and east china sea situation, the risk the united states military can and should take without starting a shooting war? >> let me go back to recent history to illustrate what i see as the risk of that. we have been in a situation where every u.s. navy freedom of navigation operation has become the subject of intense decisionmaking. ..

if we really believed -- >> and we're going to live this record programmed to go live to the heritage foundation this afternoon. a quick reminder you can watch the rest of the program online on c-span.org. this type center for strategic and budgetary assessment in the search bar. live now to the heritage foundation for the future of the every nuclear agreement. this is c-span2. >> will post a program in the heritage homepage following today's presentation as well. leaving our discussion as jim phillips, senior research fellow for middle eastern affairs in douglas and sarah allison center for foreign policy studies. if the veteran foreign-policy specialists who has written widely on the middle east and issues of international terrorism since coming to the heritage foundation in 1979.

he has authored dozens of papers on iran on its nuclear program, use of terrorism and testified before congress on iran's nuclear program and other middle east security issues. please join me in welcoming jim phillips. >> well, thank you, john. the iran nuclear agreement has been in force now for more than a year, but yet it faces a very uncertain future. as a presidential candidate donald trump indicated that he would overturn the deal were also indicated that he may enforce so tightly that the iranians may walk away from it. but as president, he's been in no hurry to rip out the deal and it appears the administration is still reviewing its options. our critics charge that the nuclear deal only slowed iran's uranium enrichment program, did not halt it and that the

administration's promises that the deal would help to moderate iran's behavior have not come to pass. iran still does provocative missile test, still supports terrorism, and still expanding military intervention in syria and harassing u.s. navy ships and other international ships in the persian gulf. supporters said the deal indicate almost all those things are not not included in the deal and that the deal to reduce iran's stockpiles of uranium enrichment for a few years in order to buy time for possibly defusing this crisis. so how well has the gc poa worked? the nuclear deal also is a joint comprehensive plan of action or drama london -- jcpoa.

what position should the trump administration take on the deal going forward. to answer these and other questions, we have a very knowledgeable panel of experts and they'll be introducing them as they speak. first speaker is spread flights, senior vice president for policy and programs at the center for security policy. fred served in the u.s. national security position for 25 years at the cia, dia, department of state and the house intelligence committee staff. during the administration of president church w. bush, he was chief of staff to john bolton, then the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. during his tenure with the house intelligence committee, u.s. this affects her down the iranian and north korean nuclear programs and briefed key national intelligence estimates on these issues to committee members.

after he left government in 2011, and he founded and served as director of the langley intelligence group network committed news max media's global intelligence and forecasting services. she's published numerous articles in various journals and newspapers and last year published the eye-opening book, obama bomb from a dangerous and growing national security fraud. let me turn it over to fred. >> thanks, jeff. a pleasure to be back at harwich to discuss the urgent national security issue. it's humbling to be on a panel of some of america's leading experts on this issue. you've written extensively on this issue. the former iaea official for a number of years and really knows the exact way what's going on with the program. david albright with his center has produced information that i don't think i would know which end was up and report to his

organization producing. reports he has been producing despite pressure from the foreign-policy establishment of the obama administration to pull punches. i really respect him with a hard-hitting report put out and for not pulling his punches. donald trump said repeatedly during the campaign at the nuclear deal with iran is one of the worst deals the united states has never negotiated. he has implied that he would tear up the deal. he would renegotiate the deal and some other options being discussed right now. mr. trump is right. this is a terrible agreement that endangered u.s. and international security. the question is what will mr. trump do about it? i will discuss three options on the table for mr. trump. the first i want to talk about why it's a bad deal. as to principal reason for this. worst of all, the jcpoa legitimizes and normalizes iran's nuclear program. second, it allows iran to

continue to engage in nuclear weapons related activities while the agreement is in place. why is that a problem? iran to halt its nuclear infrastructure in defiance of the treaty obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. it did it in secret. they cheated. it's a state-sponsored terror. it had been the position until early in the obama administration of certain technologies although peaceful applications, iran should not be allowed to pursue because they are simply too easy to use to make weapons. however, the obama administration was desperate for an agreement they made concession after concession to give away these dangerous technologies because they wanted to get a leg of the nuclear agreement for president obama. the main technology that is of great concern is uranium enrichment. until 2010 or 2011, the obama administration stuck that they cannot be allowed to enrich uranium. under the agreement, iran can

operate 5000 -- slightly over five dozen uranium centrifuges and develop advanced centrifuges. this is all the agreement is in place. this allows iran to increase expertise and technology that can later use to make nuclear weapons. iran should not be allowed to enrich uranium. the position of the israeli government. it should be our position, too. iran had a reactor that would be a source of plutonium. proponents of the deal had praised the fact under the agreement iran so the reactor with cement and it will be rebuilt so will not produce weapons grade plutonium. that's not exactly the case. the reactor will be rebuilt by the chinese according to the arms control association, it will be the source of a quarter of their weapons for the plutonium per year. even if plutonium is not usable as weapons, which some experts have said, this agreement will allow iran to acquire expertise in the construction and operation of a heavy water

reactor. this is an outrageous concession by the united states and is something i think is going tonight is considerably less safe than the road when the reactor is complete. in addition, the reactor has been exempted from an oversight process to safeguard the technology being provided for construction of the reactor is not being diverted for weapons purposes. this is a real problem. verification under the agreement is very weak. supposedly this is the strongest verification measures of any nuclear agreement in history. in fact, the verification mostly applies to the declared supply chain and declared nuclear sites. there is a procedure to get access to suspect facilities in non-declared sites, but there has to be a vote of treaty parties to get that inspection and if iran refused in theory, sanctions would be snapped back at sanctions had been suspended under the agreement. if the trump administration attempts to get an authorization

