Illegal Crime Incorporated, Texas

J. Christian Adams, formerly of the U.S. Department of Justice authored this piece on illegals committing crimes just in Texas as a result of a report received from  the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Illegal Alien Crime Wave in Texas: 611,234 Crimes, 2,993 Murders

PJM: The murder of Kathryn Steinle on the Embarcadero in San Francisco by an illegal alien is the most familiar example of a crime committed by an alien.  But an unreleased internal report by the Texas Department of Public Safety reveals that aliens have been involved in thousands of crimes in Texas alone, including nearly 3,000 homicides.

PJ Media obtained a never-before-released copy of a Texas DPS report on human smuggling containing the numbers of crimes committed by aliens in Texas.   According to the analysis conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety, foreign aliens committed 611,234 unique crimes in Texas from 2008 to 2014, including thousands of homicides and sexual assaults.

The report describes an alien crime wave of staggering proportions exacerbated by federal officials unwilling to enforce immigration laws.

The Texas DPS report says well over 100,000 individual criminal aliens have been booked into Texas jails:

From October 2008 to April 2014, Texas identified a total 177,588 unique criminal alien defendants booked into Texas county jails. These individuals have been identified through the Secure Communities initiative, in which Texas has participated since October 2008.

There are almost certainly more criminal aliens who haven’t been identified as aliens.  The 177,588 criminal aliens identified by Texas through the Secure Communities initiative only can tag criminal aliens who had already been fingerprinted.  Arrests of illegal aliens who have not been fingerprinted prior to arrest are not included in these arrests numbers derived from the Secure Communities initiative.

That means that the already stratospheric aggregate crime totals would be even higher if crimes by many illegal aliens who are not in the fingerprint database were included.

Confessed hammer killer Juan Francisco De Luna Vasquez

Confessed Texas killer Juan Vasquez

The Secure Communities initiative is an information-sharing program between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. Presumably, both departments would have data on the number of fingerprint searches conducted that revealed a criminal act involved an alien.

Texas has been ground zero in illegal alien crossings into the United States.  The Texas DPS report shows that in the Rio Grande Valley, 154,453 illegal aliens were apprehended in 2013.

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Total illegal alien apprehensions by sector. (Source: Texas DPS report).

Other Texas sectors saw approximately 86,000 illegal aliens apprehended.  All other sectors combined on the southern border only saw approximately 170,000 illegal alien apprehensions in the same time period.  The Obama administration releases a sizable portion of the illegal aliens captured.

The criminal aliens identified by the Texas Department of Public Safety have been responsible for the most heinous types of crimes — and in astonishing numbers. From the Texas DPS report:

A review of these 177,588 defendants shows that they are responsible for at least 611,234 individual criminal charges over their criminal careers, including 2,993 homicides and 7,695 sexual assaults.

One such murder was committed by Juan Francisco De Luna Vasquez. Vasquez confessed to killing his wife with a hammer in Laredo.

The increasing flood across the border combined with the existence of sanctuary cities bolstered by Obama administration policies allowing the release of the most violent criminal aliens has fueled these crimes.

(Source: Texas DPS)

“Other Than Mexican” apprehensions. Most are released. (Source: Texas DPS report)

The House Judiciary Committee has passed the Davis-Oliver Act, introduced (S.1640) in the Senate by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and in the House (H.R.1148) by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), which would address many of these issues.

Yesterday, Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) grilled Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldaña about the 104,000 criminals that ICE released in 2013, and the 68,000 criminals against whom ICE refused to start deportation proceedings.  Saldaña calls it “good news” that only 30,558 criminal aliens were released by ICE in 2014.

History Lesson, Important Today, Muslim Brotherhood in America

The violent and militant aggressions against the United States today has a cause and the same goes for the White House policy towards Islam, which is they are a designated and protected class.

It should also be noted that a petition was placed on the White House website last year to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terror organization, after the required number of signatures forcing the White House to respond, they did and said NO.

