Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., on Tuesday demanded that President Obama answer questions about a report that his administration and other western powers provided “secret exemptions” in the Iran nuclear deal, allowing the country to meet an implementation deadline.
“This report raises serious questions regarding your administration’s eagerness to accommodate Tehran, failure to provide important information to the American people, and willingness to accept exemptions that undermine a nuclear agreement that is already deeply and dangerously flawed,” the New Hampshire Republican wrote in her letter to Obama.
“[L]ast week’s report demonstrates that your administration has supported loopholes that permit Iran to violate and evade these limits on its nuclear material and potentially shorten the time required to build a nuclear weapon,” she added.
The independent Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security last week issued a report that found that the U.S. and other partners allowed Iran to exceed limits laid out in the nuclear agreement on how much low-enriched uranium, or LEU, it can maintain in its nuclear facilities.
A joint commission created to oversee the deal’s implementation approved the exemptions, but those approvals are not available to the public.
The report said the exemptions are important because “the LEU may be recoverable by Iran in a breakout to produce highly enriched uranium, thereby lowering breakout times” for Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. The report’s author, David Albright, told the Washington Examiner that Congress needs to scour the Iran deal for loopholes and hire highly skilled, technically savvy staffers in order to identify them among classified material Congress has access to related to the deal.
“I am also concerned that these exemptions set a dangerous precedent that Tehran will continue to exploit,” Ayotte concluded in her letter.
Based on these concerns, Ayotte asked the administration to answer several detailed questions about the exemptions, including what efforts it has made to ensure the American understand the loopholes to the nuclear agreement and the rationale for not fully disclosing them to the American public.
Here is a full list of Ayotte’s questions about the loopholes to the administration:
Based on these concerns, I ask that your administration answer the following questions without delay:
What efforts has your administration made to ensure the American people understand the exemptions to the JCPOA that your administration agreed to?
The Institute for Science and International Security’s report states that “…the administration’s policy to maintain secrecy interferes in the process of establishing adequate Congressional and public oversight of the JCPOA.” What is the rationale for not fully disclosing JCPOA exemptions to the American public?
According to the report, your administration agreed to allow Iran to exceed the 300 kg limit of “about 3.5 percent low enriched uranium hexafluoride or equivalent mass if the [low enriched uranium] LEU was in the following forms: low level solid waste; low level liquid waste; and sludge waste.” s that accurate? How much additional LEU in terms of hexafluoride mass above the 300 kg limit did your administration permit Iran to retain? What is the total amount of enriched uranium, in any form, that Iran currently controls? What was the rationale for permitting Iran to exceed the Iran deal’s limits related to LEU hexafluoride? Doesn’t allowing Iran to retain additional LEU hexafluoride potentially decrease the time required for Iran to build a nuclear weapon?
What was the basis for determining LEU is unrecoverable? Did Iran make that determination? Does the administration agree that the LEU is non-recoverable? Couldn’t Iran develop means to recover some of the LEU that the exemptions did not count toward the JCPOA caps? Couldn’t this LEU be used to shorten the time required for a nuclear breakout?
Why did your administration permit Iran to continue to operate 19 large hot cells in four locations in excess of the six cubic meter limitation? How often does the IAEA inspect these hot cells? Is Iran seeking to increase its inventory of hot cells through overseas procurements? Isn’t it true that these hot cells could be used by Iranian personnel to extract plutonium for a nuclear weapon?
The report states that, “The Joint Commission allowed Iran to store large amounts of heavy water in Oman that remained under Iran’s control, effectively allowing Iran to exceed its cap of 130 tonnes of heavy water as it continues to produce heavy water at its Arak facility.” Is it true that Tehran was permitted to retain control of this heavy water sent out of Iran? If so, doesn’t this constitute a violation of the heavy water limit, give Iran a way to keep producing heavy water at full capacity, and set a dangerous precedent?
Has the Arak heavy water production plant produced significantly more heavy water than expected following Implementation Day? How much did Arak produce per year before Implementation Day? How much heavy water has Arak produced since Implementation Day? If there was an increase, what is the explanation? Doesn’t an increased production rate create an opportunity, if the deal fails or once the limits end, for Iran to shorten the time required to build a nuclear weapon?
Since January, have additional exemptions been granted? If so, what additional exemptions have been granted? Is the Joint Commission planning to approve additional exemptions to the JCPOA? If so, what are they?
Does your administration believe that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should regularly report all nuclear material inventories? Does your administration believe this information should be made available to the American public?
Does your administration believe the IAEA should report quantities of yellow cake produced, and any uranium conversion and waste recovery operations in Iran? Does your administration believe this information should be made available to the American public?
Why does your administration believe it is in the national security interests of the American people to help the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism evade limitations on its nuclear program?
Will your administration inform the American public fully of all past and future exemptions to the JCPOA?
