of the world. opposeust our policy to that. a company sells a nuclear power and countries are thinking about it, and i am sure

russia is thinking about it, and you eliminate any motivation for iran to produce this or even have an argument for it for those reactors. tois going to be hard enough get a program large enough, but you can simply say that a condition of the supply is all of the fuel is provided for that reactor that would not be provided indigenous. if i ran once to have reactors, it will sign that deal. nowcan create policy items that can come in a sense, mitigate the weaknesses of this deal. omri, did you want to follow up? mechanisms that you think have led to -- i just went to go through one more round, but what are the political mechanisms or exigencies that

have led to this moment where we wound up with this agreement, and how do we avoided in the future? omri: sure. one of the hallmarks of this debate is that is a more specific version of what mike was talking about, which is this has not been, and there is a , and this hason not been a clean debate. this has not been a debate. a lot of this debate has occurred with not just different claims being made but claims were either in one way or another fine.

they told lawmakers, please back off. of course, they will be forced to come clean. of course, they will have to get access. to parchin. i do not think we would have accepted an offer that did not parchin, ando then as those began to fall by the wayside, a number of things started to happen. one is that it was done on blinking. this goes to the level of absurdity with the anytime, anywhere inspections, where secretary kerry says no one ever

mentioned anywhere, anytime. that interview happened during testimony, so we have not had the usual way for political deliberation to proceed. nobody's asking for, and it will not be achieved. that is an absolute fact, absolute honesty. everyone comes to the table with a computer, but the idea that there is no accountability for past commitments with respect to lawmaker commitments, journalist it is a veryand strange thing, even if you do not assume the thesis that there is actually a grand strategy , and even if you do not accept that, from the outside looking in, it is a very strange debate.

they have said what is effectively being negotiated is with iran. chief at the policy the pro-iran lobby in town, they wrote an article about a month ago, that says that israel will find itself completely internationally isolated, and if own words, unless it except deal, so itof the is a very, very strange debate, and to answer your question, a debate in a macrocosm, the answer is there needs to be more transparency. the legislation was designed to public more robust debates, having facts in hand about what this deal actually which is that it has legs both politically and in a policy sense, because just to take

these documents that were submitted, congress asked the president to cement documents outlining what actually is in the deal so they can have the debate in public. the documents that were were ind we now know your fully classified, so, again, the issue was that people rolled their eyes when they came out. document non-public that said we do not need iran to come clean, and then a classified document. it made a mockery of that inquiry, but we do know that those documents, and i believe it was the daily beast that reported this, the administration appears to have gone out of its way to mix classified with nonclassified material in each of the documents in order to prevent them from being disclosed, and that undercuts the ability to have a debate.

whether you over classify something because of risk and rewards or other issues, a lot of the reasons to classify something is to prevent embarrassment, and that appears to have occurred a lot during this. mike, would you like to -- and then i think i'll go to questions -- but if you would like to summarize? mike: i guess i would say with ri just said,at om i also have been disturbed by the way the administration has in anted things on monday way that completely they contradict on tuesday and that no one is troubled by it, but i would also add that this has from the moment the interim deal was signed in november 2013. think that the final agreement

that we got was pretty well figured in the interim agreement, and the interim agreement gave the iranians the right to enrich. ineffectively gave them the right to enrich, and it also gave them a sunset clause, that this is only going to be a temporary restriction on the time,m, and at the same while the agreement was being negotiated, we saw greater and greater coordination between the united states and the iranian on the grounds in the middle east, where we saw the shia militias effectively on the ground enjoying the air cover of the united states air force, and so the public has been informed, and what is surprising to me is the number of people who have seen this clearly and have pretended not to.

i cannot completely explain why that is. lee: there were some senators who came out in support, and senator booker calms immediately koons, asnd senator well, and if you look at people who have come out in favor of the deal, it is like esoteric writing. the are describing while deal is deeply problematic, i am supporting it, so some people do realize -- mike: the way the administration has helped those people get over their qualms, we are going to push back against the iranians after the deal, and the deal is going to help us do that in the region, and this deal is going to help us push back.