If there is any debate, simply go to the Barack Obama 2009 Cairo speech, found here. The speech is titled ‘New Beginning’ and was written by Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of the Cordova Initiative which was behind the plan to build the mosque at ground zero in New York, the site of the 9/11 bombing. Further, Cairo at the time was the known headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now for the history lesson.

You may download the .pdf of the Muslim Brotherhood memorandum here.

From the Center for Security Policy:

In August of 2004, an alert Maryland Transportation Authority Police officer observed a woman wearing traditional Islamic garb videotaping the support structures of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and conducted a traffic stop. The driver was Ismail Elbarasse and detained on an outstanding material witness warrant issued in Chicago in connection with fundraising for Hamas.

The FBI’s Washington Field Office subsequently executed a search warrant on Elbarasse’s residence in Annandale, Virginia. In the basement of his home, a hidden sub-basement was found; it revealed over 80 banker boxes of the archives of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America. One of the most important of these documents made public to date was entered into evidence during the Holy Land Foundation trial. It amounted to the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategic plan for the United States and was entitled, “An Explanatory Memorandum: On the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.”

The Explanatory Memorandum was written in 1991 by a member of the Board of Directors for the Muslim Brotherhood in North America and senior Hamas leader named Mohammed Akram. It had been approved by the Brotherhood’s Shura Council and Organizational Conference and was meant for internal review by the Brothers’ leadership in Egypt. It was certainly not intended for public consumption, particularly in the targeted society: the United States. For these reasons, the memo constitutes a Rosetta stone for the Muslim Brotherhood, its goals, modus operandi and infrastructure in America. It is arguably the single most important vehicle for understanding a secretive organization and should, therefore, be considered required reading for policy-makers and the public, alike.

Another extraordinarily important element of the Memorandum is its attachment. Under the heading “ A List of Our Organizations and Organizations of Our Friends,” Akram helpfully identified 29 groups as Muslim Brotherhood fronts. Many of them are even now, some twenty-two years later, still among the most prominent Muslim- American organizations in the United States.

Worryingly, the senior representatives of these groups are routinely identified by U.S. officials as “leaders” of the Muslim community in this country, to be treated as “partners” in “countering violent extremism” and other outreach initiatives. Obviously, this list suggests such treatment translates into vehicles for deep penetration of the American government and civil society.

We urge the readers of this pamphlet to share it with others— family members, friends, business associates and most especially those in a position to help adopt policies that will secure our country against the threat posed by shariah and its most effective and aggressive promoters, the Muslim Brotherhood.

More about the Explanatory Memorandum (from Shariah: The Threat to America):

The following Muslim Brotherhood document was entered into evidence in the U.S. v Holy Land Foundation trial, and is a primary source threat document that provides new insights into global jihad organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood. These documents (covered extensively in chapter four) define the structure and outline of domestic jihad threat entities, associated non-governmental organizations and potential terrorist or insurgent support systems. The Memorandum also describes aspects of the global jihad’s strategic information warfare campaign and indications of its structure, reach and activities. It met evidentiary standards to be admissible as evidence in a Federal Court of law .

In the original document, the first 16 pages are in the original Arabic and the second are English translations of the same. It is dated May 22, 1991 and titled “ An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America” (Memorandum). The document includes an Attachment 1 that contains “a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends.”

The Memorandum expressly recognizes the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) as the controlling element of these organizations and expressly identifies the Muslim Brotherhood as the leadership element in implementing the strategic goals. The Memorandum is reproduced here in its official Federal Court translation, as Government Exhibit 003-0085 3:04-CR-240-G in U.S. v Holy Land Foundation, et al. with punctuation, line spacing and spelling intact.

From the Explanatory Memorandum— the Muslim Brotherhood in America in its own words:

“The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

 

Iran Deal Described but Does it Match Iran’s Interpretation?

