Category Archives: Middle East

Hillary DID have Accomplishments at State Dept

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Sheesh, it is true she did have many accomplishments but they are not the successes she would use for boasting.

She raised lots of money for the Clinton Foundation, she opened the pathway for Russia to control up to 50% of the uranium output of the United States and she was complicit is the death of four dead Americans.

Her best achievements at State was obstruction and cover-ups.

Sexual harassment complaints at State Department soar under Clinton, Kerry

In part from the Washington Times:

In a disclosure with political implications for 2016, the State Department’s chief watchdog reported Thursday that worker harassment complaints have nearly tripled inside the agency during the tenures of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry but the agency still doesn’t have mandatory training for all employees.

“A significant increase in reported harassment inquiries in the Department of State over the past few fiscal years supports the need for mandatory harassment training,” the department’s inspector general warned in a new oversight report that reviewed the agency’s civil rights office.

The report states that formal harassment claims rose from 88 cases in 2011 during Mrs. Clinton’s third year as America’s top diplomat, to 248 in 2014, Mr. Kerry’s second year as secretary. Hundreds more informal complaints were lodged during the same period.

Last year, 43 percent of the new complaints alleged harassment or unfair hirings or promotions while 38 percent raised sex discrimination or reprisals, the report said.

The report said some of the increases could be attributed to growing knowledge among employees about sexual harassment issues and the procedures for reporting it.

The inspector general said the Office of Civil Rights has made strides in improving the quality, speed and quantity of its work in recent years but that performance issues remains, such as a need to rebalance workloads, reassess positions and complete delinquent performance evaluations. The office has two civil rights complaints pending against itself, it added. More sordid details are here.

Hold on there is more….and personally I read the emails in Wikileaks a few years ago.

Records suggest Hillary chief of staff blocked probe of ambassador nominee

From the Washington Examiner:

 Top State Department staff under Hillary Clinton allegedly blocked an  investigation into the president’s nominee for ambassador to Iraq.

The ambassador-designate, Brett McGurk, was accused of engaging in inappropriate behavior with a reporter from the Wall Street Journal and funneling her information he was not authorized to disclose.

McGurk withdrew his name from consideration for the ambassadorship in the face of a growing scandal over emails that revealed his extra-marital affair with the reporter, Gina Chon. His relationship with the journalist prompted concerns among Republican lawmakers, although the extent of the internal cover-up of his conduct was not then known.

McGurk is presently one of President Obama’s key advisers on the Islamic State, having survived the scandal in 2012 with the help of higher-ups in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

“There were rumors inside the State Department that the investigation into McGurk’s actions in Iraq was squashed at the very highest levels,” Van Buren told the Washington Examiner.

Van Buren retired from the State Department in 2012 after a lengthy legal battle with the State Department over whistleblower disclosures he made in a book about his time in Iraq with the agency from 2009 to 2010.

During his nearly quarter-century at the State Department, Van Buren said he saw a variety of management styles from the secretary’s office as agency leadership shifted.

“I think what a lot of State Department people felt was that previous secretaries were focused more on protecting the institution and, by extension, themselves,” he said. “Whereas the Clinton people were 90 percent concerned about protecting Hillary and maybe 10 percent concerned about protecting the institution.”

Although the investigation was eventually closed in July 2013, speculation that he was about to be named to another high-level position involving Iraq began swirling months earlier.

McGurk is presently Deputy Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL.

His high-profile role puts him at the forefront of the conflict with the Islamic State. For example, he appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday to announce the government’s intention to equip tribal fighters in Iraq to support their fight against the Islamic State.

McGurk’s affair with Chon, to whom he is now married, became the subject of public scrutiny after a 2012 “computer hacking incident” in Baghdad resulted in the publication of racy emails back and forth between the two while he was in line to be the next ambassador to Iraq.

The leaked emails suggested at the time the two had a sexual relationship. But they also suggested the ambassador-designate may have given sensitive information to the reporter.

The communications show McGurk asked Chon to text him on his Blackberry because texting was a “better way to engage in sensitive deliberations” than emailing from his government address.

Several messages between McGurk and the Journal reporter suggested he used his position to provide Chon with access to Iraqi sources. Yes, there are more details on this one too.

In case that is not enough on the details of Iraq, Blackberry phones, emails and more….click here.

 

 

 

 

The Inner Circle of the Hillary Cover-Up Machine

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When it comes to Hillary’s claim on classified material in her emails, her honesty is now being challenged in earnest. Particular emails of interest are found here.

