John McCain grills cabinet secretaries on “side agreements”

Senate Armed Services Committee John McCain grills cabinet secretaries Ashton Carter and Ernest Moniz on what he describes as “side agreements” between Iran and the IAEA over verification procedures and past military dimensions of Tehran’s nuclear program.

McCain complains that by allowing Iran to negotiate these topics independently with the IAEA, the actual Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) allows Iran too much control over key details outside of the signed agreement.

“The agreement with the JCPOA is that Iran must cooperate with the IAEA,” Moniz explains.

“In every country like Iran, the devil’s in the details,” McCain retorts, after Moniz says that neither he nor Carter has had access to the documents outlining Iran’s commitments to the IAEA. “It is absolutely astounding that you have not seen the documents which outline the practice of verification,” he says. “Otherwise how can we determine if we can enforce and verify?”

–Rebecca Shimoni-Stoil