Below is a rather simple explanation of the Iran Deal, known as the JPOA. The details Kerry and Moniz along with the other members of the P5+1 demonstrates some real convoluted trigger points with regard to sanctions and inspections. However, of real importance is whether Iran’s own interpretation of the deal matches that on paper as the West works to sell it.

What is most chilling however, is that Ali Khamenei has pledged continued financial support for the Palestinians, Houthis, Assad’s regime and Hezbollah with his army the Quds Force.

THIS WILL TAKE LAWYERS, A TRUCK LOAD OF THEM TO UNWIND THE TEXT

Frankly, Congress ‘gets-it’ and they know full well Iran will cheat merely on the notion of translations and expectations.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blasted the US officials’ recent statements against Tehran after the country and the world powers reached a nuclear agreement in Vienna on July 14, calling on them to give up the bad habit of threatening Iran.
President Rouhani’s remarks came after US State Secretary John Kerry threatened to use military action against Tehran if it failed to respect a historic nuclear deal sealed on 14 July.

“The US should know that it has no other option but respecting Iran and showing modesty towards the country and saying the right thing,” President Rouhani said, addressing a large crowd of people in the Western city of Sanandaj on Sunday.

The Iranian president pointed to the Americans’ catch phrase “all options are on the table” used by the US officials, and called on “the US officials and statesmen to decide to make changes in their political room; the table they are talking about has broken legs.”

Details of the Iran deal on paper is likely not a reality for the Iran side of the table.

What the Iran deal means for blacklisted entities

Analysis from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Editor’s note: The above graphic provides a general overview of timelines for de-listing across various sanctions regimes. National authorities should be consulted for authoritative advice. ** Khatam al-Anbiya, a Revolutionary Guards-controlled construction conglomerate, and its subsidiaries. *** Farayand Technique, Kalaye Electric Company and Pars Trash, all involved in Iran’s centrifuge programme. **** Excludes Malek Ashtar, a military-run university, and the Revolutionary Guards-owned Imam Hossein University and Baghyatollah Medical Sciences University.

Over the past decade, a global patchwork of legal measures has been sewn together by various national authorities with the aim of constraining Iran’s nuclear program. This patchwork makes up the global sanctions regime that Iran has fought so hard to end.

Having been stitched together by dozens of governments, as well as the United Nations and European Union—and with only the loosest of plans to guide it—it’s a patchwork with plenty of knots. Now, with the agreement of the Iranian nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, we have been shown the plan the international community will use to try to untangle it.

At face value, the outline of the sanctions relief that the deal proposes is simple. Most sanctions against Iran will be lifted in exchange for Iran capping its nuclear progress and accepting additional verification measures. The UN Security Council will revoke all of its previous resolutions against Iran. The European Union (EU) will reduce most of its sanctions against Iran, over time. The United States will remove many of its. The free flow of everything from oil to gold to Iranian nuclear physics students will eventually be permitted, with some caveats.

But sanctions relief is easier said than done. It’s already hard to understand the intricacies of the major sanctions regimes that are in force across the globe, and the interplay between them—that’s why an entire industry of sanctions consultants and lawyers has appeared over the last decade, who promise to help governments and businesses navigate these treacherous legal waters.

The 159-page nuclear deal agreed to in Vienna will keep these lawyers in business a while yet. It contains more than 100 paragraphs detailing the type of sanctions relief that Iran will get, and another 20 or so paragraphs on when the various stages of sanctions relief will take effect. Read the agreement and you’ll find a tortuous interplay between these provisions that proves that while the agreement was conceived by diplomats and delivered by physicists, it was clearly vaccinated by lawyers, with some painful results.

This complexity has already led to minor scuffles breaking out: the United States has had to defend the deal on the grounds that some thought that Qasem Soleimani, the notorious Iranian general who leads the elite Qods Forces of the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, would be dropped from sanctions. (Soleimani is accused of helping to kill Americans in covert operations in Iraq.) Administration officials have been at pains to state that Soleimani will remain subject to a UN-mandated asset freeze for the next eight years, and that US Treasury and State Department sanctions on Soleimani won’t be removed.

