WASHINGTON -- Democrats on a key Senate oversight committee yesterday pushed Obama administration leaders to establish carefully timed "benchmarks" for gauging Iran's cooperation in resolving international concerns about its nuclear program (see GSN, Oct. 5).
(Oct. 7) -
U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), center, chairs a meeting of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee last month. Democrats on the panel yesterday urged the Obama administration to set a time line for Iran to meet specific benchmarks in safeguarding its nuclear program (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images).
During a hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, lawmakers from both parties voiced growing impatience with Iran's nuclear ambitions as the United States joins five other world powers in talks with the Islamic republic.
The so-called "P-5 plus one" on Oct. 1 launched discussions with Tehran aimed at reversing its suspected efforts to develop a nuclear weapon, a program that Iranian leaders insist is aimed solely at generating peaceful atomic energy. The group involves the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States -- plus Germany.
Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) said many on his panel would "like to know whether Iran is using the talks to make sincere commitments on nonproliferation, or to stall severe multilateral sanctions."
"Obviously," he said, "there's a history here which would cause one to have deep concerns about how serious Iran is about complying here, or just buying ... time."
Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg testified that Washington's "dual-track" strategy toward Iran -- engagement in direct talks, backed by a threat of heightened sanctions -- would offer near-term opportunities to test the regime's intentions.
"Iran must demonstrate through its actions the exclusively peaceful intentions of its nuclear program," he said. "That means allowing unfettered access to international inspectors, cooperating fully with the [International Atomic Energy Agency] investigation and taking up the long-standing proposals of the P-5 plus one, including a halt to uranium enrichment."
The Persian Gulf nation has resisted giving international inspectors full access to its nuclear facilities and personnel.
Steinberg spelled out two benchmarks for Iran to meet this month, but defied lawmaker attempts to pin him down on the timing of any subsequent measures.
"We have two very specific commitments that we are going to be following up on in just the coming weeks: the commitment to ship out the low-enriched uranium for fabrication into fuel for their research reactor and the commitment to provide the IAEA access to this previously undisclosed facility," Steinberg told lawmakers.
First, on Oct. 19, envoys from the United States, Russia and France are slated to meet with Iranian officials to discuss the details of a plan to process uranium for a medical research reactor in Tehran, he noted. Under an agreement reached last week, low-enriched uranium would be shipped to Russia and France for conversion into a fuel that would be difficult to use for nuclear weapons, and then returned to Iran.
However, on Sunday, Iran's official news media said government officials had denied reports that such a deal had been set. State-run television reported that the Oct. 19 meeting would instead focus on "the purchase" of 20 percent uranium.
The second yardstick Steinberg described would determine whether Tehran follows through on its promise to open to international nuclear inspectors a newly disclosed enrichment facility near the holy city of Qum (see GSN, Oct. 6). An inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, is expected on Oct. 25.
"So by the end of the month, we will have some very clear indications about what their intentions are," Steinberg told the committee.
That did not appear to satisfy a number of lawmakers on both sides of the dais.
Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) questioned the basis for judging Iran's "good faith" in negotiations, as Steinberg said Washington would do, given that Tehran already appears to be equivocating on its commitment to the plan for external reprocessing.
"The first day of talks seemed to produce a potentially positive first step -- Iran's agreement supposedly to ship most of its low-enriched uranium out of the country," he said. "Now, I've read [a] press report that they're denying they made that commitment. Which one is it?"
Steinberg replied that Iranian officials had indeed offered the pledge last week, but the State Department deputy said the promise must be tested during the Oct. 19 discussions.
"I don't think we should draw a lot of conclusions from the press statements they make about it," he said. "I think we'll put a lot more emphasis on what they actually agree to when we come back together again."
"I don't trust the Iranians one bit," said Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), noting that he shares Menendez's "frustration" on the matter. "If you look at past history, whenever they're squeezed a little bit, they feint and then they back off. I'm not saying we shouldn't pursue these negotiations, but I find it troubling that the administration is not looking, at the same time, to be supportive of the toughest sanctions possible."
Steinberg's testimony came as an Iran sanctions bill -- sponsored by Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) -- is pending before the Senate. The State Department official would not take a position on the legislation, which would ban refined petroleum products from being sold to Iran, but indicated that the White House seeks "the appropriate flexibility" in conducting its policy toward Tehran.
"I think we have a better chance of getting broad-based sanctions, broad-based economic and political pressure, because we demonstrated that ... we have made every effort to solve this through diplomacy, and that the burden is clearly on Iran [if] they have clearly rejected any attempt to solve this peacefully," Steinberg said.
Dodd noted that the legislation would allow U.S. President Barack Obama waiver authority if he judged the timing to be unsuitable for sanctions.
The administration is developing a "comprehensive" list of potential sanctions that could be imposed on Iran and is building international support for implementing those penalties, said Stuart Levey, Treasury Department undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
"No single sanction alone is a silver bullet," he testified at the hearing. "We will need to impose measures simultaneously in many different forms in order to be effective."
Committee Republicans said the Obama administration should be pressing for swift and harsh action on Iran, especially given the recent revelation about its secret enrichment site.
Iranian officials have said the underground facility was intended solely as a backup site in its civil nuclear energy program, but experts say its size appears optimized for weapon-material enrichment. In either case, IAEA officials insist that Iranian officials violated the rules by failing to disclose the nuclear facility construction plans from the outset.
One senator, Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), questioned why the State Department was not demanding that international inspectors obtain urgent access to the facility, before Tehran could hide any evidence of illicit activity.
"Would it make sense to have somebody on the ground immediately there and then let the inspectors come in, once they're prepared?" he asked. "I guess that's too rational of a thing to occur and just doesn't make sense in international diplomacy."
Steinberg said the Obama administration had pressed for access within two weeks but only succeeded in getting three. Still, "it's our judgment that this is within the period of time that we will still get a good insight into what's going on," he said.
"This is not a case where we are accusing them of having a facility, they've denied it, and they're going to go then hide all the stuff to prove it wasn't it," Steinberg said. "They have acknowledged that it's an enrichment facility. And so I think we believe that the period of time here is not likely to have an impact on our understanding."
Menendez called on the Obama team to lay out a more detailed approach for determining whether progress is being achieved in safeguarding the Iranian nuclear program, now that talks have begun.
"The president has said by the end of the year we should be able to [assess] whether the talks hold real promise," he said. "What's the time line you all have in mind? How will we know if the Iranians are serious? How will we be able to palpably have a sense of benchmarks in which we measure real progress versus illusory progress?"
After the international talks and inspections later this month, "putting the Qum facility under full IAEA safeguards is important" and Iran must "implement the Additional Protocol" to the safeguards agreement with the U.N. nuclear agency, which would subject Tehran's nuclear facilities to more intrusive inspections, Steinberg said.
The Persian Gulf nation also must suspend further uranium enrichment, as demanded by the U.N. Security Council, he added.
Menendez noted that the Security Council first laid out that requirement for Iran in 2006, but now "we are at the near end of 2009 and the clock is ticking," without Tehran's compliance.
"I think we all hope you are successful," said the New Jersey senator. "But, you know, we have to have some quantifiable time frame. You don't want the Congress to pursue the legislation, but at the same time, you don't give us a time frame. That makes many of us very uneasy."
Menendez asked if it would be fair to expect that the benchmarks Steinberg laid out might be completed by December. However, the State Department's No. 2 official would not concede any further specifics on a schedule.
"I think we have to look at the state of play at that point to see what has been accomplished, what has not, and what the prospects are for moving it forward," Steinberg said.