Tuesday’s release by the Senate Intelligence Committee of its long-awaited report on the torture by the CIA of detainees in the so-called “war on terror” does not go far enough, according to major U.S. human rights groups.
While welcoming the report’s release, the subject of months of intensive and sometimes furious negotiations between the Senate Committee’s majority and both the CIA and the Obama administration, the groups said additional steps were needed to ensure that U.S. officials never again engage in the kind of torture detailed in the report.
“This should be the beginning of a process, not the end,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “The report should shock President Obama and Congress into action, to make sure that torture and cruelty are never used again.”
He called, among other steps, for the appointment of a special prosecutor to hold the “architects and perpetrators” of what the George W. Bush administration called “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) accountable and for Congress to assert its control over the CIA, “which in this report sounds more like a rogue paramilitary group than the intelligence gathering agency that it’s supposed to be.”
He was joined by London-based Amnesty International which noted that the declassified information provided in the report constituted “a reminder to the world of the utter failure of the USA to end the impunity enjoyed by those who authorised and used torture and other ill-treatment.
“This is a wake-up call to the USA; they must disclose the full truth about the human rights violations, hold perpetrators accountable and ensure justice for the victims,” said Amnesty’s Latin America director, Erika Guevara.
The Senate Committee’s report, actually a 524-page, partially-redacted summary of a still-classified 6,300-page report on the treatment of at least 119 terrorist suspects detained in secret locations overseas, accused the CIA not only of engaging in torture that was “brutal and far worse” than has previously been reported, but also of regularly misleading the White House and Congress both about what it was doing and the purported value of the intelligence it derived from those practices.
Water-boarding, for example, was used against detainees more often and in more of the CIA’s “black sites” than previously known; sleep deprivation was used for up to a week at a time against some suspects; others received “rectal feeding” or “hydration’; and still others were forced to stand on broken feet or legs.
In at least one case, a detainee was frozen to death; in the case of Abu Zubayda, an alleged “high-value” Al Qaeda detainee who was subject to dozens of water-boardings, the treatment was so brutal, several CIA officers asked to be transferred if it did not stop.
While the CIA officers and former Bush administration officials, notably former Vice President Dick Cheney, have long insisted that key information – including intelligence that eventually led to the killing of Osama bin Laden — was obtained from EITs, the report concluded that these techniques were ineffective.
Seven of 39 detainees who were subject to the most aggressive EITs provided no intelligence at all, while information obtained from the others preceded the harsh treatment, according to the report, which relied on the CIA’s own cables and reports.
In some cases, detainees subjected to EITs gave misinformation about “terrorist threats” which did not actually exist, the report found. Of the 119 known detainees subject to EITs, at least 26 should never have been held, it said.
Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, who fought hard for months to release the report over the CIA’s fierce objections, wrote in its Forward that, in the aftermath of the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks, “she could understand the CIA’s impulse to consider the use of every possible tool to gather intelligence and remove terrorists from the battlefield, and CIA was encouraged by political leaders and the public to do whatever it could to prevent another attack.”
“Nevertheless, such pressure, fear and expectation of further terrorist plots do not justify, temper or excuse improper actions taken by individuals or organizations in the name of national security,” according to Feinstein.
For his part, CIA director John Brennan, a career CIA officer appointed by Obama whose role in the Bush administration’s detention programme remains cloudy, “acknowledge(d) that the detention and interrogation program had shortcomings and that the Agency made mistakes.”
“The most serious problems occurred early on and stemmed from the fact that the Agency was unprepared and lacked the core competencies required to carry out an unprecedented, worldwide program of detaining and interrogating suspected al-Qa’ida and affiliated terrorists.”
But he also defended the EITs, insisting that “interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives.” A fact sheet released by the CIA claimed, as an example, that one detainee, after undergoing EITs, identified bin Laden’s courier, which subsequently led the CIA to the Al Qaeda chief’s location.
With several notable exceptions, Republicans also defended the CIA and the Bush administration’s orders to permit EITs. Indeed, the Intelligence Committee’s Republican members released a minority report that noted that the majority of staff had not interviewed any CIA officers directly involved in the programme.
“There is no reason whatsoever for this report to ever be published,” said the Committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Saxby Chambliss. “This is purely a partisan tactic” which he said was designed to attack the Bush administration. Republicans also warned that the report’s release would endanger U.S. service personnel and citizens abroad by fuelling anti-American sentiment, especially in the Muslim world.
