Nuclear Negotiations with Iran

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my very dear colleague from Florida for bringing this very important topic to light. This is something the American people need to weigh in on; and this is something, as you heard the passion tonight, the people talking about how this is not a good deal. This is not a good deal for anybody but Iran.

I would like to do a chronological anthology of Iran's nuclear weapons program. If you go back 30 years ago, they were working on gaining the technology and the material to develop nuclear weapons.

John Bolton, in his book ``Surrender is Not an Option,'' talked about the cat-and-mouse game that Iran had played over the last 30 years of saying, No, we are not developing nuclear weapons; and they wouldn't allow the inspectors in.

The U.N. had resolutions and sanctions, and eventually, the IAEA inspectors--the International Atomic Energy Agency--was allowed to come in. They caught Iran redhanded, developing nuclear weapons.

They apologized. They said: I am sorry. You are right. We were bad. We are not going to do it again.

Then it started over again and then over again and over again. For 30 years, we have been playing the cat-and-mouse game. It hasn't gone away. Their mission is to get nuclear weapons.

When I look at George Bush, when he put sanctions in the 2000s on Iran to say enough is enough, the sanctions were in place, and they started. To President Obama's credit, he tightened them up, and it put more pressure on Iran, and then it brought them to the negotiation table.

When you negotiate on a deal--any deal--there should be mutual benefits to both sides. At the end of this, you will see there is no benefit to America, to the Middle East, and to world peace because, when those negotiations started, as my colleague from New York (Mr. Zeldin) brought up, there was no negotiation to release our four American hostages.

If you think that the sanctions were bad enough to put Iran in this great economic tragedy or pressure that was just crippling Iran and they couldn't do anything and they came to the table to release the sanctions so that they could move on, but during that time period--this is what the American people need to know--during that time period, Iran was extending their arm and their reach into the Western Hemisphere through Bolivia, through Venezuela; and they were funding their terrorist arm, Hezbollah, that caused two terrorist attacks in Argentina in the nineties that was responsible for over 100 deaths and over 300 injured people--Iran was doing this at the time when the sanctions were on them, and they were supposed to be under this great economic stress--but they were doing that because they were funneling money through Venezuela and getting money for fuel plus armaments that they were selling. During this time, when we think our sanctions are working, Iran is working against us.

I have been here in the House for 2 1/2 years, and I sit on the Committee on Foreign Affairs. During those 2 1/2 years, we have had experts come in, over and over again, telling us about the threat of Iran creating new clear weapons.

Over and over again, they said that Iran would have enough nuclear-enriched material to have enough material within 6 months to a year to have five to six atomic bombs. That was over 2 years ago, so one could only reasonably expect that Iran has enough material for five to six nuclear bombs.

This was backed up by Henry Kissinger and George Shultz in The Wall Street Journal editorial about 3 months ago, that they claim that Iran was about 2 1/2 months to 3 months from having nuclear material.

Then we moved down to the negotiation. The negotiation was started--if people will go back and research the news--from the administration, from John Kerry. He said negotiations have started and that the whole purpose was Iran cannot and will not be permitted to have a nuclear weapon. Now, we are just going to delay them for 10 years.

As my colleague from Georgia (Mr. Collins) brought up, the snapback, if they break any part of this deal, there is going to be snapback. I mean, you have got to be from another planet to think that that is going to happen because we are going to rely on China and Russia to say: Yes, we are with you.

Russia has already sold $800 million worth of antimissile defense systems. In addition, during this period, when Iran had all these tough sanctions blocking their economy, Iran has been developing an ICBM program.

An ICBM program stands for an intercontinental ballistic missile system. That is not for their neighbors. That is for Europe. That is for the United States. It is for people way outside of Iran. They have done this with the economic sanctions.

In addition, there is evidence that they have detonated a trigger device for a nuclear weapon. They have gone through expensive remediation, covering up the site, covering up the soil, paving it, and not allowing our inspectors to go in there and inspect that--the IAEA inspectors that we are supposed to depend on to prove that what they are doing is for peaceful purposes.Then I look at what Iran has done over the years, when we have been in the Middle East, with our brave young men and women in the Middle East, fighting for security for this country and for the neighbors in the Middle East. Seventy percent of the wounds to our soldiers have come from IEDs. Ninety percent of those IEDs were created by Iran.

Then, as we talked about in this nuclear negotiation, Iran has got to be limited to the amount of centrifuges for their peaceful nuclear program.

Now, get this, for a peaceful nuclear program, you need tens of thousands of centrifuges to produce nuclear material to run nuclear reactors; yet, in this deal, we are only limiting them to 5,000 centrifuges. You only need a few thousand centrifuges to create nuclear weapons. It just doesn't match up.

As we talked about, in a negotiation, there should be a mutual benefit. I see no benefit for America.

Again, talking to the experts in Foreign Affairs, I asked them this question: With our negotiation with Iran, where we have given into everything and we have got nothing--keep in mind, we are supposedly the lone superpower of the world--when you go into a negotiation like this and you are operating from a level of weakness and not strength, how does that affect us around the world community?

The experts told me that it has weakened America's standing in the world. It has weakened our negotiation power in the world. It has weakened and threatened our security in the Western Hemisphere.

I agree with Mr. Collins. I hope the President is listening, but I am sure he is not; I hope Mr. Kerry is listening, but I am sure he is not, but I hope this message gets to them--that, if they are going to negotiate for America, they should negotiate from a point of strength, a point for what is right, not just for our country, but for the Middle East and for the rest of the world because, if America is not strong and if we do not stand strong, there is not a secure world.

I thank my colleague from Florida for bringing this up because this is a debate the American people need to hear. I hope they put pressure on the people in charge of this and bring this negotiation--as they have said over and over again, a bad deal they will not stand for--this is a bad deal, and this is something they need to walk away from.

We, in the House of Representatives, need to block this in any way that we can. I will not, I shall not, and I cannot support this because what I see is we are trying to prevent that which we can't, instead of preparing for that which will be.

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