American Bridge has operatives that are dispatched to follow any and all republicans around the country, regardless of who they are to track each word spoken by the politician and the locations as well. Then American Bridge hooks up with Media Matters and other liberal online media sources and publishes twisted versions of events. It is interesting to note that Rodell Mollineau is the treasurer of American Bridge and :

Rodell Mollineau past relationships:
American Bridge 21st Century – president
Mark L. Pryor – communications director
Harry Reid – staff director
Tom Vilsack – communications director
David Brock
Sidney Blumenthal
Then there is ‘Correct the Record’ a website launched by Hillary supporters. Correct the Record is an inside mission launched by American Bridge where the point people include Burns Strider, a top Clinton donor as well as Susie Tompkins.
This is all especially noteworthy based on the recent 8 hour testimony that Sidney Blumenthal just gave to the Trey Gowdy led committee on Benghazi.
For an insightful read on the follow the money doctrine for clues and the continued intrigue, Politico has a breaking summary.

Benghazi panel probes Sidney Blumenthal’s work for David Brock

Republican members of a special congressional committee spent hours on Tuesday grilling Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal about the inner workings of the Clinton’s philanthropic and political operations, going well beyond the 2012 Benghazi attacks that the committee is charged with investigating, according to sources familiar with the hearing.

A particular focus during Tuesday’s closed-door deposition was a network of groups founded by Clinton enforcer David Brock that — POLITICO has learned — paid Blumenthal more than $10,000 a month as they defended Hillary Clinton against conservative attacks, first while she was secretary of state and then as she prepared for and ultimately entered the presidential campaign.

While still secretary of state, Clinton emailed back and forth with Blumenthal about efforts by one of the groups, Media Matters, to neutralize criticism of her handling of the deadly assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, sources tell POLITICO.

“Got all this done. Complete refutation on Libya smear,” Blumenthal wrote to Clinton in an Oct. 10, 2012, email into which he had pasted links to four Media Matters posts criticizing Fox News and Republicans for politicizing the Benghazi attacks and challenging claims of lax security around the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, according to a source who has reviewed the email exchange. Blumenthal signed off the email to Clinton by suggesting that one of her top aides, Philippe Reines, “can circulate these links,” according to the source.

The emails were not included in documents originally turned over by the State Department. The Select Committee on Benghazi obtained the emails through subpoena. And the committee’s Republican members spent much of Tuesday’s nine-hour-session pressing Blumenthal about his role in producing the posts, and his tangled web of business and personal relationships in the Clintons’ orbit and beyond, according to sources.

In addition to Blumenthal’s role at Media Matters, he was involved with the Brock-founded groups American Bridge and Correct the Record, he worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and then afterward at the $2 billion Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation (which paid Blumenthal about $10,000 a month even as he was on Brock’s payroll). During this time, he also advised a pair of businesses seeking potentially lucrative contracts in Libya, while sharing intelligence on the country with Clinton while she was secretary of state.

Republicans privy to the Benghazi committee’s strategy say it’s important to map out Blumenthal’s many affiliations in order to understand the motivations for the counsel he provided to Clinton, and the degree to which she relied on it. But Democrats argue that Tuesday’s questioning shows that Republicans are conducting a politicized fishing expedition intended to damage Clinton’s presidential campaign and its supporters.

Brock, informed Wednesday by POLITICO of the committee’s line of questioning, called it ironic.

“The Republicans asked more about what our groups do to debunk their false claims about Benghazi than about the attacks in Benghazi? That sounds like a bizarre waste of time,” Brock said. “All our work is made public. And I’d be happy to give Chairman Gowdy a tour of our offices at his convenience,” Brock said, referring to Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who chairs the Benghazi committee.

A Republican congressional source defended the questioning. “Your background is always relevant: where you worked and who was paying you during that time period? So while he was sending information to Secretary Clinton … you have to ask: Who was paying your salary?” said the source. “He was at one point working for Media Matters, Correct the Record and American Bridge, and some of those entities have quite a bit to say about Benghazi.”

Under Republican questioning, Blumenthal suggested he was merely forwarding the Media Matters posts about Benghazi to Clinton but had no role in writing, editing or placing them.

And when Republicans asked him why he seemed to take credit for such posts in his email, he said he may have overstated his role, according to separate sources familiar with the questioning.

“So the next question is: What did you ‘get done’?” one source said, referring to Blumenthal’s own words from his email. “And he stumbled over that.”