But Sen. John McCain, who was himself tortured as a prisoner of war in the Vietnam war, defended the report, calling it “a thorough and thoughtful study of practices that I believe not only failed their purpose …but actually damaged our security interests, as well as our reputation as a force for good in the world.”
McCain has championed efforts to pass legislation outlawing torture, particularly because Obama’s 2009 executive orders prohibiting such practices could be reversed by a future president.
Passage of such a law – whose prospects appear virtually nil in light of Republican control of both houses of Congress for the next two years – is one of the demands, along with release of the full report, of most human-rights groups here.
“The Obama administration and Congress should work together to build a durable consensus against torture by pursuing legislation that demonstrates bipartisan unity and fidelity to our ideals,” said Elisa Massimino, director of Human Rights First.
Many groups, however, want Obama to go further by prosecuting those responsible for the EIT programme, a step that his administration made clear from the outset it was loathe to do.
“We renew our demand for accountability for those individuals responsible for the CIA torture programme,” said Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has represented a number of detainees at Guantanamo, including Abu Zubaydah, in U.S. courts. “They should be prosecuted in U.S. courts; and, if our government continues to refuse to hold them accountable, they must be pursued internationally under principles of universal jurisdiction.”
“The report shows the repeated claims that harsh measures were needed to protect Americans are utter fiction,” according to Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth. “Unless this important truth-telling process leads to prosecution of the officials responsible, torture will remain a ‘policy option’ for future presidents.”
Noting that health professionals, including doctors and psychologists also played a role in the EITs, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) also called for legal accountability. “For more than a decade, the U.S. government has been lying about its use of torture,” said Donna McKay, PHR’s executive director.
“The report confirms that health professionals used their skills to break the minds and bodies of detainees. Their actions destroyed trust in clinicians, undermined the integrity of their professions, and damaged the United States’ human rights record, which can only be corrected through accountability,” she said.
This article was first published by IPS and was reprinted here with permission.
]]>by Derek Davison
The CIA and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) have been embroiled for several weeks in a dispute over the declassification of a sweeping Senate report, the product of an investigation into the George W. Bush-era CIA’s so-called “enhanced interrogation” program. The SSCI’s chair, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), has accused the CIA of [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
The CIA and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) have been embroiled for several weeks in a dispute over the declassification of a sweeping Senate report, the product of an investigation into the George W. Bush-era CIA’s so-called “enhanced interrogation” program. The SSCI’s chair, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), has accused the CIA of removing documents related to the investigation from the committee’s computers, and of attempting to intimidate committee staffers by requesting a Justice Department review into how the committee was able to obtain an internal CIA review of the program. Now, as the White House and CIA review the SSCI report for declassification, its major findings have been leaked to the public, and they reveal that the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques, and the conditions under which it held its detainees, were “brutal and far worse than the agency communicated to policymakers.”
While the public still does not know what the committee’s report says (the committee voted 11-3 on April 3 to declassify its executive summary and conclusions, but the CIA and White House must conduct a final review before it can be released), members of the committee have talked openly about its findings. Senator John McCain said that the report “confirms…that the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners is not only wrong in principle and a stain on our country’s conscience, but also an ineffective and unreliable means of gathering intelligence.” Defenders of the program, like Fox News contributor Liz Cheney, argue that it produced important intelligence that helped the United States to thwart terrorist plots and to degrade Al-Qaeda’s capacity to sponsor further attacks, but what we know of the findings of the SSCI report contradicts that argument. Not that it should matter; any debate over the enhanced interrogation program must, as Vincent Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights has argued, reckon the morality of torture, not its effectiveness.
It is torture that we’re talking about, euphemisms like “enhanced interrogation” aside. In a remarkable editorial in the April 11 Washington Post, former contract interrogator Eric Fair described what he saw and did during his time in Iraq:
In April 2004 I was stationed at a detention facility in Fallujah. Inside the detention facility was an office. Inside the office was a small chair made of plywood and two-by-fours. The chair was two feet tall. The rear legs were taller than the front legs. The seat and chair back leaned forward. Plastic zip ties were used to force a detainee into a crouched position from which he could not recover. It caused muscle failure of the quads, hamstrings and calves. It was torture.