we have thisnd, picture of the deal that is going to strengthen iran economically, militarily, and diplomatically, and it is going to do so immediately, and you can see that happening before your eyes with the trade delegations going to tehran and them coordinating in syria, with therussians releasing antiaircraft missiles. you can see it happening right before your eyes, and so the administration is saying, yes, we are strengthening iran, but we are going to push back, but we went to push back against them. if you really believe them, then go ahead and support this deal, but this is simply not going to happen. back, not going to push and it is not going to make push back easier. this pushback is summing that plays out among the themes. mri: the administration is

consistently said what needed to say to get through a new cycle or to get through testimony until facts on the ground made it untenable, so we were going to end the iranian nuclear missile the ballistic program, forcing them to calm clean. that is what secretary sherman's testimony was, and then by 2013, and by then, we were going to have a verification regime, and these progressively with the iranians simply said no, and we continue to gave up, when our goal became a one-year breakout, no coming clean by the iranians, the adia that we have sufficient knowledge to have an effort to amongout, and the fear the critics of this deal is that the pushback is imminent. this administration promised that our allies would push iran

back militarily and beat them down on sanctions enforcement. and this would say it would take its place along the shuddering, the complete dismantling of centrifuges, as a promise the administration made to get congress to back off long enough to create new facts on the ground, and so at the same time that the administration is saying that it intends to double down on sanctions enforcement, we see the leaders who are under travel bans traveling to russia, literally,s literally got the flight number and the flight times of the plane that he yet taken to moscow in violation of international travel ban, and in ministration was asked for several days, and it was i just don't know.

it is looking the other way, without hyperbole, literally, while they were saying they will double down on sanctions with the a most -- emotional buttressing, and after this, there is nothing left, right? the reason why they had to make submissions to congress the latest theme, the pushback and double down argument is because congress has been in a position that the legislators believe it is bad. both chambers do believe it is bad. once that is over, there will not be another commitment because the administration will not have to do it. it appears that yet again, there will be no accountability, whereas in pushing back, we will end up feeding syria. lee: david?

david: i cannot speak to those. i would caution that there are a lot of positive things in this agreement, and, sure, the duration is not one of them. just based in my experience in europe, our allies were not particularly happy with that. in 10 years compared to what was sought, that was the original goal. but it is not enough, not an easy negotiation. lots an agreement that has of moving parts, and decisions were made in the negotiation, and i do not think it was made by obama. i think it was made by competent negotiators that they would try to win on this or insist on winning on this, and they would give on that, so i think it is an imperfect deal, but it is the deal, and it is going to have to be implemented, and i would argue that there is a need to

try to fix these weaknesses rather than drop party lines and continue this battle indefinitely, and i think israel will be shooting itself in the foot if it does not start totributing very actively trying to strengthen this deal, and i think it can be done. i think there is support around the world. you not know how many of have read about the procurement channel. this is a key part of this agreement, both on the barricade -- verification side and trying to enforce and on iran heading arms and missile imports. it still has to be created. there will be meetings alongside i thinkeral assembly there are many places that they think are very important. it was never an intention to get iran to confess. but it does not seen

-- in my understanding from negotiators, it is not a --stion of the supreme later leader, oh, my god, we have never had nuclear weapons. it is more question of who gets lamed for sanctions. they blame the west for all of the suffering they have gone through on sanctions. if they say, yes, we do have a nuclear weapons program. guess what they are going to conclude? it was our fault for the regime's, so that issue cannot be settled until there is some resolution on the sanctions. for iran to come clean, it can not admit that publicly. it has everything to do with who gets blamed for sanctions in there, so i think the idea of the effort is not to get iran to come clean, it is to say

we think this is what has happened, and it did this and that. and it didget there, not accomplish that goal. to know the people, to know the sites, and they to make a determination, and the determination might just be iran had a nuclear weapons program. all that takes place, and if they have access, if they have had access so their credibility is not undermined, that may be -- i would argue, the sufficient outcome of this i thinksue, so, again, it is very important to try to find ways to strengthen this deal and to get beyond some of this and to not make it what i global going to be warfare, particularly in the house to undermine the deal. i went through the framework in the 90's. we were a reluctant supporter. i.a. beingspite the