Some of the Media Matters posts Blumenthal forwarded, which were published in the weeks after the attacks, criticize Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) for suggesting the Obama administration tried to cover up the events around the attack and for blaming the State Department for failing to implement sufficient security at the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

One post in particular accused Chaffetz of “fundamental hypocrisy” after he admitted in a CNN interview that he had previously voted to cut embassy security funding.

Chaffetz chairs an oversight committee that previously examined the attacks but ceded jurisdiction late last year to the select committee, so he was not present for Tuesday’s hearing. But during the hearing, sources said Gowdy, who is close friends with Chaffetz, suggested Media Matters’s scrutiny bothered the Utah Republican.

Another GOP select committee member asked whether Blumenthal wrote or edited a statement released Monday by Correct the Record that chided the committee for subpoenaing Blumenthal. The statement said Blumenthal “has not one thing to do with what happened in Benghazi or the government’s reaction to it,” and it called the committee “disgraceful” and “a political sideshow,” suggesting a more accurate name for it would be the “Select Committee to Destroy Hillary Clinton.”

Brock said that Blumenthal had no role in Monday’s release scolding Gowdy’s committee, but otherwise declined to comment on Blumenthal’s role.

Sources who have worked with Brock’s groups, however, say that Blumenthal offered high-level strategy and messaging advice on numerous subjects and participated in weekly strategy calls with Brock and other top group officials. The Benghazi debate almost certainly would have been discussed in those calls, said the sources, since it became a major focus of Brock’s groups, which in 2013 helped Brock pen a book called “The Benghazi Hoax.”

Blumenthal’s ideas for Brock’s groups would often be passed along to staff members and were sometimes greeted by eye rolls, said an operative who interacted with Brock and Blumenthal. But, the operative said, “Brock respects and trusts him a lot. And he surely feels he owes him a lot, as well.”

A Clinton loyalist who first earned the family’s trust as an aggressive combatant in the political battles that buffeted Bill Clinton’s presidency, Blumenthal helped recruit Brock to the cause in the late 1990s. After spending much of the decade as a self-proclaimed right-wing hit man and Clinton antagonist, Brock publicly renounced the right and reinvented himself as a liberal crusader against conservative attacks. Brock is now close to the Clintons, and he and his groups are central players in a constellation of big-money outfits supporting Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“It was Sid who basically made David’s current life possible, in many ways,” the operative said.

Blumenthal remains a paid consultant for Media Matters and American Bridge. Since about 2010, the groups have combined to pay Blumenthal more than $10,000 a month, though the payments are impossible to track since they’re made almost entirely through arms of the groups that do not disclose detailed information.

That income was supplemented by the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which began paying him about $10,000 a month starting in 2009 — not long after he stopped working for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. That arrangement, which ended in March of this year, came at the behest of former president Bill Clinton, for whom Blumenthal had worked in the White House. It appears to have taken shape after Hillary Clinton’s effort to hire Blumenthal at the State Department was rebuffed by top aides to President Barack Obama.

The reason Blumenthal initially came into the select committee’s sights was the Libyan intelligence he emailed to Clinton while she was secretary of state. On Tuesday, he testified that he received the intelligence from a business contact and wasn’t being paid to pass it along to Clinton, according to sources.

But scrutinizing Blumenthal’s work for Brock’s groups and the foundation allows the Benghazi committee a lens into the Clinton political and philanthropic operations, which could provide fodder for campaign trail attacks. Democrats argue that’s the committee’s real motive.

After Tuesday’s hearing, Blumenthal chafed at the committee’s focus on his political work.

“It seems obvious that my appearance before this committee was for one reason and one reason only … politics,” he said. The panel spent “hours asking me questions about things that had nothing to do with Benghazi,” he said, adding, “I hope I have cleared up the series of misconceptions some members of the committee may have held. … My testimony has shed no light on the events of Benghazi — nor could it, because I have no firsthand knowledge.”

 

 

 

Paying Too Much for United Nations Failures

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The summary failure of the United Nations in regard to the Congo. There more recently there is the admitted inability to stop the atrocities in Syria.

In 1945, the United Nations Charter, which was adopted and signed on June 26, 1945, is now effective and ready to be enforced.

The United Nations was born of perceived necessity, as a means of better arbitrating international conflict and negotiating peace than was provided for by the old League of Nations. The growing Second World War became the real impetus for the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union to begin formulating the original U.N. Declaration, signed by 26 nations in January 1942, as a formal act of opposition to Germany, Italy, and Japan, the Axis Powers.