Fair concludes that the “stain” of the torture program demands a full accounting, for the sake of the nation as well as those who participated in the program directly.
History tells us that we should not be surprised by the Obama administration’s reluctance to fully investigate allegations of wrongdoing by its predecessor. Barack Obama made it very clear, even before he took office, that he preferred to “look forward as opposed to looking backward” when it came to the subject of investigating potential Bush administration crimes, and he has adhered to that position over the past five-plus years.
Obama is not the first president to turn a blind eye to possible transgressions by a former administration. The obvious example of this phenomenon was Gerald Ford’s decision to pardon Richard Nixon for any crimes related to the Watergate scandal, in 1974. But Ford had been Nixon’s Vice-President, making his act somewhat understandable. Bill Clinton’s decision not to investigate alleged crimes that took place under the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations was, as Robert Parry notes, motivated by the same desire to focus on advancing his own agenda, to “look forward as opposed to looking backward,” which Obama intimated as president-elect.
While it may behoove a particular administration to avoid the appearance of vindictiveness toward previous administrations, the decision not to investigate something as pernicious as the officially sanctioned torture of prisoners sacrifices the US’ credibility in the long run. It should not go unnoticed, for example, that while the US Ambassador to Kosovo is urging that nation to conduct a tribunal over the issue of organ trafficking by Kosovar Albanian militias in order to “build up its international credibility,” two branches of the US government are openly at odds over whether to even publicly acknowledge the past abuses of our “interrogation” program. It probably doesn’t go unnoticed that while the US refuses to reckon with its abuse of detainees, it is also refusing to issue a visa to Iran’s newly appointed UN Ambassador on the grounds that he was a background participant in the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran (he’s now part of Iran’s “reformist” camp). If the US can’t honestly reflect on its own past, how does it have the standing to demand the same of other nations?
The CIA’s resistance to a candid assessment of its torture program, even under an administration that firmly and officially disavowed that program upon taking office, speaks to an overall unwillingness to face accountability for any excesses wrought by the US’ ongoing “War on Terror.” While the Senate has investigated the failures in pre-war intelligence that led to the Iraq War, there has been no consequence to anyone involved in those failures. It is safe to say that there will be no consequences for anyone involved in the torture program as well, given the Obama administration’s deference to CIA efforts to stonewall even the release of a report detailing what actually took place.
It is impossible to imagine, then, that any future administration will have any interest in reckoning with other morally and legally questionable national security policies of this period, like the use of drones or the enlargement of the surveillance state. When it comes to the “War on Terror,” the rule seems to be “what’s past is past.”
]]>by Jim Lobe
The front-page article by Jodi Rudoren about Israel’s “Castle Strategy” in Sunday’s New York Times offers yet one more example — and right in the opening paragraph — of why the Kirk-Menendez “Wag the Dog” Act of 2013 is so dangerous to the security of the United [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
The front-page article by Jodi Rudoren about Israel’s “Castle Strategy” in Sunday’s New York Times offers yet one more example — and right in the opening paragraph — of why the Kirk-Menendez “Wag the Dog” Act of 2013 is so dangerous to the security of the United States. Here it is:
After a Katyusha rocket fired from Lebanon landed in Israel last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Hezbollah, the Shiite militia, and its Iranian backers. But Israeli security officials attributed the attack to a Sunni jihadist group linked to Al Qaeda.
Unfortunately, Rudoren does not elaborate on what she calls this “disconnect,” but it once again strongly suggests that Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has no hesitation about blaming Iran or its alleged surrogates, most importantly Hezbollah, for anything untoward, even when professionals in Israel’s national-security apparatus disagree. Perhaps Bibi is completely sincere in his belief that Hezbollah was behind this attack and that Israel’s intelligence community was wrong, in which case one has to ask whether the Israeli leader has his own “Office of Special Plans,” Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney to distort and politicize the intelligence to support his own policy preferences and whether our own Congress is paying attention.
But bearing in mind this disconnect between Israel’s political leadership and its national-security apparatus, consider two provisions in the Kirk-Menendez bill, otherwise known as the “Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013.”
First, there’s the provision that requires the President to certify that “Iran has not directly, or through a proxy, supported, financed, planned, or otherwise carried out an act of terrorism against the United States or United States persons or property anywhere in the world.” If he does not so certify, then the enhanced sanctions set forth in the bill would automatically take effect. As Ed Levine pointed out in his analysis,
“…[I]f, say, Hezbollah were to explode a bomb outside a U.S. firm’s office in Beirut, the sanctions would go into effect (because Iran gives financial and other support to Hezbollah) even if Iran’s nuclear activities and negotiations were completely in good faith.”