thrown under the bus. seoul to bese incinerated. we went along, but congress did not, so anytime we needed money, it was a nightmare, and here, you can in vision. lindsey graham has already said. we may hold of money for the i.a. if you are just trying to kill the deal, it is not a crazy strategy, so i think real efforts have to be made to shift to one of how do you ship to this, although many do not like it, and i would argue that many -- discussions in europe were very different. it is really different. i mean, do not have this isgress deal with, but there much more willingness to look at

the pluses and minuses and move on, and no one is sitting there saying this is some perfect deal. not anyone i have talked to. lee: mike, do you want to -- david: what i heard them say here is very different than what was said there. i would put them on them. of bipartisan compromise, i would say i am in favor of giving the iaea what they need to do its job. lee: did you have anything else? we started a little late, and i think we have time. we will take one or two questions. the general and all of the way in the back, and i think we have a microphone circulating. if you can just wait one moment. >> i am a masters student at george washington university. you were discussing the sort of if/then statement and the trust

between congress and the administration and the trust between them. hasn't the congress repeatedly tried to undermine the deal and notut the process given all of the breathing room possible, and has that not affected the two-way relationship, which is become more difficult? going forward, help congress in general can strengthen the deal with the deal that seems to be going forward. mike: sure. it's very that, you know, this relationships a

the deputy national service director was taking meetings, to discuss how to get congress out it was how to, create a structure that would circumvent congress. whether or not that was justified, and secretary kerry said they could not get two thirds. i think sometimes they have been cooperative and other times less cooperative. passing nonnuclear sanctions, , and theypermitted were told -- i cannot say that on camera, but they were told, do not mess this up for us.

of course, you are allowed to do it, but please do not, and congress did not. republican houses and democratic houses. so i think congress has provided an enormous amount of breathing and there are some that said i think we potentially made a mistake. and the push on kirk menendez. moving forward, congress will have to take two tracks. there will be efforts to kill the deal. there will be efforts to strengthen the deal, but one of the things you're going to see is an effort to work with the administration to make good on the administration's pledge to double down on nonnuclear sanctions, and if it does turn

out that the pledge for nonnuclear sanctions is another one of these commitments that were made just to get out of this cycle, then i think you will see irreparable harm to interbranch relationships. lee: did you want to say anything? we will take one more. this gentleman right here on my left. thank you very much create a recently retired state farm and opposite, scott. one of the new aspects has been that the agreement allows for researchted continuing but that it stops any research on plutonium. and if you want a bomb, what you really want is plutonium. i am wondering if you could comment on that.

david: i like broad, and they left out they keep thing, which was the plutonium separation, and so the iraq deal, it has always been secondary to enrichment, and part of the main reason is that it was not done. it has turned out it was not close to being operational, and i ran had said that it did not intend to build a plant that separate plutonium produced in the reactor, and so it was not equivalent. it gives i the ability to make to be used in a bomb, and it would give them the ability to have plutonium and spent fuel. -- it hasin the sheer plutonium in the bashir reactor also. it was working on that years ago, but it stops, and it has

always gotten priority, and the administration pursued that as harder than the iraq reactor part. concerned about the iraq reactor, for sure, but the story got oversimplified and even misrepresented. but i do want to point out in there was the iranian and plutonium metallurgy. i do not know anyone who has made a bomb at using oxide. they use metal. so i ran is committed not to do that research in definitely, along with several other nuclear weapons is a show in activities, and so that is seen as a very positive achievements, and i do not know who originated it, but i certainly know the french were big proponent of it, i think that is an important achievement. i also think that is a reason to gou want parchim

right. it is very small scale, very hard to find, and you want i.a. to be up to go places quickly without challenge in order to verify that those kinds of activities are not taking place, and in the final agreement, it is going to be these nuclear weaponization activities that are going to be and -- banned, and you cannot get to the military sites come you cannot there are five that part of the agreement at all. league: thank you very much. i think that is going to bring our panel to a close. andnt to thank david michael and omri. and we wanted thank you for showing up this afternoon. [applause] lee: yes, thank you very much.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] hear more on will the iranian nuclear do with a professor including more on the role in the region. that will be hosted by the atlantic council and will be at 2:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. announcer: monday night on "the communicators," the head of the task force will discuss the upcoming broadcast spectrum auction that will allow wireless companies to bid on airways space. >> a professional determination that was made in the spectrum act, in one thing i do want to emphasize is that we are not taking spectrum from broadcasters. it is a voluntary auction on behalf of broadcasters. broadcasters continue to be an extremely valuable service, but congress passed this act or on a one-time only basis, they will be able to relinquish their spectrum rights in return for a at thef the proceeds