from the various parties to get an infection like this, the answer is almost certainly no both because the europeans won't agree to vote for him and because iran has threatened to withdraw from the agreement if there's an attempt to implement more sanctions or snapback sanctions. i don't think that's an option. in addition, iran is refusing to allow inspection of literary facilities. if their weapons related at today's, it's happening in weapons facilities. iran has said they will not allow sanctions. that alone is a big problem. then there are issues left out here this concern promises by the obama administration that not only will the agreement reduce or eliminate the threat from iran nuclear program, it will bring a manager between the nations and make iran improve relations with the united states. i think we know the last two conditions have not happened. iran has hired a dozen missiles is a nuclear agreement was announced. missiles had been fired by the who the rebels, an iranian proxy

into the red sea at american uae and saudi ships. iran has considered to support terrorism, probably financed by the enormous amount of money received in sanctions relief under the agreement. missiles are something worth talking about a little bit of length. we were told earlier in the nuclear talks missiles would be included in the agreement, but iranians refuse to include it, so instead there is a provision in an annex to a security council resolution that endorsed the agreement. what really wasn't known at the time was that this language, iranian missile test for a tank 80 years weekend previous security council resolutions and only applies to missile tests that are designed to carry nuclear warheads. let's be real here. these missiles are in nuclear weapons delivery system. they are not being built to fire monkeys into space or payload

full of dynamite. they are nuclear weapons delivery system to carry nuclear bombs against israel come united states and europe. that's the purpose. iran is the only in history to have a missile at the range of 2000 kilometers or more without having a nuclear weapon system. let's not pretend this is not part of a nuclear weapons program. it was another irresponsible confession at the obama administration to get the deal that allowed the agreement to go through without part of it. this is why every time i ran test the missile and about a dozen since the agreement was announced, they've not been in noncompliance with the nuclear agreement. the iranian foreign are actually has bragged that he worked for over a year to get this language so they can test missiles and pretend they were not part of the nuclear program. i think this is a bad deal for many reasons. it makes us less safe. i think i ran is able to cheat on the agreement will not be

caught. so what should president trump do about it? there's three options i see for him. carrots the agreement, renegotiate the agreement or pursue a policy of strictly enforcing the agreement. in my view commentary the agreement is the best option. this agreement is a fraud. it was so fraudulent to the american people. there are numerous ideals not disclose to congress when it voted on the agreement september of 2015. it was negotiated not only over the objections of israel, one of our closest allies, but behind his back and behind the backs of allies in the middle east. i think this is a big deal. but we conducted negotiations with north korea, we included regional can state. this agreement was initiated with no input from regional states. they were surprised. jay sullivan writes in his book of regional states were stunned at what iran was allowed to keep under an agreement to reduce the

threat from its nuclear program. it was a betrayal and this is the best reason why this program has to be stopped. also, this agreement undermines important non-proliferation efforts the united states had been pursuing to stop the proliferation of uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing. this is something the bush administration worked hard on and negotiated an agreement to nuclear technology with the united arab emirates which was called the gold standard in which we shared nuclear technology he provided they will not enrich and not reprocess to produce the program. the obama administration that the way from the standard. this is a serious mistake or the more nations allowed to enrich and reprocess field means the more nations will have covert nuclear programs. this was a mistake we have to return to the gold standard and the process of not permitting the liberation of reprocessing and uranium enrichment. i think that of the options that

the president is looking at, renegotiation is more likely. and i can live with renegotiation because i am confident that a trump team ultimately will push for a deal that actually addresses threats from iran's nuclear program, brands and other crucial issues such as ballistic missiles and sponsorship of terrorism or iran will back out of these things. there's two objections we hear about. first of all multilateral agreement, u.s. can't renegotiate on it god and what general mattis said the u.s. has to keep its commitments. we just can't tear back out of this agreement. these are both false arguments. this is not really a multilateral agreement. this is an agreement negotiated entirely between the united states and iran, mostly in secret, most of the multilateral talks begin. we jay sullivan spoke. he writes about how western states have their arms twisted to go along with all the concessions that john kerry worked out with the iranians.

these other nations were just along for the ride. i can't be the reason. concerned by the u.s. should keep its commitments, the u.s. does not have to keep its commitment to an agreement that is a fraud. this agreement was fraudulently push forward, dangerous national security. the american people throughout the last two years have learned about one unfair concession after another. can you imagine what the u.s. congress would've done when it voted on this agreement september 2015 if they knew that there was a secret deal to pay rent them to get american hostages out of iran? i know the obama administration for the release of the american prisoners was not related to the nuclear deal. give me a break and of course it was related. of course an agreement with the iranians that they would not release prison until the cut tensions relief. it's no accident are prisoners released on the same day that i ran for tensions relieved in the same day that we flew a plane load of cash secretly to iran. this was not to disclose what

the administration was doing celebrations in january of 2015 about the success of the deal. it was revealed on "the wall street journal" a few months later. many other concessions like this, which is why i say it really is a fraud. the u.s. does not have to stand behind fraud. finally, strictly enforcing seems to be the objective of the day right now. and the reason people push this is because the argument is the multilateral agreement and european allies will be upset with us if we back out. but strictly enforce iran to back out. there's several problems with this argument. first of all, the approach legitimizes a fraudulent agreement. we know this is a fraudulent agreement and working within the process is a mistake. second of all, this is a very important point. iran can advance its nuclear weapons program and be in full compliance with the agreement because it is learning how to

enrich uranium and build advanced centrifuges. it will gain access to technology on building heavy water reactors. it doesn't make sense to use the strictly enforce approach. this is a serious mistake. there seems to be a hybrid approach i'm hearing right now. this is mentioned in the recent discussion in europe that we will push for full access for iea inspect or zen push for dropping the sunset provisions were important aspects of the agreement are suspended in 10 to 15 years. we will ask for better reporting from the iaea and tighten the procurement channels. these are things talked about, so we will strictly enforce and renegotiate. i'm sorry, but if we stick with an agreement that lets iran and rich, and we are endangering national security. we are perpetuating fraud. that's not good enough. it has to be an approach that stops iran from enriching, stops iran from access to technology to produce plutonium and makes iran answer questions about past

nuclear weapons record. i think in the end, the best approach would be to try to renegotiate. i don't expect them to cooperate. they may back out of the deal. next we put sanctions on iran to stop transfers of all nuclear and missile technology as well as any interaction with financial and touche's that would aid these technologies. in addition, sanctions were the iran's sponsorship of terror and destabilization of the region. any company that produces advanced nuclear technology should not be allowed to sell to iran until iran answers the nuclear program and agrees to an arrangement where we can be sure it is not pursuing weapons -- nuclear weapons. that is my approach to this thing and i believe president trump meant it when he said this is a terrible agreement and expect him to keep his promise that he will either renegotiate this agreement or rip it out. i don't think there are any other options. thank you. [applause]