Presumably, the same logic could well apply if a missile launched from Lebanon struck somewhere in northern Israel and a U.S. person were killed or injured in the strike, and the Israelis — meaning Netanyahu, as the head of government — claimed that Hezbollah was responsible. Remember back when the Begin government accused the PLO of responsibility for the attempted assassination of Israel’s ambassador to Britain — even though the Abu Nidal group, which had broken with the PLO eight years before and was openly at war with it – in order to justify Israel’s (ultimately disastrous) invasion of Lebanon in 1982?
Second, of course, is the “Wag the Dog” provision:
…if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapon program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with the law of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence…
Again, as Sen. Dianne Feinstein argued last week, “…we cannot let Israel determine when and where the U.S. goes to war. By stating that the U.S. should provide military support to Israel should it attack Iran, I fear that is exactly what this bill will do.”
Again, Netanyahu’s rejection of the assessment of his own national security apparatus in order to further his efforts to mount up the charges against Iran and derail its negotiations with the P5+1 should give Congress — and Democrats, in particular — pause about moving this legislation.
In the Washington Post two weeks ago, Sen. Robert Menendez described his bill as an “insurance policy” designed to strengthen the administration’s hand in the negotiations, despite the fact that the administration has said the bill’s enactment is likely to either destroy the international sanctions regime or sabotage the negotiations. Indeed, I see the bill as akin to a fire insurance policy for the benefit of arsonists of whom Netanyahu may be the most important, although he is not alone. Others include Saudi Arabia and its intelligence chief, Prince Bandar; Al Qaeda or any of its regional affiliates, such as the one which presumably fired the missiles from Lebanon which Netanyahu blamed on Hezbollah; and the MEK. A lot of potential spoilers are out there, and you can bet they’re all hoping that the now-stalled Kirk-Menendez bill can regain momentum when Congress reconvenes next week.
]]>by Jim Lobe
Tuesday’s floor speech by Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein could bury AIPAC’s hopes of winning passage of what I have called the Kirk-Menendez Wag the Dog Act of 2013…at least for the next month or so. The speech, which was remarkably comprehensive in rebutting [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
Tuesday’s floor speech by Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein could bury AIPAC’s hopes of winning passage of what I have called the Kirk-Menendez Wag the Dog Act of 2013…at least for the next month or so. The speech, which was remarkably comprehensive in rebutting virtually every argument made by AIPAC and the 59 co-sponsors in favor of the bill, comes amid a surprising spate of newspaper editorials against the bill, particularly given the dearth of actual news coverage about it. Newspapers that have taken position against the legislation in just the last few days include the Minneapolis Star Tribune, USA Today, the New York Times, and the often-neoconservative-leaning Washington Post. As cash-poor as they are, newspapers are still less susceptible to the kind of pressure exerted by AIPAC and its associated PACs that are able to provide — or deny — substantial cash for political campaigns.
The fact that the number of co-sponsors of the bill has been frozen at 59 since last week — and as important — that at least one co-sponsor, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, has said now is not the time to move the bill suggests that the pressure on Majority Leader Harry Reid to let the bill come to a vote over the next month will recede (barring some provocation by Iran). In that context, Feinstein’s speech will almost certainly strengthen the administration’s pushback against the bill.
While the speech is worth reading in full — precisely because it is so thorough — it’s worth highlighting its explicit concern about the possibility of a “wag the dog” scenario. “While I recognize and share Israel’s concern,” she said, “we cannot let Israel determine when and where the U.S. goes to war. By stating that the U.S. should provide military support to Israel should it attack Iran, I fear that is exactly what this bill will do.” This is a remarkable and courageous statement. So is her characterization of the bill’s likely impact of undermining negotiations as a “march to war.”
Here is her statement:
There’s been a plethora of op-eds and
Senator Dianne Feinstein
Remarks on Iran Sanctions
January 14, 2014
Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss a critical issue of national security—how to prevent a nuclear armed Iran.
As I was thinking about our troubled history with Iran and whether more sanctions at this time make sense for our national security interests, I asked myself these questions:
• Can a country change?
