The Obama administration has cemented secret exemptions to last summer’s nuclear deal that allow Iran to keep a still-unknown amount of uranium above what the deal’s caps allow. That’s according to top nuclear experts and sources who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD after lawmakers called for greater transparency last month in the wake of a think tank report detailing some of the exemptions.
David Albright, the founder of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), which published last month’s report, criticized the administration Tuesday for maintaining a “policy of secrecy” that allows Iran to store significant amounts of uranium in various forms above what the deal allows.
“[The administration] always tell me they ‘forgot’ the number, but I think they are very uncomfortable releasing any information,” he told TWS.
Albright told attendees at a Washington, D.C. event that there “could be tons of this [low-enriched uranium] waste” but that the administration refuses to disclose the amount.
The administration “has refused to answer any questions on this,” he said, and “we have not gotten a single answer substantively on just how much are we talking about here.”
“Is it trivial amounts or is it more significant amounts?”
The exemptions were not publicly announced, and Congress learned of them in a confidential manner on January 16 after they were agreed to, ISIS’s report noted.
The administration’s secrecy about the exemptions is part of a broader policy to keep facts about the nuclear deal hidden from the public and lawmakers, according to other policy analysts who spoke to TWS.
“The Obama administration has never been able to be transparent about its Iran policy, because White House officials knew they’d lose if they admitted what they intended to do,” said one analyst who works with lawmakers on the issue.
“So they couldn’t say they were going to bolster Iran’s economy with hundreds of billions of dollars, look the other way while Iran developed ballistic missiles and marched across the region, and allowed Iran to cheat on the deal,” the source added. “And they still can’t.”
Other analysts told TWS that the secrecy surrounding the deal has deflated promises of transparency from its supporters last summer.
“The numerous side deals, exemptions, and secrecy, all points to one thing,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior Iran analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said. “In practice, the Iran deal has fallen far short of providing the sort of transparency and enhanced verification that was promised by its proponents.”
The State Department said in September that the work of the body that granted the reported exemptions was meant to remain “confidential” unless it “decided otherwise.” The administration also denied granting the Iranians any “exceptions” that “would allow them … to have a useable amount of material in excess” of the 300 kilogram low-enriched uranium cap.
“There’s been no moving of the goal posts, as it were,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