>> or next the great david albright. david is a physicist and founder and president of the nonprofit in a two for science and international security in washington d.c. his written numerous assessments on secret nuclear weapons programs throughout the world. his published articles in numerous technical policy journals and has authored four books, and including peddling parol, honda secret nuclear trade arms for america's enemies. he's testified numerous times the new year issues before the u.s. congress. his breach government decision-makers and trained many government officials and non-proliferation policy making. and it's often been cited in the media and appeared equally on television and radio. david cooperated actively with the b. or iaea action team from 1992 until 1997, focusing on analyses that the iraqi

documents and passed procurement to these. in june 1996, he was the first nongovernmental inspector of the iraqi nuclear program. prior to founding the institute, he worked as the senior staff scientist at the federation of american scientists and as a member of the research staff the princeton university center for energy and environmental studies. take it away, dave. >> thank you very much. thanks for holding this event, chairman. honor to be with fred and ali. what i would like to do is war in a little bit into that, we called them weeds for lack of a better word. fred gave an overview of the discussions that are happening within the industry shin and i don't know how those willing to. but what i would like to do is focus on the issues that today. the deal is in place. meetings are happening.

decisions need to be made in the united states needs to be actively involved in those discussions. i would like to talk a little bit at the end on some of what i would call the long-term deficiencies in this deal. fred alluded to several of them. the duration is probably the most concerning. i mean, it's limitations are sunsetting of conditions on the new layer deal into a new ballistic missile sanctions by the u.n. and that's happened that eight years and that five years and unconventional embargoes to iran. one of the concerns is that iran would emerge in later years after starting after 10 years, particularly after year 15 it could end up with a robust nuclear weapons capability where it can produce the material for a bomb within days are no more than weeks. it would have the

intercontinental long-range ballistic missiles that would be fully ready to hold nuclear warhead inuit have a tremendous conventional arms force that would make any kind of military response in the points i would actually be a conventional force that would allow iran to be quite aggressive in the region. so i think the future looks bleak from that point of view. and again, the obama administration hoped that the future would look great, but events haven't been going in that way and so i think we have to think about this deal is an attempt to kick the can down the road. but it is turning into a very dangerous road in the future and remediation needs to happen now. i would emphasize her kind of confirmed with fred that from a technical point of view, a nuclear weapon is a warhead and delivery system. if you talk about a militarily useful weapons, of course you want to talk about a nuclear test, the devices out.

if the military useful weapon, is the warhead and delivery system. to think of banning one or a limited one and not the other, only work so far. in the nuclear program and conduct full-blown and greatly expand at a time when you can have a very robust missile delivery system. you haven't accomplished what you set out to do with keeping iran from building nuclear weapons. but i tried a few things on the implementation. a lot of my comments really are and what to do today. it is a living agreement where decisions need to be made. there's been too much secrecy on this deal. one of the things that got us started trying to uncover what is going on is a person at my organization that someone in the industry shin is that literally,

i won't go into details, but if you knew what we were doing, you'd be really shocked. and of course to a group like my own, that is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. we decided to start digging into some of these things going on and mostly of its decisions by what is called the joint commission. and what were they deciding in secret and we eventually found out that they were things that we saw as giving too much to the iranians. after i would say much pressure and after donald trump was elected the joint commission decided to release many of these decisions. i think they showed that too many concessions were made. they were presidents created that aren't helpful from the u.s. point of view on the deal and that's even among people who may be natural or even support the deal. there were -- fred mention i hate ea hasn't been able to go to military sites.

there is concern that if you can't go to military sites, you can settle the questions of the past nuclear weapons work. but to come you can verify conditions in the agreement that be a certain nuclear weapons development at the goodies that are seen as a breakthrough in this deal. if you can't verify them, are you really able to say this deal is adequately verified? the concern is that you are creating no go zones for iran is creating no go zones within its country and that could become particularly problematic in the later years as we worry more and more about it efforts to revive the nuclear weapons program. are you going to talk about searching? let me just say that this deal also involved an arrangement

between the iaea and iran a benefit and i grant that benefit two types of inspections the agency can do, on the military said that iran didn't want to allow access, so that limited what they can do. they nonetheless found traces of uranium that pointed for confirmed a clandestine nuclear weapons program at that site. but they can't go back to straighten that out. if it had been japan, they would've screamed bloody murder if japan wouldn't allow them to go back and to resample and clarify this issue. so you have an inspection arrangement that was just left hanging. you also have in my group it is very concerning. we do a lot of work on the enforcement. first it in procurement to countries like iran, north korea and u.s. enforcing it. we've learned that during the negotiations and for some amount of time afterward, u.s. enforcement efforts were being

interfered with because of fear it would affect the iran deal. what does that mean? iranian agents are iranians break u.s. laws to try to acquire equipment into them under u.s. laws. there are investigations launched in the fbi or homeland security but the patience or the commerce department and you find the people. you indict them, that they are overseas. you can either try to lure them to a country where they can be extradited or u.s. territory where they can be arrested. the unique the approval of the state department. the state department at the highest level has blocked those processes directly or just did not process them. the extradition request, the first one in this series was only at root shortly before the administration left office. and so, we feel that it has just been too many concessions made into permissive environment has

been created around this deal. i think what i would like to do is talk about what should be done now. this is independent of any discussion of the fate of this deal. things that the administration needs to do and the meaning of the past even as we are speaking. one is there needs to be much more transparency. they need to release much more information and reports so we can know what's going on. fred alluded to report. a lot of those were reporting on what the i.d. of reports on a train to make sense and fill in holes. the report on almost nothing since the deal has been implemented. we want to see much more. we like to see these parallel agreements like the one between the iaea publicly released. the long-term enrichment program, about the finances. this is more important. goodbye to make sure they have access to military sites in

iran. there has to be guaranteed timely access. that's how you get that in the short-term, but you can see how you would start working on it on the short term. the u.s. has tremendous influence and this is an iaea issue ultimately. there needs to be sovereign over the poles in this agreement. i will just mention one on heavy water. one on heavy water where the iranians were able to negotiate that despite 130 cap on heavy water, they were able to msn -- and assets have a 70-ton violation of the cap by having a trick where it's put over. they hadn't sold it and that's really what the deal is about. you sell it. you can reduce the staff to transfer overseas. they had told it, so they were able to cash it in and would like to see that loophole fix. we have ways to do it, which are fairly straightforward.