The debate over Soleimani’s removal from different sanctions lists illuminates a broader point that is worth noting—the lack of consistency between the lists, maintained by various authorities, that record and punish those people and companies who have been involved in Iran’s proliferation activities. Analysts call these listings “designations.” People and companies are designated by the United Nations or other authorities as being guilty of having assisted in Iranian proliferation—and in turn, national authorities are expected to freeze their assets and deny them visas.

You might expect that these designation lists are all the same—but that’s by no means the case. The three major sanctions regimes against Iran’s nuclear and missile programs—those of the United Nations, United States, and the European Union—are frustratingly disjointed in this respect. The UN Security Council has designated about 40 people and 75 companies on grounds relating to Iranian proliferation. The EU has sanctioned almost 500 companies and more than 100 people, and designated many entities that the United Nations has not. The United States has designated hundreds of Iranian entities using several different legal rationales, making it a Sisyphean task to try to tally them all. Many US-listed entities match up with those sanctioned by the United Nations and the EU, but others have only been sanctioned by the United States. These inconsistencies are at the root of the nuclear deal’s somewhat convoluted provisions regarding sanctions relief.

The de-listing process explained. According to the terms of the deal and a Security Council resolution that accompanies it, designations will be rescinded in two stages.

On what is known as “Implementation Day,” when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) certifies that Iran has made certain promised modifications to its nuclear infrastructure, the United Nations will drop sanctions against the people and companies who have been designated in old Security Council resolutions on Iran—but under the terms of the new Security Council resolution, entities from Iran’s military and missile-development sectors will continue to be subjected to a UN-mandated asset freeze. Concurrently, the United States will de-list many of the Iranian entities on the Treasury and State Departments’ sanctions lists, although it will continue to prohibit Americans from doing business with most of them. And the EU will remove most of its designations, with the exception of those entities that the EU has judged to be core to Iran’s proliferation activities.

Eight years after the milestone of Implementation Day, or whenever the IAEA confirms that there is no undeclared nuclear material in Iran, “Transition Day” occurs. The United States will allow its citizens to conduct trade with previously-designated entities and will de-list an additional 43 entities (mostly people historically involved in covert procurement or nuclear weapons-related research); the UN’s asset freeze of the remaining designated entities will be terminated; and the EU will de-list the Iranian proliferators who didn’t gain relief on Implementation Day.

Importantly, other designations on Iran put in place by the EU and United States, unrelated to the nuclear issue, won’t be part of this process. President Obama has been at pains to stress that sanctions relating to Iran’s support for terrorism and for human rights violations will remain—this includes restrictions on dozens of Iranian entities, including Qasem Soleimani. Soleimani will also stay designated by the EU for his support to terrorism, along with nearly 90 other Iranians that the EU has accused of involvement in terrorism or human rights abuses.

For each sector of Iran’s economy and society that has previously been subjected to designations, there will be winners and losers in the de-listing process. Overall, the deal has clearly been designed to give early relief to Iran’s civilian industries and banks, while delaying or avoiding giving relief to the Revolutionary Guards and military. Here’s how it will function, sector by sector.

The shipping industry. Hundreds of Iranian shipping companies will be removed from what is effectively an EU and United States blacklist of the Iranian shipping industry. But those overseeing the sanctions process have tried to avoid giving the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to shipping entities that were involved in transferring arms to the Lebanese Shi’a group Hezbollah or are under the thumb of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, so a few shipping firms will remain designated. And because the United States wants to stagger the relief it provides Iran’s valuable oil industry, it will retain restrictions on Iran’s oil tanker fleet for longer than anyone else.

