Energy Sec Moniz On Iran Deal: ‘Verification Is There Forever’

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, an MIT physicist, explained the Iran nuclear deal on my show Tuesday night and put to bed some of the myths.

COLMES: We had Ambassador Dennis Ross on the other night and he said something that others have echoed, that one of the problems with this deal is after 15 years they can pretty much do what they want. Is that an accurate representation of what could happen?

SEC. MONIZ: Well I don’t think so in the following sense. The basic architecture of the deal is that for 15 years they have restrictions on their nuclear program, quite strong restrictions on their nuclear program. The key is verification, so verification, as I said, is something that is there forever.

And what about the money Iran gets that can be used for illicit purposes?

SEC. MONIZ: They will have money, it’s their funds, now tied up in a bunch of foreign banks, not including our own, but in other countries, those funds will be released. They are somewhat north of 50 billion dollars, a couple of points, one is Treasury Secretary Lew has stated very clearly that they have a hole to dig out of, of about half a trillion dollars so 500 billion dollars in round numbers. So that means paying back salaries, pensions, all kinds of issues of this type. Now having said that and we do believe most of these funds will go to digging out and supporting the economy which is what President Rouhani promised in his election campaign. Now clearly that doesn’t mean some of the money will not go to military purposes. However the first point is, that their support of Hezbollah and Houthis really is not resource limited. They had had no problem supporting that even in their current economic situation.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.