another that is ongoing is iran is pushing the envelope on centrifuge r&d, plays games with the inspectors to try to do more. there is a need to really crack down on not and make iran abide by the conditions that it's a great to interpret those conditions more consistent with what i would call just a kind of strict reading of the deal. iran wants to be able to make low enriched uranium fuel. he wants to have a very large enrichment program at the end. and building up to that, try to develop centrifuges. also trying to lay the basis to make enriched uranium fuel inside iran. i think one of the priorities of the administration is to try to block that, to block them from developing indigenous capability.

that gets to the 300-kilogram cap and while enriched uranium. the administration should just from now on say no more exemptions to this cap, that we just leave it at 300 kilograms and don't allow exemptions. if iran is going to develop the ability to make fuel, it's going to have to learn how to enrich enrich -- take the enriched uranium and put it into fuel. the field elements will typically 500 kilograms of low enriched uranium fuel assemblies. if you just want to test the fuel assembly come you have to go that cap more than likely to develop the full-scale assembly. if you wanted to send to put the fuel coming of the wave of the cap. iran claims to do this. we also know they want to test the fuel. they did a little probe into germany to try to get hot cells for this site that could have been construed as trying to get around limitations in the

agreement on investigating irradiated fuel. they don't know fully what they were going to do, but it was certainly a proud that his troubled implications. of course, germany said no, but it raises another problem. iran feels it cannot for whatever it wants. and so, you have on that side of things, iran can go out and ask for hot cells. again the nuclear fashion and try to ask for carbon fire. so another loophole is this ability to ask anywhere. we know from experience when i start going to places like china, they are going to find suppliers willing to provide it. so in the german case, things were visible ultimately in the chinese case they might not be visible at all and they could be acquiring goods and we won't even know about them.

in the end, part of the deal is the supplier is responsible for getting approvals from procurements that are in control birthday and, not iran. so iran doesn't have to be clear. so i think the question i've been able to go out and seek what it wants, things like pushing to develop indigenous fuel fabrication capability are examples of just where they are pushing, pushing, pushing to get more and it's time that the pushback have been, so they actually don't get it and actually would get less than it would be more consistent with the agreement. i think again, these are things that can happen right away. another one is we don't really know how much or is there nuclear cooperation between iran and north korea? it's a burning question.

we know there's a lot of cooperation on missiles and that is probably banned by both north korean sanctions resolutions or u.n. resolutions and iranian one, but it's happening and there's a need to try to get a handle on not to try to mimic those that produce. when it comes down to also is that there's a need for the administration to step up its introduction. i spend a lot of my ear in europe. there is less effort put into some of these issues involving iran because they've been given a clean bill of health and defense. why would refocus on interdictions, intelligence on nefarious iranian activities when really the focus in much of the world is on building trade with iran. but shrub administration is going to have to work with allies to build up more

capabilities to detect iranian activities and then to stop it. and certainly, the u.s. needs to more aggressively voiced its own laws. it is unacceptable that read you feel that it come here to get equipment and then play a game where somehow if you prosecute our people, we will block away from the deal. certainly, we should listen to that. it's not our problem if rouhani wins the presidency. it's hard to see how rouhani winning the presidency will make our lives safer based on what's happening in the last 12 to 18 months. and certainly, we need to make sure that we have the strongest enforcement of our laws that's possible. i think i've gone a little long. but i try to wrap.

i won't spend so much time in the long-term. maybe fred and i differ. this is a more tech go point of view. you know, we don't like the duration. iran talks about having enrichment program 10, 20 times larger than it had when this program was frozen under the joint plan of action back in 2014 or so. into last that's not an acceptable outcome. it is just too dangerous overreaching. what we would settle for a think and it's very radical to iranian standard, but we would say okay, you have a rule. iran should be 12 months from being able to break out and produce enough weapons grade uranium and what fred talked about the certain number of centrifuges are about. certain stocks alone richer premium. boosted the first order of negotiation should be 12 of

breakout time is the criteria governing the size of their nuclear program essentially forever. it would just be in perpetuity. and that would be the negotiated goal. it is pretty close to zero. but i think that we would just say take what you've got now and extended forever. although you do and i agree with fred here the verification is not adequate and the program is like anything. it's like a bank security. he tightened security at the bank because you have configured that they're going to learn how to defeat the systems. and so you always have to be improving it. i think the undeclared side of this is really inadequate. and of course, there has to be limits on iranian ballistic missile development.

that has to be conditioning. but conditioning. by the end there and apologize for going long. >> okay, thank you, david. i've asked speaker is dr. ali hannemann. science and non-proliferation at the foundation for defense of democracies in washington. he's also a senior fellow at the harvard kennedy school of government center for science and international affairs. his research and teaching include nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament verification a treaty compliance, enhancement of the verification work of international organizations and transfer control of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. before joining the buffer center in september 2010, always served 27 years at the international atomic energy agency, iaea in vienna. he was a deputy director general of the iaea and head of its department of safeguards. prior to that he was director of

the agency's various operational divisions and estimates that are, including at the iaea's overseas office in tokyo, japan. prior to joining, he was a senior research officer at the technical research center of finland's react or laboratory in charge of research and development related to nuclear waste from the solidification and disposal. he's the co-author of several pat fun radioactive waste solidification. he's written numerous articles in many western newspapers and magazines. his policy briefings have been published by many think tanks including foundation for defense of democracies, atlantic council, nautilus institute, institute for science and international security, which i notice you never say i says -- isis anymore. and non-proliferation manner and washington institute on near east policy.

