Letter to Senator Menendez and Senator Corker - Iran Agreement

Letter

Dear Senators Menendez and Corker:

We write to you concerning the recent nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 countries, which reportedly provides at least $7 billion dollars in sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for a commitment to decelerate the Iranian nuclear program.

In order for this agreed-upon framework to succeed, the United States and other countries must be able to verify Iran's compliance with the terms of the agreement. We urge you, as the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to use all authorities at your disposal to ensure that the United States is taking all appropriate steps to verify Iran's compliance with this agreement. Specifically, pursuant to 22 USC 2577, the Chairman or Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee may request a report from the Secretary of State on the verifiability of any arms control, nonproliferation, or disarmament proposal. This report shall detail "the degree to which elements of the proposal are capable of being verified" and shall "assume that all measures of concealment, not expressly prohibited, could be employed and that standard practices could be altered so as to impede verification."

Verification and compliance, as well as the fortitude to publicly identify and address non-compliance, represent the foundation of any successful arms control or disarmament agreement. We respectfully urge you to request this verification assessment from the Secretary of State and to make this report available to the Senate Committees on Intelligence, Armed Services, and Banking. Given Iran's history of non-compliance, we believe this is not only a prudent step, but a sensible and necessary element of congressional oversight.

Sincerely,

Senator Dan Coats
Senator Saxby Chambliss
Senator Jim Inhofe
Senator Kelly Ayotte
Senator Richard Burr
Senator Susan Collins
Senator Deb Fischer
Senator Mike Lee
Senator David Vitter