• Is it possible for an isolated regime to rejoin the community of nations and change its behavior?
• Must a country and its people be held captive because of the behavior of previous leaders in earlier times?
So I thought back on history.
I was a young girl during World War II. I remember when Imperial Japan killed millions in Southeast Asia, and particularly China, during its brutal wars of expansion. Today, Japan is a peaceful democracy and one of this nation’s strongest allies in Asia.
I remember when Hitler and the German Third Reich committed unspeakable atrocities across Europe– including the murder of six million Jews. Germany is now a close ally and a leader in the European Union, an institution created to ensure a war never again occurs in Europe.
I remember General Franco’s Spain which was so diplomatically and economically isolated that it was actually barred from the United Nations until 1955. Spain is now a close partner of the United States and a fully democratic member of the EU.
The former Yugoslavia, Vietnam and South Africa have all experienced tremendous change in recent decades.
• Independent states have emerged from the painful dissolution of Yugoslavia;
• Vietnam has opened itself to the international community, but still has much progress to make; and
• South Africa has shed apartheid and has emerged as an increasingly stable nation on a much-divided continent.
So I believe a nation can change.
This capacity to change also applies to the pursuit of nuclear weapons.
At one time, Sweden, South Korea and Argentina each pursued nuclear weapons.
• Following World War II, Sweden pursued nuclear weapons to deter foreign attack. It mastered nuclear technology and built and tested components for a nuclear weapon. It may have even obtained enough nuclear material to build a bomb. In 1970, it signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and ended its nuclear weapons program.
• In the early 1970s, South Korea actively sought a nuclear device. The United States heavily pressured South Korea not to go nuclear. And in April 1975, it signed the NPT and halted its nuclear weapons-related activities.
• Throughout the 1980s – when it was ruled by a military junta with an egregious human rights record – Argentina had a covert nuclear weapons program. It built uranium production, enrichment and reprocessing facilities. And it attempted to develop nuclear-capable ballistic missiles before abandoning its nuclear weapons program and ratifying the NPT in 1995.
The question comes: is Iran willing to change its past behavior and abandon its pursuit of a nuclear weapon? It may well be. It is the job of diplomacy to push for this change.
Election of Rouhani
I believe there are positive signs that Iran is interested in such a change, and I’d like to explain my reasons.
The election of Hassan Rouhani was a surprise to many longtime observers of Iran because he campaigned in support of repairing Iran’s relationship with the West. And since his inauguration he has tried to do exactly that.
• For the first time since the Iranian Revolution, the leaders of our countries have been in direct communication with each other.
• Where once direct contact even between even senior officials was rare, now Secretary John Kerry and Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman are in near-constant contact with their Iranian counterparts. Those conversations produced the historic Geneva agreement which goes into effect on January 20th.
Geneva agreement
Candidate Rouhani also promised to increase nuclear transparency, and he has delivered on that as well.
Even before the Geneva interim agreement was reached, Iran slowed uranium enrichment and construction of the Arak heavy-water reactor. Maybe for technical reasons, maybe not.
Iran has also re-engaged with the IAEA to resolve questions surrounding Iran’s nuclear activities.
What has been achieved in Geneva?
The interim 6-month agreement, reached between the P5+1 countries—the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and Germany—freezes Iran’s nuclear program in place while a comprehensive agreement is negotiated in the next 6 months. This agreement:
• Caps Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium at 5 percent;
• Stops the production of 20 percent enriched uranium;
• Requires the neutralization of Iran’s stockpile of 20 percent uranium;
• Prevents Iran from installing additional centrifuges or operating its most advanced centrifuges;
• Prohibits Iran from stockpiling excess centrifuges;
• And it halts all significant work at the Arak heavy-water reactor and prevents Iran from constructing a plutonium reprocessing facility.
Most importantly, the interim agreement imposes the most intrusive international inspection regime ever. International inspectors will independently verify whether or not Iran is complying with the interim agreement.
For the first time, IAEA inspectors will have uninterrupted access to Iran’s:
• Enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow;
• Centrifuge production plants;
• Centrifuge assembly facilities; and
• Iran’s uranium mines and mills.
And finally Iran is required to declare all planned new nuclear facilities.
In exchange, the P5+1 negotiators offered sanctions relief limited to $7 billion–an aspect of the interim agreement that has been criticized.