The principles of the U.N. Charter were first formulated at the San Francisco Conference, which convened on April 25, 1945. It was presided over by President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, and attended by representatives of 50 nations, including 9 continental European states, 21 North, Central, and South American republics, 7 Middle Eastern states, 5 British Commonwealth nations, 2 Soviet republics (in addition to the USSR itself), 2 East Asian nations, and 3 African states. The conference laid out a structure for a new international organization that was to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,…to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights,…to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”

Today, the United Nations is a failed global operation and the United States pays the largest share of the financial freight. All of it is too much.

By: Brett D. Schaefer is the Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom.

America, we pay way too much for the United Nations

‘Each year the United States gives approximately $8 billion in mandatory payments and voluntary contributions to the United Nations and its affiliated organizations. The biggest portion of this money – about $3 billion this year – goes to the U.N.’s regular and peacekeeping budgets.

If that seems like a lot, it is—far more than anyone else pays And it’s also, in some cases, bad value for money.

The U.N. system for calculating member nations’ “fair share” payment toward its regular and peacekeeping budgets has increasingly shifted the burden away from the vast majority of the 193 members and onto a relative handful of high-income nations, especially the U.S. Indeed some nations pay next to nothing.

Over the last six decades, the share of the U.N. expenses borne by poor or small member states has steadily ratcheted downward to near- microscopic levels. From 1974 to 1998, the minimum mandatory payment for the regular budget for example, fell from 0.04 percent to 0.001 percent. For the peacekeeping budget, the minimum is 0.0001 percent.

The U.N. system for calculating member nations’ “fair share” payment toward its regular and peacekeeping budgets has increasingly shifted the burden away from the vast majority of the 193 members and onto a relative handful of high-income nations, especially the U.S. Indeed, some nations pay next to nothing.

In addition, over three quarters of the total U.N. membership get additional discounts, with the cost also shifted to wealthier countries.

The end result is a hugely skewed bill for U.N. expenses.

In 2015, 35 countries will be charged the minimum regular budget assessment of 0.001 percent which works out to approximately$28,269 each. Twenty countries will be charged the minimum peacekeeping assessment of 0.0001 percent or approximately $8,470 apiece.

By contrast, the U.S. is assessed 22 percent of the regular budget (approximately $622 million) and over 28 percent of the peacekeeping budget (approximately $2.402 billion).

Put another way, the U.S. will be assessed more than 176 other member states combined for the regular budget and more than 185 countries combined for the peacekeeping budget. Who says America isn’t exceptional!

This is more than a complaint about dollars. It’s also about the value received for those outsized contributions. Consider:

· An independent academic study assessing best and worst practices among aid agencies ranked U.N. organizations among the worst.

·Numerous reports, audits, and investigations have revealed mismanagement, fraud and corruption in procurement for U.N. peacekeeping.

· Studies and reports have identified U.N. peacekeepers as the source of the cholera outbreak that ravaged Haiti starting in 2010, leaving more than 8,000 dead and more than 600,000 seriously sickened.

· A 2014 study of eight of the nine U.N. peacekeeping operations with a mandate to protect civilians found that peacekeepers “did not report responding to 406 (80 per cent) of [the 570] incidents where civilians were attacked.”

· U.N. personnel have been accused of sexual exploitation and abuse in Bosnia, Burundi, Cambodia, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Kosovo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. Recent news stories from the Central African Republic and Haiti indicate the problem is still far too common and the U.N. is more interested in concealing the issue than in confronting it

· Atop all that, U.N. employees enjoy extremely generous benefits and salaries—over 32 percent higher than U.S. civil servants of equivalent rank.

Moreover, the U.N. and its employees enjoy broad protections and immunities and cannot be sued in national courts, arrested, or prosecuted for actions related to their official duties unless those immunities are waived. This places an extremely heavy responsibility on the U.N. to self-police, correct, and punish wrongdoing by the organization and its employees.

Unfortunately, oversight and accountability at the U.N. have historically been weak. And on the rare occasion when internal watchdogs bite, the organization moves to defang them.

Take the case of the Procurement Task Force (PTF) , a special U.N. unit that went to work in 2006  to root out corruption.   It uncovered fraud, waste, and mismanagement involving contracts valued at more than $630 million. It led to misconduct findings and convictions of U.N. officials.