all he also is a member of the nonpartisan iran task force and i would encourage you to take your full measure. i was under the impression we had a hard stop that one, but that is not the case. you can do your full briefing. >> thank you are a much in thank you are having me here to share my views on the implementation of jcpoa and the way forward. we have been europe is saying -- [speaking in native tongue] repetition is the marker of all studies. [inaudible] i agree many of those points. maybe some remarks which perhaps have come more from my experience in the iaea or verification in general. how i see the jcpoa actually is a very complex political agreement, which posed a short

period of time to iran's uranium enrichment activities, but at the same time could develop more advanced centrifuges and with the long-term, it doesn't ask iran to be processed. so this is the way i see the jcpoa. it seems a complex agreement. the parties have agreed how to implement it. and here i mean agreement with the p5+1 on one hand and on the other hand between iran and iaea. some of these agreements are public as david pointed out. i think there are still quite a few of them. and once you have this kind of side agreements or compromises because as mr. azeris said last week, he meant it when he

described this as a compromise where all the parties gave up their macs lowest requirements. so once you have a compromise, there are a few things you can compromise. there are a few things you should not compromise you what you should not compromise is what fred said commuter long-term non-proliferation norms. the other things you should not compromise by the well-established nondiscriminatory iaea identification practices. they have been shown in the real world, so we should not compromise those. and then when i look at this implementation, the first lack of transparency is reporting from the iaea at judy's and it makes it very difficult to readers, which are not only not

proliferation like me or david, but also the government to understand where we are, is iran complied with this requirement under the agreement and under the jcpoa on the other rent because there are no fax available so that they can do their own independent assessments, how these for iran tailored your vacation activities in real life. you have tried and you have ready perhaps statement some of the member states and particularly the secretary has provided technical briefings. that is fine. that is great. but this is to clarify some technical issues. they are not official. they are informal. so therefore these briefings, there are no records kept.

so the only official statement on the record for the iaea is the board of governors meetings recorded bair plus quarterly report on the implementation of jcpoa. these are the two documents available for the policymakers on one hand. policymakers and political decision-makers at the capitals. so we should keep this in mind. then, as david pointed out, the side agreements set up special arrangements with enriched uranium in iran or whether there is in my view, not exactly the long-established verification. let's take for example the hud sales, which this agreement puts

a limit of. you have heard that some of these sales have been exempt. i think it is important for the international community to see what is the rationale behind the exempt. with federal measures are in place to ensure for processing or other activities for the undertaking under the jcpoa. we don't see anything. and any of them in those places are the frequency of those visits. just as an example. then, whenever we think about this agreement, one of the key documents which had been agreed between the p5+1 is the one david mentioned that long-term

uranium enrichment and nuclear program 10 year plan submitted by iran to the approval of the joint commission and subsequent to the iaea. this is one of those documents that has been kept confidential. many countries which have this kind of document is often called white papers. we can see where the nuclear program is going on the long-term plans and meant to see how for example the recent acquisition of iran for uranium. where does it fit in this program? why does iran need today 300 natural uranium. when his views when it will be used. the nuclear fuel fabrication.

why it is used to fabricate fuel, what is the rationale behind when we know the event nuclear program most likely is limited in years. those who have background, they know that if you build a nuclear fuel production capability you have 150 reactors. iran will not have those anytime soon. why does iran need enriched uranium. there is well-established market which has been there is an overproduction of uranium into the market. to my knowledge, there has never, ever been any single or nuclear reactor because of lack of fuel. so why this is needed? then, doing a little bit back to this acquisition of uranium.

those numbers and report and consider the confidence of the iaea confident that number. at the same time, there is a book published together by oecd and iaea. the government of iran with the near production numbers of uranium. so i have difficulty to understand why there's confidence in other publications with this is not confidential. and then, the last point on the nuclear so-called broader conclusion. this also deviates from the practices. the jcp away -- jcpoa says once

they have reached a broader conclusion, iran will seek to ratify the example. of course the other way around. of course they have to ratify and make.legally binding. then we'll study the nuclear program and provide the conclusion. here it goes the other way around and doesn't set any timeline for iran to come by without requirement of the conclusion. then, mentioned the question other ballistic missiles and the missile testing if iran is called not to do those tasks under the security council resolution 2231. actually, he also mentioned he

used a lot of buffer for several months to negotiate this agreement. it's a little bit strange to me for two reasons that iran does this with ballistic missiles. because if you negotiated, he must have negotiated in good faith and therefore there should be no test because he just agreed in the resolution or my question is there actually a site understanding what constitutes these tests. it would also raise the question by the cruise missiles are not cruise missiles are not on that, where we only talk about ballistic missiles when we know iran has a program for gross missiles, which some people say party have been even tested. the jury is still out. and then mentioned several

voices against renegotiating the agreement they stuff the way this is done, this will undermine the authority of mr. rouhani and he will not be able to handle the situation and then we are back to square one in iran will go up to full speed of its nuclear program. the other claim is that there is no international support for that and that's true. there's been a lot of political statements from russia, china and european union that they are not able to negotiate the jcpoa or in the security council agreement or original agreement because they feel that cannot push back the relations with someone. they have the terrorism and their behavior in the middle east.

