WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) has written to Secretary of State John Kerry requesting information on an Associated Press report showing that a secret ‘Side Agreement’ will allow Iran to use their own investigators to investigate a site it has been accused of using to develop nuclear arms.

According to AP, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) staff will be reduced to monitoring Iranian personnel as they inspect the controversial Parchin site. IAEA inspectors will be barred from physically visiting the site and the agency won’t even get photo or video information from areas Iran says are off-limits because they have military significance.

“Allowing the Iranians to inspect their own nuclear sites, particularly a notorious military site, is like allowing the inmates to run the jail,” said Graham. “The inspections won’t happen, can’t be trusted, and clearly, put America at risk. This revelation is yet another example of how this deal, negotiated by the Obama Administration, is a dangerous capitulation to the Iranian regime. It will ensure that, within a very short amount of time, Iran becomes a nuclear threshold state.

“President Obama said, 'If Iran cheats, the world will know it,’” said Graham. “I respectfully ask, how exactly will the world know when Tehran cheats, if we are dependent on the Iranians to tell us?”

In his letter, Graham reiterated to Secretary Kerry that he is prepared to push to cut off funding to the IAEA unless these ‘Side Agreements’ are provided to Congress.

“When I coauthored the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 with Senators Corker, Menendez, and Cardin, we included a requirement to share any IAEA side agreements with Congress,” wrote Graham. “We included this language precisely because we feared a scenario under which the effectiveness of the entire deal was predicated on a weak or secret deal between the IAEA and the Iranians.

“While the Administration has still failed to comply with this provision of the law, at the very least, today’s revelation only underscores the need for the IAEA to share with Congress the text of any and all side agreements with the Iranians,” said Graham. “I reiterate that I intend to condition and/or withhold voluntary contributions to the IAEA in fiscal year 2016 should they not be provided prior to the congressional debate next month.”

Graham is the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, which oversees contributions to the IAEA.

A copy of the letter can be found here and text of the letter is below.

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Dear Secretary Kerry:

Following up on my letter of August 11, 2015, I wanted to bring to your attention an article that was published today by the Associated Press. In the article, it is reported that Iran will be allowed to “employ its own experts and equipment in the search for evidence for activities that it has consistently denied – trying to develop nuclear weapons.” The article goes on to discuss how International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “staff will be reduced to monitoring Iranian personnel as these [sic] inspect the Parchin site… beyond being barred from physically visiting the site – the agency won’t even get photo or video information from areas Iran says are off-limits because they have military significance.” If accurate, these revelations expose yet another major shortcoming in the deal.

When I coauthored the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 with Senators Corker, Menendez, and Cardin, we included a requirement to share any IAEA side agreements with Congress. We included this language precisely because we feared a scenario under which the effectiveness of the entire deal was predicated on a weak or secret deal between the IAEA and the Iranians. While the Administration has still failed to comply with this provision of the law, at the very least, today’s revelation only underscores the need for the IAEA to share with Congress the text of any and all side agreements with the Iranians. I reiterate that I intend to condition and/or withhold voluntary contributions to the IAEA in fiscal year 2016 should they not be provided prior to the congressional debate next month.

I look forward to your response.