Unfortunately the PTF was eliminated in 2008—at the behest of countries angry about PTF actions against their nationals holding U.N. staff positions. The U.N. has not completed any major corruption cases since the PTF was eliminated.

Poor oversight is made worse by U.N. hostility toward its own whistleblowers. Only a few weeks ago, nine staffers from various U.N. organizations sent a letter to the Secretary-General asserting that the U.N. affords “little to no measure of real or meaningful protection for whistleblowers.”

The U.N. badly needs reform, but the U.S., despite the mammoth checks it writes, can’t reform the U.N. alone. In the one-nation, one-vote world of the U.N., it needs support from other nations. Unfortunately, many of them remain blasé about U.N. budget increases, corruption, and inefficiencies because the financial impact on them is miniscule.

To change the institution, the first thing that needs to change is the thumb-on-the-scales system that makes the U.S. the biggest bill-payer, but just one of 193 voting members when it comes to demanding honesty, efficiency and effectiveness in return for its over-generous payments.

Congress and the Obama administration have both said they want the United Nations to be more transparent and accountable and to use its resources more effectively. To make that happen, major donors must have a greater say in budgetary decisions, and smaller donors must assume financial responsibilities that lead them to undertake budgetary decisions and conduct serious oversight.

Every three years the U.N. General Assembly approves adjustment to its scale of assessments: 2015 is one of those years. The U.S. should not let this opportunity slip away to get more for its money—and make other nations actually try to make the U.N. live up to the image that the organization likes to show the world.’

If you agree that the United Nations should have funding cut, you’re in luck. Here is the link to sign the petition.

Obama and DHS Fully Compromised our Security

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Getting into America just got easier….

Easier? Yes and while no one is talking about it but I got a tip from an insider. Did you hear the announcement by Jeh Johnson? This program already exists.

It might be a lot easier – and faster – for international travelers to fly into the United States soon.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Friday it will seek approval to put pre-clearance centers at 10 airports in nine foreign countries.

If negotiations are successful, those centers will allow travelers to go through U.S. Customs and Border Protection clearance before they get on their airplane headed to the United States. Once landed, they would not have to be rescreened.

Here’s what Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in the DHS announcement:

“A significant homeland security priority of mine is building more preclearance capacity at airports overseas. We have this now in 15 airports. I am pleased that we are seeking negotiations with 10 new airports in nine countries.

“I want to take every opportunity we have to push our homeland security out beyond our borders so that we are not defending the homeland from the one-yard line. Preclearance is a win-win for the traveling public. It provides aviation and homeland security, and it reduces wait times upon arrival at the busiest U.S. airports.”

The U.S. will enter talks with officials in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom in Europe, as well as Japan and the Dominican Republic.

The 10 airports would be Brussels Airport, Belgium; Punta Cana Airport, Dominican Republic; Narita International Airport, Japan; Amsterdam Airport Schipol, Netherlands; Oslo Airport, Norway; Madrid-Barajas Airport, Spain; Stockholm Arlanda Airport, Sweden; Istanbul Ataturk Airport, Turkey; and London Heathrow Airport and Manchester Airport in the United Kingdom.

“These countries represent some of the busiest last points of departure to the United States – in 2014, nearly 20 million passengers traveled from these ten airports to the U.S.,” DHS said.

For travelers to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the pre-clearance would be available on flights from London Heathrow (American Airlines and British Airways); Amsterdam (KLM Royal Dutch Airlines); Tokyo Narita (American); Madrid-Barajas (American); and Punta Cana (Sun Country Airlines).

Officials from trade group Airlines for American and from American and JetBlue Airways quickly praised the DHS effort.

“U.S. airlines drive $1.5 trillion in economic activity, and by improving the passenger experience for visitors or those returning to the United States, while improving security, we can build on that,” A4A President and chief executive Nick Calio said. “The addition of these pre-clearance airports will help increase safety and security while improving the passenger experience with shorter wait times and quicker connections on arrival in the U.S.”

“Expanding air preclearance is a tremendous step forward for improving the overall travel experience for our customers and welcoming more visitors to the United States,” AA chief operating officer Robert Isom said. “Preclearance eases the congestion at our U.S. gateway airports and ensures our customers get to their destinations faster.”

In addition to the three airports served by American from its D/FW hub, the pre-clearance centers would go to four other airports served by American out of other U.S. airports – Manchester, Amsterdam, Punta Cana and Brussels.