Civil aviation. Iran’s civil aviation sector has never been subject to as many designation measures as the shipping industry, which the UN Security Council had singled out as a particularly important channel for Iranian proliferation. So few Iranian airlines were ever designated by authorities outside the United States—and few will need to be de-listed. Certain carriers reportedly involved in weapons-smuggling to Syria and Hezbollah on behalf of the Revolutionary Guards and their Qods Force will remain subject to restrictions.

The oil and gas sector. Iran’s oil and gas sector is bound for substantial sanctions relief under the terms of the deal. Hundreds of US-designated oil and gas companies will be removed from the US Treasury’s Specially-Designated Nationals (SDN) list, although this de-listing is conditional: US persons and companies will still be prohibited from dealing with these firms. A small number of Revolutionary Guard-linked entities involved in the oil and gas sector will remain subject to certain designations.

Banks. Iran’s banks have faced some of the severest consequences from being designated under various sanctions regimes—particularly those enforced by the US Treasury, which have effectively cut off Iranian banks from the global financial system. While the United States will remove several Iranian banks from its designated list on Implementation Day, nearly all of them will remain off-limits to US persons and companies. The EU, by comparison, will de-list without any caveats most of those Iranian banks it previously sanctioned—including several banks like Bank Mellat, with whom the EU Council has fought long-running legal battles. A few banks with particularly strong ties to Iran’s proliferation activities or the Revolutionary Guards, such as Bank Sepah, will remain blacklisted for longer.

Iran’s civil nuclear agency. The deal will see the de-listing on Implementation Day of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Iran’s civil nuclear authority, which operates the controversial facilities at Natanz, Fordow and Arak. In a turn of events that would have been unforeseeable just a few years ago, Americans and American companies will be permitted to do business with the AEOI, re-opening trade channels that have been largely shut since the time of the Shah. (A couple of AEOI front companies that have caused particular consternation to the IAEA in the past will remain subject to UN-mandated asset freezes and EU sanctions until Transition Day).

Universities. Iran’s universities have largely escaped the perils of being blacklisted, despite being critical to Iran’s nuclear and missile development. On Transition Day, the EU will de-list two universities, Shahid Beheshti and Sharif University of Technology, which have reportedly been involved in nuclear weapon-related research and centrifuge-related research respectively. The military-run Malek Ashtar University will be de‑listed by the United Nations, but will remain subject to an UN-mandated asset freeze, and the United States will continue to blacklist a couple of the Revolutionary Guards’ military colleges.

Military, missile entities and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The de-listing process has clearly been designed to avoid delivering relief for as long as possible to Iran’s military and the Revolutionary Guards. Entities and personnel operating under their auspices who have previously been the subject to sanctions—including military commanders, major arms manufacturers, research and development organizations, and ballistic missile producers—will gain the least and latest sanctions relief of all the designated Iranian entities. All will need to wait until Transition Day or later before being de-listed.

Procurers and proliferators. A number of people and companies who have been busted for supplying goods to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs will also have to wait until Transition Day to be de-listed. These include Iranian firms that reportedly supplied electronic equipment to the Natanz centrifuge facility, and individual smugglers such as Hossein Tanideh, who sold specialized valves to Iran’s heavy water program until he was arrested by German police. A handful of procurement agents whom the United States has designated for supplying Iran’s UN‑prohibited programs will remain on the US-designated list, perhaps indefinitely.

Some of the deal’s few obvious mistakes—most likely slip-ups made during the late nights of the negotiation process—can be found in its treatment of a couple of well-known proliferators. Parviz Khaki, an alleged procurer for Iran’s nuclear program who died last July, will not be de-listed until the IAEA gives Iran a clean bill of health, perhaps in a decade’s time. Gerhard Wisser, a German who helped Pakistani nuclear proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan sell centrifuge technology to Libya but had nothing to do with Iran, will have to wait until then as well before being de-listed.