Here are the facts on this sanctions relief, which in my view does not materially alter the biting sanctions that have devastated Iran’s economy:
• The vast majority of sanctions relief comes in the form of Iran repatriating $4.2 billion of its own money;
• Iran will continue to lose $4-$5 billion per month in lost oil revenue from existing sanctions;
• Iran will not have access to about $100 billion of its own reserves trapped by sanctions abroad.
• For perspective, the total estimated sanctions relief is valued at approximately 1 percent of the Iranian economy. Hardly a significant amount.
I would like to take a moment to detail what is not in the interim agreement.
• First, the interim agreement does not grant Iran a right to enrich.
The United States does not recognize such a right for the five non-nuclear weapons states that currently have enrichment programs, and we will make no exception for Iran.
But Iran does have a right to peaceful nuclear energy if it fully abides by the terms of its safeguards agreement under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
• Second, the agreement does not in any way unravel our core oil and financial sanctions.
Others have argued the suspension of any sanctions against Iran will unravel the entire sanctions regime.
The Obama Administration has taken action to make sure that does not happen.
Two days after the interim agreement was reached, the U.S. settled with a Swiss oil services company over sanctions violations. The settlement of more than $250 million was the largest against a foreign firm outside of the banking industry.
On December 12th, the Administration announced the expansion of Iranian entities subject to sanctions. These entities either helped Tehran evade sanctions and or provided support to Iran’s nuclear program.
On January 7th, the Administration halted the transfer of two Boeing airplane engines from Turkey to Iran.
Through these actions, the Obama Administration has made it abundantly clear the U.S. will continue to enforce our sanctions against Iran.
• Third, the agreement does not codify the violation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions.
Critics have attacked the interim agreement for its failure to completely halt all of Iran’s nuclear enrichment by noting that six UN Security Council Resolutions have called on Tehran to do so and it has not done so.
The purpose of the UN Resolutions was not to suspend nuclear enrichment indefinitely.
Instead, the resolutions were designed to freeze Iran’s nuclear activities until the IAEA could determine whether or not Iran’s activities were for exclusively peaceful purposes.
This is an important point: the interim agreement achieves what the UN Resolutions could not.
It freezes Iran’s nuclear progress while a comprehensive, verifiable agreement is being negotiated.
The effect of sanctions on Iran’s economy
The interim agreement was only possible because a strong international sanctions regime has worked to convince rank and file Iranians that, candidly, enough is enough!
• According to the State Department, as a result of the sanctions, Iranian crude oil exports have plummeted from approximately 2.5 million barrels per day in 2011 to around 1 million barrels per day in recent months.
• This decline costs Iran $3 to $5 billion per month in lost revenue alone.
• In total, 23 importers of Iranian oil have eliminated or significantly reduced purchases from Iran.
o Iran currently has only six customers for its oil: China, India, Turkey, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.
• In the last year, Iran’s gross domestic product shrank by 5.8 percent while inflation is estimated to be 50 percent or more.
• Prices for food and consumer goods are doubling and tripling on an annual basis, and estimates put unemployment as high as 35 percent while underemployment is pervasive.
Menendez legislation
This body may soon consider the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act, a bill to impose additional sanctions against Iran.
Before casting a vote, senators should ask themselves what would happen if the bill passes and a promised veto by the president is not sustained?
I sincerely believe that P5+1 negotiations with Iran would end and with it the best opportunity in more than 30 years to make a major change in Iranian behavior – a change that could not only open all kinds of economic opportunities for the Iranian people, but change the course of a nation.
Passing additional sanctions now would play into the hands of those in Iran who are most eager to see diplomacy fail.
Iranian conservatives will attack President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif for seeking a nuclear compromise and argue that:
• Iran exchanged a freeze of its nuclear program for additional and harshly punitive sanctions;
• If the U.S. cannot honor the interim agreement negotiated in Geneva, it will never lift sanctions after a final agreement;
• Above all, they will argue the U.S. is not interested in nuclear diplomacy—we are interested in regime change;
The bottom line: if this body passes S. 1881, diplomatic negotiations will collapse and there will be no final agreement. Some might want that result, but I do not.
Iran’s nuclear program would once again be unrestrained and the only remaining option to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon would be a military action.
To date, the prospect of just considering this bill has prompted Iranian legislators to consider retaliation.