auction, so what it is is congress's determination and the fcc's implantation to make meett forces available to wireless broadband needs. in other words, the need for broadband spectrum is burgeoning by multiples and exponentially. not a lot of good, low-band spectrum left, and this is a new, novel method that congress has put in place and that the fcc is to implement. announcer: that is on "the " on c-span2. announcer: the house homeland security committee held a the september 11 memorial and museum at new york city. they heard from former mayor rudy giuliani and the fire commissioner about lessons responding9/11 and to future terrorist attacks. this is three-and-a-half hours.

host: the committee will come to order. i would like to host joe daniels, the president of the memorial and museum. joe? joe: good morning. chairman, and thank you to all of the committee members were being here this morning and choosing to hold this field hearing at this location. this is the very first time we are hosting such an event at the national september 11 memorial i, on behalf of the organization, our board of directors, and the hundreds of thousands of people who worked to make this -- place a reality, thank you for your support, and, perhaps, more importantly, your steadfast commitment by the members of this committee in

working to secure the safety of our nation, which is especially profound live in our current location at the very foundation where the foundations of the towers once stood. i had the honor of giving some of you a tour of the space last night. i think we can all agree this holds great importance in regards to the topics who will be discussed, and i would also like to thank some of our partner organizations, including tuesday's children, the 9/11 tribute center, along with representatives from the september 11 trust and the 9/11 health watch. course, fitting and appropriate to acknowledge that in just a few days, the memorial will host once again the solemn ceremony marking the anniversary of the attacks. the 14th anniversary. this anniversary is, of course, mythic and for all of us for the entire nation, but particularly milies, victims' fa

the first responders, including those dealing with the lingering and devastating health affects so many years later. the 10th anniversary just four years ago this week, we opened the memorial, and since then, we have welcomed more than 21 million visitors from every state in the country and 175 countries around the world, making this one of the most visited historical sites in our country, and just last year, we opened this museum with a dedication ceremony here in this foundation hall, and have seen a tremendous outpouring of feedback. in just over a year, we have welcomed more than 3.5 million visitors to the museum. in addition to the general public, we have had visitors from ross be political, cultural, and military spectrum, but for every visit, from whence william and the duchess of

cambridge and various heads of state, the most meaningful visits have been from the nearly 75,000 active military and veterans, including three recent medal of honor winners, the former chief of staff ray odierno along with others from his team, and last september, we had the entire core of west point cadet on the 9/11 memorial. we will host one of the most important and beloved figures in the world, and pope francis will lead a multireligious meeting , speaking about the beingf what unites us, stronger than what divides, and for a group of religious leaders that will be with him that represent all of the world major religions. not memorial and museum only serves as a place for people of all walks of life to visit and pay their respects but also as a place for future

generations to learn about what happened that day, what led up to that day, and the increasingly complex state of world affairs. let's not forget that children now entering high school were , 2001, and for them, it is simply a historical fact. it is this institution, where thousands bring their students every year to learn the full history of 9/11. that is why i would like to take the chairman, the representatives, for already ,eing cosponsors of the bill the national 9/11 memorial at the world trade center act, which would designate the above memorial as aful true, national memorial. those beautiful pools will assure that this place is here thoseserve the memory of

who were killed and will make sure that we fulfill our obligation to educate future generations. i would very, very much and courage from the bottom of this committee, this incredibly important committee, support this, as this is a momentous opportunity to take the lead in preserving the memory of one of the most important events in the entire history of the united states. has truly become not only the location to remember and educate but is the physical embodiment of the unity, the coming together that was so prevalent in the aftermath of the attacks. thank you for your time here today and for your continued support. chairman: thank you, joe, and on behalf of the committee, that me thank you for your dedication and your service to the victims and their families. let us never forget, and let it never happen again.

