US Secretary of State John Kerry (R) speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, March 11, 2015. (photo credit:REUTERS)
Eli Lake, Bloomberg: Everyone But Kerry Expected 'Anytime, Anywhere' Inspections
When Secretary of State John Kerry testifies in the coming days before Congress about the deal he just negotiated with Iran, he will have some explaining to do.
Some Congressional leaders were under the impression that while Kerry was at the talks in Vienna, he was pressing Iran to allow "anytime, anywhere" access for U.N. inspectors to examine sites suspected of nuclear activity.
Kerry's account differs: "This is a term that honestly I never heard in the four years that we were negotiating," he said on "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "It was not on the table."
Those words are likely to haunt Kerry this week when he goes before Congress. This is not how others in the administration described the deal in April. Other senior officials said the U.S. was pressing for such access, known as snap inspections, that wouldn't give Iran the time to hide suspicious activity.
WNU Editor: I do expect John Kerry will be facing some hard questions on the Iranian nuclear deal next week, but someone needs to question the U.S. Senate on why were/are they tuned out on some of the more important provisions of the deal .... such as on the topic of inspections. My gut is telling me that Senate Republicans knew where all of this was heading, and what was important to them was to position themselves so that they would not be blamed if the nuclear talks had ended in disarray. As a result .... this is now all be for show. The Republicans will show that they are critical of the President, will point out the shortcomings of the deal, and will vote against it knowing that there are not enough votes to overturn a Presidential veto. This is Washington politics at its worse.