dmn, syria, civil rights, it better that they are all actually counterproductive from the point of the implementation of the agreement. so in argument, people say that if it ain't broke, don't fix. that's very simple. if you try to fix, there is no way to help you. i think both statements -- they don't wait until something gets broken. do not put the airplane to find out there's a mention in trouble. you don't want to drive the car which loses the field. you prevent maintenance in order to avoid such situations. and i think that this is exactly where we are today with the jcpoa. it needs preventive maintenance. in order to make sure that iran

is not, as david mentioned, able to test in a few weeks time. but then when we look at the way i read the jcpoa, it doesn't mean the renegotiation of the agreement. and the rest of the security council to the implementation of the resolutions, but also at the same time, jcpoa, particularly testing of ballistic missiles and grossness of. they should have consequences. there are several measures with which we can implement without revising the text of the jcpoa. the first one is transparency in reporting. actually, for the joint committee i recommend to the iaea to more open reporting. many member states actually have

requested this in the board meeting. but 90% -- [inaudible] important items like putting their numbers that david said -- suggested, verification coverage, type of inspections, how often they are done so that we can see how well i ran as its undertakings and what kind of assurances quantitative terms can provide with these requirements. they had tnt erased by david. and another aspect -- [inaudible] because what is the next milestone in implementation of jcpoa is important. it is according to the promises of the effect is no later than

eight years from now. it may become much earlier and it means the conference state that iran's nuclear program is peaceful. that will be a game changer. it will be a game changer from the iranian pointed you because they can argue additional concessions based on the fact that their nuclear program is peaceful. at the same time, ballistic missile sanctions get lifted which is a little bit awkward as david has explained. many other things get lifted. conventional arms trade, no sanctions, rebel band for the iranian military officials, plus

also still bear friend the other nuclear programs. so they all get lifted. so therefore, these provisions are actually drivers for iran to come in early compliance with the broader conclusion. but the most important are two additional message. the first one is certainly that iran ratifies before the conclusion. you do not need to change any thing in the jcpoa. it is simply a policy decision from the site of iranian government. they can do it any day. you don't need to make a special agreement. but then there are more that has to do with the future of the new earlier program. the iranians say nuclear power

plan for the future. wouldn't we sort of agree at the time of the broader conclusion, that iran can maintain a small enrichment r&d program the way it is at the broader conclusion, it's a very limited concentration on a small amount of centrifuges, and not the same time, the p5+1 hold two things to iran. long-term fuel supply ensures so that they don't need to develop their own capabilities and they don't need to do additional uranium enrichment. then

.. more comfortable with its nuclear program has expanded you may realize some things. and i stop your with one more sentence where i see this nuclear plant is important, should have said in the beginning. you have heard in the last few weeks that iran is talking about propulsion come using nuclear energy to propel commercial ships. i'd like to know from this plan which was done one year ago whether -- or is this something

that has been in recent months? thank you. >> thank you, olli. we will go to a period of q&a now. i would just ask you when you ask a question, identify yourself and your invocation if you want to advertise it on c-span, or you could use a private citizen. i will just ask one question and then we'll go to the audience. when i talk about the nuclear deal, i often refer to a great quote by the noted philosopher george costanza who once said this thing is like an onion. the more you peel it, the more it stinks. part of that is would only find out about what's inside this onion to the exposure of these secrets ideals. i remember i think the first one was about the iranians, you alluded to partition and the fact that the iranians were allowed to inspect that come

acting remotely through iaea inspectors. and i wonder if senator cotton and representative mike pompeo had not gone to i think it was the unit to talk the iaea if we would know that today, which is incredible that u.s. congress is blindsided by this kind of secret agreement. and my question is, do you think there are other secret agreements out there? if so, should to be exposed by the trump administration? that would go to anyone who would like to take that. >> i would assume there are more, and they should be made public. if there's classified information in them, although i don't think there can be if it's an agreement with iran or the iaea. but if there are, things that need to be kept secret they can be segregated off and there can

be a redaction, but you wholesale make these deals secret is, i think it's a fool's errand. the president found out about to them. we found out about several of them, and so i think you can't keep a secret and full transparency i think it's the way forward. >> i want to first give a shameless plug to my book, obama bomb, a dangerous and growing national security fraud which is available in a free pdf on our website or you can buy from amazon.com. i think there are more secrets and it is essential that the trump administration release them right now. one wonders why is this information classified? who is it being kept from? it's not been kept from the party to the agreement or the iranians. it's being kept from the american people. it is being kept from congress.

that's the whole reason these things are confidential. when you classify something you're keeping it from someone. who? it's from the american people? i called president trump's as soon as possible, maybe today, to order the state department to release every single document of the jcpoa. >> maybe a couple things about this inspection to parchin them a long-term experience with the iaea. it was there an ordinary way of conducting inspection we don't know the details but if i read from what the iranians are saying about this, more or less, iaea is nearby -- turnout at some uranium particles. i talk about the well-established iaea inspection

practices to actually in order to do such an inspection, first of all you will test to what is assessment. you will assess the abilities of the method with which you use, how it can be bypassed and what kind of confidence you have the results. and then you will do field exercises to demonstrate that it is in practice. i don't think at this time frame with was available there the iaea did it. and i give you a couple of examples. -- [inaudible] accepts closer couple of years of testing to make sure that it's for the purpose committee cannot be defeated, it's performance is right. same as with the environment of samples. we ran sample exercises for i think more than two years before the method was accepted as an

inspection method. and if we have this kind of remote inspection as this was, this creates a tremendous precedent. actually you can do it anywhere in the world. just keep the operator coming around asking to poke around and get the pictures. the iaea inspection strength has access to size, location, equipment, people and information. and i don't think this fully met those requirements. >> and without i would like to open it up to the audience. harold right here. >> simply background. i worked at the pentagon in islamic entering culture for 28 years, and i went to the early

stages of every new revolution and iran studying is basically iranian culture. and my question, since i don't anything about nuclear things, to all of you come is about is there really an agreement -- i know we'll talk about disagreement between iran and come it really is iran and obama here. now here's the reason i say that. first of all the agreement in english that whatever has been publicized is about a third of what is written in persian. the english version is active. this will be done, this person or this country is responsible for that and all that. the persian version is all passive voice. it will be done. it should be noted that. it isn't clear he was doing what to whom. the second point is that an iranian culture and then i ran historically, written agreements don't mean anything. they are steps on the path to

get to where you want to go. i know we and the west considered them holy, so whatever this agreement, first of all we don't know is the persian aversion matter, the english version and finally, jim, you used the metaphor here of an onion in iran the way iranians understand iranian culture is that there is a central core like the center of an onion. and it is protected. it's like an onion. that's what they say. it's a layer upon layer upon layer to protect the core in the center. they are clearly the most sophisticated and fascinating culture in the middle east. and everything that all of you are talking about it so easy for them to hide, to disseminate. they don't even call it lying. so if they are in agreement what version matters? it all seems to be a joke.