last night tong hear from you and your efforts. i am proud to be a cosponsor of the legislation that you talked about, and, again, thank you for being here. joe: thank you, chairman. chairman: it is important for this first committee to convene at the 9/11 museum. this committee was formed due to the tragic events of 9/11. this is a historic event to have the committee on homeland security have this hearing in thismuseum at this time week. i would like to thank the 9/11 memorial museum for letting us hold a hearing today, and i would also like to thank mayor giuliani and the other witnesses for taking the time to join us and for their service to this great city and the country. ons morning, we are meeting hallowed ground, consecrated by the loss of thousands of

innocent americans and by the valor and sacrifice of those who worked to save their lives. in the wake of 9/11, we were told to never forget, and we did not. in their honor, we valid never again. our memories of the hair was him we witnessed gave our nation the result needed to embark on a generational struggle against islamic terror. 14 years after that fateful day, we are still in gauged in that struggle, -- we are still engaged in that struggle. violent extremism has allowed our enemies to spread globally and has rocked the war back to our doorsteps, but we will not bow down to terror. so we have come here today to draw on the lessons we learned after 9/11, to assess how we can make our country more secure and to honor the memory of those we lost by rededicating ourselves

to victory in this long war. 9/11ve made progress since , which was the largest attack in world history. our first responders are better equipped. our intelligence professionals are connecting the dots, and our border authorities are keeping foot onts from stepping our soil, but our enemies have, along way. laden,e the days of bin when extremists were relying on couriers. today's terrorists are openly recruiting online across borders and at broadband speed. radical groups like isis have enlisted citizens from over 100 countries to join their terrorist army in syria, and islamic terror outposts have spread throughout the region and beyond. the world'ss iran, largest state sponsor of terror, which has extended its reach,

and the results are alarming. last year was the deadliest year on record for global terrorism. terrorists still have their sights set on the west. in fact, in the past 18 months, isis alone has inspired or orected nearly 60 plots attacks against western countries, including america. authorities have also arrested an average of almost one american per week on terrorism charges. we are entering uncharted territory. even at its height, al qaeda never reached this kind of operational tempo. yet, in an age of peer-to-peer terrorism and cyber jihad, recruits can inspire online and tweet followers and wait for fanatics to act. their followers can also travel easily to join them overseas,

where they are trained. but even though our adversaries evolved, our principles learned from 9/11 are still relevant. first, we must remain vigilant. the 9/11 commission found a government wide failure of imagination contributed to the surprise attack, so we must prepare for the worst and stay a step ahead of threat. also take the fight to the enemy before they can attack us here at home, and we can do this by eliminating terrorist sanctuaries overseas. condoleezza rice noted wisely, if we learned anything from september 11, it is that we cannot wait while dangers gather. in 2004, the 9/11 commission made this same point with an ominous prediction when they if iraq, for example, becomes a failed state, it will go to the top of the list of places that are breeding grounds

for attacks against americans at home, and if we are paying insufficient attention to afghanistan, its countryside could once again offer refuge to al qaeda or its successor. the lesson is clear. we must not let power vacuums develop in places like libya or in old safe havens like afghanistan. terrorists must be kept on the run. otherwise, they will have their freedom to plot against us in relative safety. taught us that in the long term, we must counter the ideology that the core of islam because when left unchecked, it can spread to all corners of the globe in the same way climb muniz him and fascism -- same way communism and fascism did. fighting a new age of terror. also, i hope we can explore what

the resolve of our 9/11 heroes can teach us about prevailing against those who seek to do america harm. on that day, we saw the face of as terrorists sought to attack our economic, military, and political centers of power, but we also saw the true heart of america, as ordinary men and women showed uncommon courage. first responders and the rushed into burning buildings and stormed cockpits to save one another. there were americans with diddren, families, but they not hesitate, because they knew the people inside these buildings and with them on those airplanes had families also. driven by a common humanity, they knowingly put their lives in the hands of god. and their bravery has rightly earned them a certain measure of

immortality. he did not know it at the time, but when todd beamer said let's roll to his fellow passengers, he was leading them and us to the first victory in the war against islamic terror. and the day after, we are still reeling, but our nation came together. we were americans first, and even though we were uncertain about what the future held, we were united in our resilience to tragedy and in our resolve to deliver justice. column up behind us here today is a final piece of debris removed from the world trade center site, and those who cleared the rubble inscribed it with the names, stories, and astos of people who perished well as symbols of patriotism, so it is fitting that this last tower wreckage

