Congressman Mike Pompeo appeared on Frank Gaffney’s Secure Freedom radio show yesterday and offered grim predictions for Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
Gaffney’s first question for Pompeo was straightforward. Citing a recent claim from Democrat Adam Schiff, Gaffney asked if “all pathways” to a nuclear weapon for Iran are closed.
Pompeo’s response was less than encouraging:
No, Frank, and in fact, just the opposite, and I should say, I’m surprised. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Representative Schiff. He is a very bright man, a very thoughtful man. I’ve been on the Intelligence Committee now with him for a while, and he’s usually able to think his way to the right conclusion. He’s just really ended up in a really dangerous place for America.
Not only is every pathway to a nuclear bomb not closed, this deal virtually guarantees that over some time the Iranians will end not only with one nuclear weapon but the capacity for an entire arsenal for weapons. Whether they cheat in the short run or comply and it takes a little longer, the Iranian nuclear program will be alive and well, and things that foment such as weaponization and research of weaponization are completely free to continue during the duration of this agreement.
Surely, Gaffney suggests, we can rely on the verification standards outlined in the deal.
Wrong again:
The agreement itself falls far short, and we can expect that even the written word won’t be followed through. These folks, the Iranians, will cheat. The ayatollahs have cheated on every agreement they’ve ever entered into. There’s no reason to expect they won’t here. With respect to verification, at declared sites the IAEA is supposed to have immediate access. I suspect they will never get that.
Pompeo also mentions the side deals with the IAEA and Gaffney goes on to ask about the Corker-Cardin bill:
And let me ask you, Congressman, just from a procedural point of view, there have been those who have said, wait a minute, the Corker-Cardin legislation that established, I should say, for Congress some kind of vote on this whole can of worms had as a provision that they were going to be required, the administration, to give Congress all aspects of the deal and it seems as though the clock should not have started unless and until that has happened. And yet it seems as though we are proceeding as thought the clock has started. We are now into forty days I guess left . What is your reading on that, and whose calls should it be whether in fact the clock is running?
Pompeo points out the flaws of that plan:
Well, Frank, the agreement, Corker-Cardin, the president signed a handful of weeks ago, makes very clear that the United States Congress must receive within five days of the deal all of the documents. Indeed, inside in the agreement, in the definition, subparagraph H1 has the term side agreement. Everyone understood that there was some risk with this president that there might some deal between parties that the United States would turn a blind eye to. And Congress said no we want to see those, too. And the administration agreed that we would get them.
Listen to the full audio segment here.