There is talk that the legislative branch, the Majles, may move to increase nuclear enrichment far beyond the 5 percent limit in the interim agreement and much closer to, if not achieving, weapons grade uranium.
So, the authors of additional sanctions here and Iranian hardliners there actually would combine to blow up the diplomatic effort of six world powers.
The bill’s sponsors have argued that increased sanctions would strengthen the United States’ hand in negotiations. They argue that sanctions brought Iran to the negotiating table. They contend that additional sanctions would force Iran to abandon its nuclear program.
I could not disagree more.
Let me give you the views of other individuals who are knowledgeable in the arena:
Dr. Paul Pillar—a former senior U.S. intelligence official and current professor at Georgetown University—recently wrote:
It is the prospect of having U.S.- led sanctions removed that will convince Iran to accept severe restrictions on its nuclear program. Threatening Iran with additional sanctions now–after it agreed to the interim agreement–will not convince Tehran to complete a final agreement.
If this bill would help our negotiators, as its authors contend, they would say so.
This bill is an egregious imposition on the executive’s authority to conduct foreign affairs. In fact, our Secretary of State has formally asked the Congress to “give our negotiators and our experts the time and the space to do their jobs,” including no new sanctions.
To disregard this request is to effectively say we don’t care what our top diplomat says—the Senate will impose our will. And if it blows up this very fragile process, too bad! What a tragedy!
And we know what the Iranian reaction will be:
Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif has clearly stated what the result will be summarized in five words: “the entire deal is dead.”
The Ambassador of our staunchest ally—the U.K.—warned this body not to pass more sanctions. Sir Peter Westmacott recently wrote:
“Further sanctions now would only hurt negotiations and risk eroding international support for the sanctions that have brought us this far. The time for additional measures will come if Iran reneges on the deal or if negotiations fail. Now is not that time.”
A vote for this legislation will cause negotiations to collapse. The United States—not Iran—becomes the party that risks fracturing the international coalition that has enabled our sanctions to succeed in the first place.
And it says to the U.K., China, Russia, France and Germany that our country cannot be trusted to stand behind our diplomatic commitments.
These allies will question whether their compliance with sanctions (and the economic sacrifices they have made) are for naught.
Should these negotiations fall apart, the choices are few and the most likely result, in my view, is the eventual and inevitable use of military force.
Is that really the choice we want to make?
Enforcing the Interim Agreement
Instead this body should concentrate on Iranian compliance with the interim agreement.
On January 20, 2014 the interim agreement will come into effect. Over the next six months, the international community will be able to verify whether or not Iran is keeping its commitments to freeze its nuclear progress.
If Iran fails to abide by the terms of the interim agreement, or if a final agreement cannot be negotiated, Congress can immediately consider additional sanctions.
Additional sanctions should only be considered once our diplomatic track has been given the opportunity to forge a final, comprehensive, and binding agreement.
Undermining negotiations now, after achieving meaningful, historic progress, defies logic and threatens to instantly reverse fragile, unprecedented diplomacy.
Candidly, it is a march to war.
As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I know the many challenges Iran poses to U.S. interests around the world.
Iran’s patronage of the terrorist group Hezbollah and its support for Syria’s Bashar Assad through the Revolutionary Guard Corps are two of the most troubling.
And let me acknowledge Israel’s real, well-founded concerns that a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten its very existence.
While I recognize and share Israel’s concern, we cannot let Israel determine when and where the U.S. goes to war.
By stating that the U.S. should provide military support to Israel should it attack Iran, I fear that is exactly what this bill will do.
Conclusion
The interim agreement with Iran is strong, tough and realistic. It represents the first significant opportunity to change a three decade course in Iran and an opening to improve one of our most poisonous bilateral relationships.
It opens the door to a new future which not only considers Israel’s national security—but protects our own.
To preserve diplomacy, I strongly oppose the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act.
]]>The idea of sanctioning Iran’s central bank has been touted among U.S. lawmakers since 2008 and was most recently floated in paper form among legislators in August in a letter co-sponsored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) and Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.).
Last week David Cohen, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs that
While claiming that the case against the Iranian government was “dead bang,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein also expressed support for the bid during an interview on “Fox News Sunday” this past weekend.
Chris Wallace: Is that what you would like to see now?
Dianne Feinstein: Yes.
Feinstein was one of more than 90 senators who signed the letter circulated by Kirk and Schumer in August.
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