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The White House maintains that “tough new requirements will keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” As the nation examines the Iran deal, it is worth examining how Administration assurances on weapons inspectors have worked out in the past.
Kerry on Iran Inspectors:
"We set out to dismantle their ability to be able to build a nuclear weapon, and we've achieved that… Now, if Iran fails to comply, we will know it, and we will know it quickly, and we will be able to respond accordingly by reinstituting sanctions all the way up to the most draconian options that we have today. None of them are off the table at any point in time.”
- Kerry's Opening Remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 7/23/2015
Kerry on Syria Inspectors
2013: “This is meaningful progress which many believed would be impossible. The progress must continue… Syria must provide …unfettered access to any and all sites in order to fulfill their critical mission of verifying the full extent, and the eventual elimination, of Syria’s chemical weapons program. Syria’s obligations are clear…To borrow from President Reagan’s maxim, where the Assad regime is concerned, there is no ‘trust,’ only ‘verify.’”
- Secretary Kerry, Statement On Progress Eliminating Syria’s Chemical Weapon’s Program 10/31/13
2014: “…This is also an important moment to take stock of what has been achieved: the removal of all declared chemicals; verification of the destruction of declared production, mixing, and filling equipment; verification of the destruction of all declared chemical weapon delivery vehicles, including missile warheads and aerial bombs; and diminishing the strategic threat posed by the Syrian chemical weapons program to our allies and partners in the region.”
- Secretary Kerry, Removal of Declared Chemical Materials From Syria 7/23/14
How It Is Working Today: “a chain of misrepresentations by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to hide the extent of its chemical-weapons work.”
"...much more work still needs to be done on Syria’s chemical weapons program. The international community must continue to press for the resolution of all discrepancies and omissions in Syria’s original declaration.”
- Ambassador Powers, Syria May Have Hidden Chemical Arms, U.S. Says, New York Times 9/4/2014
“A pretty strong indication they have been lying…” International inspectors have found traces of sarin and VX nerve agent at a military research site in Syria that had not been declared to the global chemical weapons watchdog, diplomatic sources said on Friday. "This is a pretty strong indication they have been lying about what they did with sarin," one diplomatic source said. "They have so far been unable to give a satisfactory explanation about this finding.”
- Newsweek Weapons Inspectors Find Undeclared Sarin and VX Traces in Syria: Diplomats 5/8/15
As the international inspectors suspected back then, it was a ruse, part of a chain of misrepresentations by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to hide the extent of its chemical-weapons work. One year after the West celebrated the removal of Syria’s arsenal as a foreign-policy success, …An examination of last year’s international effort to rid Syria of chemical weapons, based on interviews with many of the inspectors and U.S. and European officials who were involved, shows the extent to which the Syrian regime controlled where inspectors went, what they saw and, in turn, what they accomplished. That happened in large part because of the ground rules under which the inspectors were allowed into the country, according to the inspectors and officials.
- Mission to Purge Syria of Chemical Weapons Comes Up Short, Wall Street Journal 7/24/15
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