JetBlue passengers would benefit from the Punta Cana pre-clearance center.

“We believe that in addition to the need for an increase in CBP staffing at key U.S. gateway airports, more preclearance facilities like the ones being proposed around the globe are an important tool to enhance our nation’s security and reduce the number of travelers clearing Customs stateside — and that ultimately reduces wait times for travelers on all airlines,” JetBlue president and CEO Robin Hayes said.

United also thanked DHS for the proposal.

“We have worked closely with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and support developments that provide more convenience for our customers,” the carrier said in a statement. “We thank Secretary Johnson and his team at the Department of Homeland Security and CBP for their engagement with United and the airline industry, and we look forward to partnering with them on this initiative to facilitate travel and reduce wait times.”

U.S. Travel Association president Roger Dow issued this statement:

“When the experience for the international traveler improves, the U.S. economy improves, and again this administration deserves praise for pressing ahead with innovative policies that simultaneously bolster national security and streamline the customs entry process.

“Customs preclearance is a program that has proven itself effective, and extending it to these key travel markets will undoubtedly boost visitation. As a bonus, adding preclearance facilities will further relieve pressure on the customs entry process here on our shores, improving the system generally.

“Evolving policies such as these are a big reason why we surpassed a record 74 million international visitors to the U.S. last year, and are well on pace to reach 100 million visitors annually by 2021. With overseas visitors spending an average of $4,300 per person, per trip, that’s just good economic sense.”

Customs and Border Protection currently staffs 15 centers in six countries: Dublin and Shannon in Ireland; Aruba; Freeport and Nassau in the Bahamas; Bermuda; Calgary, Toronto, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver and Winnipeg in Canada; and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

This is a ‘preclearance system’.  Please read the full description here.

In 2013, there was a Customs and Border Patrol hearing on this matter in the House of Representatives. Essentially, we cant control security within our borders now we are extending them globally and relying on foreign governments and security services? That did not work out at all in Benghazi. Here is the testimony and it is a must read.

 

 

Listen and Read How Wrong Obama is on Iran

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Even the Russians did not lie as badly as the Iranians have and Kerry at the behest of the White House is ignoring the historical lies.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) has sent a blistering letter to President Obama denouncing reported Iran concessions. It reads:

Dear Mr. President:

It is breathtaking to see how far from your original goals and statements the P5+1 have come during negotiations with Iran. Under your leadership, six of the world’s most important nations have allowed an isolated country with roguish policies to move from having its nuclear program dismantled to having its nuclear proliferation managed. Negotiators have moved from a 20-year agreement to what is in essence a 10-year agreement that allows Iran to simultaneously continue development of an advanced ballistic missile program and research and development of advanced centrifuges. This also will allow Iran’s economy to be restored with billions of dollars returned to its coffers, a development that administration officials concede will be used at some level to export terrorism in the region.

I am alarmed by recent reports that your team may be considering allowing the deal to erode even further. Only you and those at the table know whether there is any truth to these allegations, and I hope reports indicating potential concessions on inspections and on the full disclosure of Iran’s possible military dimensions (PMDs) are inaccurate.

Regarding inspections, surely your administration and those involved in the negotiations will adhere to an “anytime, anywhere” standard. No bureaucratic committees. No moving the ball. No sites off limits.

You have publicly acknowledged Iran’s long history of covert nuclear activity.  We all are aware of the importance of having a full understanding of Iran’s nuclear program, including PMDs of those activities as part of any agreement. Yet, recently I have heard of a potential cumbersome process where the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with no confirmation from Iran, will make PMD determinations about Iran’s nuclear program in order to protect Iran’s national pride, meaning Iran will not have to publicly admit to these activities. Today, the IAEA cannot get access to information Iran agreed to share pursuant to a 2013 agreement. By not requiring Iran to explicitly disclose their previous weaponization efforts on the front end of any final agreement, we will likely never know, in a timely fashion, the full extent of Iranian capabilities.

I understand the dynamics that can develop when a group believes they are close to a deal and how your aides may view this as a major legacy accomplishment. However, as you know, the stakes here are incredibly high and the security implications of these negotiations are difficult to overstate. As your team continues their work, if Iran tries to cross these few remaining red lines, I would urge you to please pause and consider rethinking the entire approach. Walking away from a bad deal at this point would take courage, but it would be the best thing for the United States, the region and the world.

One hopes that Corker’s colleagues are paying attention and that they are ready to prevent a catastrophic deal.