A secret side deal to ease key restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program advanced Tehran’s ability to “build a bomb even before the end the pact.”
A secret $400 million cash ransom “contingent on the release” of our prisoners put a price on Americans.
Now, 8Reuters* reports that a secret loophole will allow the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism to “evade some restrictions in last year’s landmark nuclear agreement in order to meet the deadline for it to start getting relief from economic sanctions.” The exemptions “allowed Iran to exceed the deal’s limits on how much low-enriched uranium (LEU) it can keep in its nuclear facilities…[which] can be purified into highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium.”
Senator Russ Feingold’s 1992 closet may not have had any skeletons in it but his Iran deal sure does.
As Wisconsinites learn even more troubling details about the Obama-Clinton-Feingold appeasement of Iran, is Mr. Clean still willing to tell them that the nuclear deal was “the right thing to do”?
- VIDEO: Feingold: “It’s The Right Thing To Do.” FEINGOLD: “Well you know this is something that is terribly important and everybody has to look at it very closely, and I’ve tried to do that. I’ve read the agreement, and I think on balance, it’s the right thing to do. We have a choice between doing nothing over the next 10 to 15 years or having this agreement. Now this agreement does not prevent us from taking action directly, military action if necessary, against Iran any time we feel like it. These sanctions, that are coming off for Iran, can go right back into place unless we say it’s okay for them not to go back into place, so-called snapback provisions, so as the President has correctly pointed out, we’re not really giving anything up and a lot of experts think this is going to be a way we can actually verify that Iran is not getting a nuclear weapon, and my bottom line is they cannot get a nuclear weapon, but this moves us in that direction. The alternative, that the incumbent Ron Johnson is for, is nothing. It just leaves us in a situation where the allies who were working with us on this say, ‘well we’ll just deal with Iran on our own,’ and it basically leads us to a war, a war with Iran that is not necessary.” (WPT’s In-Depth With Ron Johnson And Russ Feingold, 8/28/15)
ICYMI, read the latest breaking development from Reuters:
Exclusive: U.S., others agreed to ‘secret’ exemptions for Iran after nuclear deal – report
Reuters
By Jonathan Landay
September 1, 2016
The United States and its negotiating partners agreed "in secret" to allow Iran to evade some restrictions in last year’s landmark nuclear agreement in order to meet the deadline for it to start getting relief from economic sanctions, according to a report reviewed by Reuters.
The report is to be published on Thursday by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said the think tank’s president David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and co-author of the report. It is based on information provided by several officials of governments involved in the negotiations, who Albright declined to identify.
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"The exemptions or loopholes are happening in secret, and it appears that they favor Iran," Albright said.
Among the exemptions were two that allowed Iran to exceed the deal’s limits on how much low-enriched uranium (LEU) it can keep in its nuclear facilities, the report said. LEU can be purified into highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium.
The exemptions, the report said, were approved by the joint commission the deal created to oversee implementation of the accord. The commission is comprised of the United States and its negotiating partners — called the P5+1 — and Iran.
One senior "knowledgeable" official was cited by the report as saying that if the joint commission had not acted to create these exemptions, some of Iran’s nuclear facilities would not have been in compliance with the deal by Jan. 16, the deadline for the beginning of the lifting of sanctions.
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Albright said the exceptions risked setting precedents that Iran could use to seek additional waivers.
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While Albright has neither endorsed nor denounced the overall agreement, he has expressed concern over what he considers potential flaws in the nuclear deal, including the expiration of key limitations on Iran’s nuclear work in 10-15 years.
EXEMPTIONS ON URANIUM, "HOT CELLS"
The administration of President Barack Obama informed Congress of the exemptions on Jan. 16, said the report. Albright said the exemptions, which have not been made public, were detailed in confidential documents sent to Capitol Hill that day — after the exemptions had already been granted.
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Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, a leading critic of the Iran deal and a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Reuters in an email: "I was not aware nor did I receive any briefing (on the exemptions).”
As part of the concessions that allowed Iran to exceed uranium limits, the joint commission agreed to exempt unknown quantities of 3.5 percent LEU contained in liquid, solid and sludge wastes stored at Iranian nuclear facilities, according to the report. The agreement restricts Iran to stockpiling only 300 kg of 3.5 percent LEU.
The commission approved a second exemption for an unknown quantity of near 20 percent LEU in "lab contaminant" that was determined to be unrecoverable, the report said. The nuclear agreement requires Iran to fabricate all such LEU into research reactor fuel.
If the total amount of excess LEU Iran possesses is unknown, it is impossible to know how much weapons-grade uranium it could yield, experts said.
The draft report said the joint commission also agreed to allow Iran to keep operating 19 radiation containment chambers larger than the accord set. These so-called "hot cells" are used for handling radioactive material but can be "misused for secret, mostly small-scale plutonium separation efforts," said the report. Plutonium is another nuclear weapons fuel.
The deal allowed Iran to meet a 130-tonne limit on heavy water produced at its Arak facility by selling its excess stock on the open market. But with no buyer available, the joint commission helped Tehran meet the sanctions relief deadline by allowing it to send 50 tonnes of the material — which can be used in nuclear weapons production — to Oman, where it was stored under Iranian control, the report said.
The shipment to Oman of the heavy water that can be used in nuclear weapons production has already been reported. Albright’s report made the new assertion that the joint committee had approved this concession.