stands here as a permanent symbol of remembrance and resilience. we are a country that did not invite aggression from dark corners of the globe, but when it came to our shores, confidence and hope, not fear, rose from those ashes. everyone fornk being here today on this solemn occasion. i want witnesses, and the chair now recognizes the ranking member. ms. sanchez: thank you, mr. chairman. here at the wind tower buildings, in fact, my former

husband's office was here, and because we were in the financial industry, we had plenty of friends at cantor fitzgerald, so every time i come here, i remember all of those innocent people who were taken on that day. i want to thank our panelists for being here today. say that i am very proud of new yorkers and americans, because seeing this here today reminds me of just how resilient we are, how resilient -- everything i know with the time i spent in the , new yorkers are, and it really is a testament to our ability to never forget but to understand that the future is what we look forward to as americans. nine/11, we have

changed our policing, and we have changed the way that we order our communities in to prevent terrorist attacks, and this committee has been on the forefront of trying to understand that and to help locals, in particular, because we know that you are the first responders. law enforcement has become a great community facilitator, engaging in all facets of the cities that they it at, and i see they do a time, mr. chairman, when we thatutting back on funds we send to the local jurisdictions. in fact, it has been a little theming to me that conference has cut back on the funds. for example, in 2011, congress reduced the funding to only $1.9 billion to our local agencies, and as a result of that, 32

cities were eliminated from the program, for example, and the following year, we appropriated only $1.35 billion to these important programs, and then we increased it a little bit, and then we brought it back down are looking again at cuts to our global law enforcement agencies. for all of the work that they have taken on, in particular .ince 9/11 i am also interested -- i would like to hear from locals about that budget uncertainty, the amount of money we put forward, does with respect to their programs and what you're really trying to do to assure that a 9/11 or a boston bombing does not have to happen, and beyond dealing with that, i would like to hear about what you are doing with your local communities,

including, for example, i represent the second-largest arab american community in our nation back in orange county, california, and i think it is critical that we do not profile, that we do not unduly harassed, and that we do not detain individuals simply because of how they look or what their religion is, so i would like to hear from you and, in on howlar, commissioner the new york police department engages communities such as muslim americans, especially after it was revealed that planed closed detectives went into muslim neighborhoods to spy on that specific community, at least according to your new york times. i understand that the nypd dropped that program, but i would like to hear how you are rebuilding that relationship and that trust with the community that we need to have on our side

to help us with respect to local and i looklots, forward to hearing from both panels, and i want to thank again the chairman for holding the hearing. i think we have come a long way since 9/11 and that we still have a ways to go, but, again, i am always amazed at the resiliency of our people and at the resiliency of new yorkers, and i look forward to the testimony. thank you, and i yield back. andrman: thank you, comments will be submitted for the record. we have two panelists before us, and the first is the former mayor of new york, mayor rudy giuliani. he will testify on the first panel, and the second will be the commissioner of the new york thece department and commissioner of the fire department for the city of new and the president of the

september 11 families association, and finally the president of the national organization of black law enforcement executives and the office of kings county district attorney. first, i will introduce the mayor, and if you will have a seat at the table. rudy giuliani serves as a partner and chairman of the chief executive officer of rudy giuliani partners pre-previously, he served two terms as mayor from 1994 until there in the city during and in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. i cannot think of a more important witness to be here today than you, sir, and we thank you for your service, both before and particularly after 9/11, where you brought out of

thisa tragedy brought country together, sir, and it is with great honor that we have you, and i now yield to you for your testimony. mr. giuliani: mr. chairman, it is a great honor to be here, and i thank the committee for holding the hearing here. as he said, there could not be a more important place. this is not just a museum. this is sacred ground. there are people buried here who were never recovered, so this is a very, very special place, not just to me but i think to everyone. when i look at the wall behind you, i think of the days and weeks in which we worry that and wall would not hold, this whole place would be flooded. we expended a great deal of time, energy, and money trying to prevent that, and probably most of all, i think the caskets

and the people that were carried out here with american flags draped on them in great, solemn of assion, and i think judge who was the first body we found here on september 11, brought to st. peter's church, and i remember his last words to me. , which before he died was god bless us, so maybe we should begin with that, with god blessing us. this museum is many, many things, and you will hear how one of the most important missions of this museum is so that people never forget, and that is truly the case. they should not, because we do have a tendency to repeat the mistakes of history.