a sad, political joke on the united states of america. >> george costanza would agree with that. go ahead. >> let me start. i'm not an expert on iranian culture or peel another way of looking at that is, is i would say then that this deal is easy to renegotiate on many levels. and my experience, in fact, part of my criticism of the last year if that's how iran has been approaching it. if you see something you want, go for it and they been able to exploit and administration that's been fairly weak about saying no. enter that timmy says there's multiple ways right today, start happenintyping this thing up ang out what we want and then see what happens. it iran doesn't want to do it, then we can make it a decision

then. >> this is an important question and it is another reason why this agreement is such a fraud. john kerry as much admitted it was not negotiated as a treaty because of the obama administration is it couldn't be ratified. and, indeed, when it was voted on in congress most members voted against it, although that the two-thirds vetoproof majority necessary to kill the agreement. the top democrats on house foreign affairs committee and senate foreign relations committee voted against the agreement. the agreement was a fraud. it is an unsigned nonbinding executive agreement. you're right, there's another version in persian that the iranians think is binding and that makes renegotiation strictly enforcing this agreement extremely difficult. >> my father was a lawyer and he used to say to me that law is not how it is written, it is how it is read. and i think this is to also with his iranian agreement. i negotiated few agreements with iran 2003 agreement between eu3

at a rather actually the implementation of the verification was left up to iaea to defy together with iran -- defined. i think that was a good position because you got professionals from both sides to work together. i'm iran side and our side. to create the extent, they kept those promises with very text for inspection activity. they led us to implement it to create -- to great extent. their stop budget than mena came from the political domain when they said now we can't cooperate anymore. then when you -- you have a discussion, there is a lady from "new york times" wrote a book supposed revolution iran, and i

have read one chapter the book which is iran has rules but everything is negotiable. and i think this is what you face. this has been with the iaea or the verification organization has trouble when it -- there is an implementation that it has to -- its board of governors and in order to have that you need to have a transport report so that people see where the troubles are. >> yes, this man back year. >> pat, just myself. you know, like you said about the likelihood of this working out, what, looking in your crystal ball what happens in the 10, 15 years from when iran is nuclear and produces a nuclear weapon? what is the endgame?

i think that's what the scary thing is. it's not this kabuki dance of what they will produce it. it's a matter of when. >> certainly from my point of view we are trying to prevent that future, and that's what the trump administration now has a chance to do. whether they can do it or not i don't know. if it fails, and let's say don't want to have military options on the table. you have a very difficult situation. and i would find it very hard to believe a country like saudi arabia would maintain just a peaceful program. i would assume that they are looking at the options today, how do they anticipate a future iranian nuclear weapons program pics i think you're going to have more proliferation. if the deal continues i would

even argue that as arme on as in could be,, i'm not sure how military options would really even be feasible short of a full scale war that maybe we could win it, but it would be pretty bloody, and it's not even clear what we mean or what would follow. so i think it, again, i would just emphasize that i think there's an opportunity now to fix this. i do say iran as particularly strobe i think they are a lot of talk, and often make concessions. so i think, i think i should replay that we should try to get ideal. first get the implementation back on every small track and then trying to renegotiate parts that are really aimed at getting our goals established, which i would say the u.s. goal is a

middle east that if it's not completely free of nuclear weapons that it's almost at that point. >> this is an important question because i think there are many people on the left who don't see a problem of iran getting a nuclear bomb, that we can live with an iranian nuclear bomb. that's why called my book on the iranian nuclear deal obama obama. president obama and his officials that will come israel has a nuclear bomb, india, is back at him. why can i may never? because iran is a state sponsor of terror. iran wants to what other nations of the face of the earth. my view is amenity possible to stop iran from getting a nuclear bomb but we have to do everything possible to slow the day that happens and to deny it all through technology. this deal should build lots of bombs, for this deal is a fraud and has to be stopped but i'm very worried about the day with a test i weapon. i think that is coming and i think we have to be pragmatic.

pursuant to do is to kill a substantial renegotiate this nuclear deal so we can slow if not stop that day from coming. >> i think we have a good opportunity here as long as we do this in game before the conclusion. once you have agreed that there is a peaceful nuclear program, iaea has stated there's a nuclear program, it will be extremely difficult to roll back anything of that. so we have about much less than eight years time to do it, but we have after the election of president rouhani. those two next years are right for that spirit this woman right here. >> i think there's a -- clare lopez. there's an element that we've not discussed and it doesn't have to do with technology or engineering, but it is rather

the ideology of the regime. in other words, what is its character? what is its definition? we can look to its own constitution for that definition, which is a jihadist regime that seeks to impose sharia on the entire world. that's what it's constitution says. so with that in mind and understanding the iranian nuclear weapons program has been a contest time since the date it was born in the 1980s, what are we doing now to verify or to investigate or at least to consider what iran is doing clandestinely and the sites that is nothing to do with the jcpoa, but where very likely additional enrichment activities and nuclear warhead are indeed continue? what can we say about those things, if anything?

>> iran is a big country. over 1000 kilometers in this way and i think 400 that way. you cannot go and check every nook and cranny there. you can't knock on every door in the country to find out whether there's enrichment going on. so this information, you have to have a good intelligence community is all measures which have in place to find out if there's something contest on billing. and then that you need to have that access. at this point the time we don't know how much iaea is doing because we don't see anything about how many complement reactions were done. how many of them went to declared sites, which is an easy thing to handle, and how do they deal with the so-called undeclared sites? but you can't, you know, just try to pick them by random every other mechanical works in a big country like that, in the hopes

you will find it. no, you have to have information, enough of that access. >> i would just add that without anytime, anywhere inspections and military sites we would never be able to answer these questions. >> i want to clarify one thing. there is no exclusion under safeguards agreement for a military sites. iaea has access to every place in the territory of the state, or other areas which are under its contours which might be outside of the territory of the state. so the question is how you exercise this right, and in order to exercise it you need to have information. >> i would add though that iran's strategy is to make it very hard for the iaea to ask his military sites.

and it was one of the red line in the negotiations. i think the administration gave far too much on that. i would say that the iaea, even in the absence of information, needs to assert its right to visit military sites. they could start with parchin when it needs to finish its job. consumer, the jcpoa has conditions in it at banning certain types of high explosive work that leads to nuclear weapons, and electronic, electronic work, in order to verify the jcpoa the need to vit military sites for those types of activities. i would say it's important the iaea assert its ability to go to these places in the short term, and that u.s. support that. and, of course, it's going to be a confrontation, but i think it's without that confrontation now, you are going to end up with that unverified agreement. if you want to have a

confrontation later, it will probably inevitably end up in some kind of military confrontation. >> okay. this man right here. >> thank you. so we are listening, listening to all this, and we hear it in a rarefied atmosphere but i like to ask a question that will be alone out there imagine that iran, great jihadi state sponsor of terrorism all over the world, find a way to produce large numbers of small nuclear weapons and get them in the hands of lots of terrorists aroun arounde world. what would a world look like if that were to happen? >> that would be a very ugly world. it's not an world any of us would want to live in. >> actually, last week i was

brief and the u.n. security council on terrorism, and how the various states protect their critical infrastructure. actually you don't need a big number of such devices. two, three. the threat is the one which counts. threat is one which jeopardizes the people. plus the unpredictable. you don't know where they strike, when they strike, how they strike, whom they strike. that will be tremendous dilemma. >> what you propose is why we can't tolerate iran having a nuclear program that could produce nuclear weapons. and i might at each weapon make also be used as electromagnetic pulse weapons to set off an electrical charge that could knock out the electrical system, possibly of most of the training if they could eventually melt them in a rocket or maybe in middle east. as a state sponsor of terror there should be special rules.

and, frankly, i think u.s. position should be if you violate your nonproliferation treaty obligations you are not entitled to peaceful nuclear technology. you have broken the deal. you're not getting anything. you are cut off. >> with time for one more question. let me try this man right here. >> james. my question is along the line of the fact that over the last eight years for many reasons, maybe political weakness on the part of united states and other factors that all international order that has coerced bad actors from doing bad things, through treaties, has been unraveling so with north korea violating agreements. we have china and russia developing missiles that violate the international range missile treaty of 87, and other examples on that. we have the american government

doing or allowing things showing weakness for the example the syrian redline. and now this agreement. then we have secretary kerry, for example, perpetuated this idea of american weakness when he practically yelled at congressman ellison others accusing them of wanting to sabotage the agreement because this is the only agreement we could get out of it. if we don't do this, he perpetuated this idf weakness on the part of the united states. my question is are we really in a weak position, and what steps can we do to really take back the initiative and to play hardball with iran to prevent them from coming up with creating a nuclear weapon and further promoting terrorism, destabilizing the middle east? what can we do that will really, can we tell what can we do to be effective in doing that? >> the united states as leader

of the free world. we are a superpower. we simply have to assert ourselves, go to our european allies, go to our allies in the middle east and say there's a new sheriff in town. the united states is no longer going to appease iran and agree to compromise to get to some kind of agreement from any agreement just because we want to have an agreement. we are going to get a good agreement or the will not be a good agreement. or there will be a wrap up of sanctions because of pressure come can do. that's with the last administration was incapable of doing because they were interested in nothing but leading from behind, and appeasing our enemies and getting an agreement at all costs and, frankly, as i said earlier i think obama decided to concede the bomb to iran because he didn't think it was a problem because other states that nuclear weapons. so i think it can be done with the leadership that we are seeing in this administration. >> and i would just add that i think within the jcpoa context with the various decision-making bodies, a lot can be done very quickly.

the procurement working group meets every three weeks, and the joint commission meets every quarter. so a lot of things could be done just by showing up at the meetings and charting a new course. so i think, at a think it's critical that they do that. i also think that it's critical they do have finished iran policy review and consider all the different options and make a decision. but i would agree with fred that a lot of this is going to come down to that it's the u.s. just have to assert its authority and stop this constant claim that if we do anything, the deal will unravel. as i think some of it is literally just say no, quote nancy reagan. and then moving forward from that point. >> well, thank you. i'm not optimistic note, join me

in thanking the panelists. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> if you missed any of this program you can watch it in its entirety in a c-span video library. go to our website and type

heritage foundation in the surge box. >> so which presidents were america's greatest leaders next c-span recently asked 91 presidential historians to rate our 43 presidents into areas of leadership. top billing this year went to the president who preserved the union abraham lincoln. he is held at the top spot for all three c-span is doing surveys. three other top vote getters continue to hold their positions. george washington, franklin roosevelt and theodore roosevelt. dwight eisenhower served in the oval office in 1953-1961 makes his first appearance in the c-span top five. rounding out the historians top 10 choices, harry truman, thomas jefferson, john f. kennedy and ronald reagan. lyndon johnson jumps up one spot to return to the top 10. but pennsylvania james buchanan,

he is ranked dead last in all three c-span surveys. there's bad news for andrew jackson as well. our seventh present found his overall rating dropping from number 13 the number 18. but the survey had good news for outgoing president barack obama on his first time on the list,, historians placed him at number 12 overall. george w. bush moved three spots up on the scale to 33 with big gains in public persuasion and relations with congress. how did our historians rate your favorite president? who are the leaders and the losers in each of the 10 categories? you can find all this and more on our website at c-span.org. >> a live picture of the white house briefing room on this tuesday. administration spokesman sean spicer expected to brief reporters shortly. it should get underway in just a couple of moments. it's scheduled for 1:30 p.m. we will have a life when it

starts here on c-span2. in the meantime we will show you a portion of discussion on the limits of free speech from this mornings "washington journal." >> host: on the facebook page we started the program this morning asking the question about limits. here's jody paterson who wrote i would say that racist hate speech is totally unacceptable some that should be allowed. when just a penny for each and allow some to the more rules on other free speech, jim cook adds the thought of course there are questions, should there be free speech? there's a limit hate speech law, us and incitement. the bill of rights has been