we have done that in the 20th indeed drveral times, made after each war and then paste -- facing another war -- after each war and then needing to arm again for another war. we face a very implacable and difficult foe. the first point i would like to make as a point i made very shortly after september 11, and that is that the islamic notorist war against us did begin on september 11, 2001. i remind you that this very place was attacked in 1993, again by islam at terrace who were taught to their terrorism in a mosque in union city, new an imam who is

spending 100 years in jail, sentenced by the man who became the attorney general. only groupt the planning attacks. -- was attacked in 1993 again by islamic terrorists. it calls for the destruction of our way of life. it is certainly not the majority of you. it certainly does not reflect the views of most people of the islamic religion, and on the theing of september 11 with dust of september 11 on my jacket and on my eyes and face, i said to the people of new york that we should not view this as an attack by a particular group, and assigned group blame. that is the worst thing we could do. and that we should not attack and i said, to the point

made by congresswoman sanchez, i said my police commissioner, i sent him to track a number of members of the community in new york, and after eight days, i stopped doing it, because there were none. we expected it. we expected because of the anger and hatred, so for the many things the new yorkers deserve credit, another thing they deserve credit for is that they do not engage in group blame, but new yorkers also are not foolish, and we do realize that while it is not a matter of profilinge, the word has many meetings. if we are profiling based on , that is thedence way we investigate. i was in law enforcement for more of my life than anything

else, and i caught criminals by profiling. when the victim told me the person was six feet, four inches, had blonde hair and blue eyes, i did not go look for a five, four inch person with brown eyes and brown hair. if i did, i would have been a fool. i would look for a person that met the description of the people who committed the crime or might commit the crime. that whatever euphemisms we went to engage and, they are at war with us, -- i mean, ice mean if lawmakers extremist terrorist. they kill in the name of allah. they kill in the name of mohammed. and interpret the koran another work, which, i will tell you, i have read several times -- they interpret it and use

those portions of the words of mohammed that call for the death to infidels. unfortunately, they use mosques as breeding grounds for that. not all, but some. congresswoman sanchez, i am the mayor who authorized the lace of new york city police officers in mosques in new jersey and elsewhere, and mayor bloomberg continued it. i believe in doing so, i saved the lives of many new yorkers, as we uncovered plots that have never come to light. it is unfortunately the case that that has to be done. i believe it was a mistake to withdraw those patrols. so as we sit in a museum, when we go to museums, we think of history, don't we? if we were to go to pearl harbor and went to the museum at pearl harbor, we would think of history, the terrible attack on

pearl harbor and the fact that that is now confined to history. those days are now our friends, and some of our best friends. germany, italy, japan. that war is over. to civil war memorials, and we can go to revolutionary war memorials, some of which are in my great city, and that war is over. you are in a museum about a war that is still going on. and do not fool yourself into , and is it is over worse now or better now? that is very debatable. in may almost be an irrelevant issue. in certain areas, we have improved dramatically airport security, airline security,

cooperation is considerably better between the federal government and local government. all of that is true, but the threat remains, and the number of attacks in recent years has increased, and the number of threats have increased. and the enemy has become considerably more diverse and in that way more difficult to track then when we were facing one major enemy, bin laden, but we , and i seeake then us making the same mistake again if we are not careful. we made a mistake in not taking seriously what they were saying to us. when they attacked us here in 1993 and killed our people under from imama

new jersey theater we treated it like a criminal act. it was not a criminal act like the mafia or michael milken and .orrupt politicians it was an act of war, and, of course, they attacked us in east africa and africa twice, and then they attacked our uss cole and killed our servicemembers. by the way, an act of war usually is considered an act of war. we have largely ignored those attacks. our response was tepid. our response to the uss cole was .onexistent we allowed american servicemen to be slaughtered by in-laws and , and our reaction was nothing.

just in case we were not paying attention, bin laden declared war on us. we were not paying attention. to september 11? did that lead to a sense of arrogance? did that lead to an america that was weak? an america that was unresponsive? an america that could be taken advantage of? and then we had september 11. , personalerous close friends, as did many of the people who are sitting here. it is extraordinarily difficult for me to return here. i have been to this museum only three times and the last time i came was a group of rangers who were going off on a mission and their general