Looking forward. Complicated as this process will be, it’s only a small element of the overall sanctions relief plan. Sanctions measures restricting trade with various parts of Iran’s economy—such as restrictions on the export of oil, or provision of services to the oil and gas sector—will be relaxed according to other complicated sequencing laid out in the deal’s text. And there are unresolved questions as to how countries outside the EU and the United States will choose to implement sanctions relief measures: Will Canada, for example, which has made its skepticism about the nuclear deal clear, de-list the 600 or so Iranian entities that it has put its own voluntary sanctions on?

These questions will be answered in time. It’s quite possible that there will never be another sanctions regime as broad and far-reaching as the one that is about to be dismantled. Critics of the Iran nuclear deal will mourn its loss, and howl at perceived missteps in the process, such as the storm in a teacup over Qasem Soleimani. Yet the negotiators have done remarkably well in designing in under two weeks a mechanism that looks like it could successfully dismantle 10 years’ worth of aggregated complexity.

Abbas Araqchi, Man Behind the IAEA Side Deals with Iran

Araqchi is the top hidden negotiator for Iran’s Supreme leader when it comes to inspections, the IAEA and missiles.

From the Deputy Minister of Iran’s Foreign Affairs: Araqchi underscored that Iran attaches great importance to implementation of the nuclear agreement and the commitment of the other party to the deal.

Touching upon Iran`s relations with its neighboring countries, Azerbaijan in particular, in the post-sanctions era, Araqchi underscored that Iran wants to expand its economic cooperation with the international community.

Iran attaches due attention to expansion of relations with its neighboring countries, Azerbaijan, in particular, he said.

Araqchi said in Tehran on Wednesday that the S-300 air defense system is not subject to Security Council resolution.

Speaking in a press conference, he reiterated that the weapons that their sales to Iran would be subject to the restrictions are seven items and this would not include S-300.

Purchasing the S-300 air defense system is out of the jurisdiction of the Security Council`s recent resolution, he added.

Touching upon the wave of European officials trips to Iran, he said European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius are set to visit Iran next week.

Araqchi reiterated that the Vienna agreement has paved the way for economic cooperation of Iran with several countries that were deprived of fostering ties with Islamic Republic due to imposed sanctions.

Pointing to the continuation of trilateral relations between Iran, Russia and China, he stressed that Iran enjoys cordial, positive and constructive ties with Russia and China.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister said Wednesday that Iran`s policy on global hegemony has not changed.

***

From the Iran Project: Speaking to Al-Alam News Network, Araqchi said that access to Iran’s military sites has been divided into two areas – one area is about the issues related to the country’s past military activities, wrongly referred to Possible Military Dimensions (PMD), and the other is about Tehran’s future activities.

On Iran’s past military activities, Iran and the agency reached an agreement or roadmap on the day Iran deal was clinched in Vienna by Tehran and the six world powers, Araqchi said.

Araqchi said that there is no need for concern about solving the issues related to Tehran’s past nuclear activities. He said that Iran and the IAEA have agreed upon solving the issues.

To ensure the agency of the future of its nuclear activities, Iran has agreed to implement the Additional Protocol, Araqchi said.

He noted that the Additional Protocol is nothing beyond the international regulations and there is no need for concern in this regard.

The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah received his guarantee of financial support due to the Iran JPOA deal and is spiking the football.

Beirut:

“Did Iran sell its allies down the river during the nuclear talks? No, there was no bargaining” between Iran and the United States, he said in a speech broadcast on a large screen to supporters in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a party stronghold.

Supreme leader “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated Iran’s position on the resistance movements and its allies, and Hezbollah occupies a special place among them,” Nasrallah added.

“The United States remains the ‘Great Satan’, both before and after the nuclear accord” reached last week after tough negotiations between Iran and permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany.

On July 18, Khamenei warned that, despite the deal, Iran would continue its policy towards the “arrogant” United States and also its support for its friends in the region.

Founded in the 1980s by Iran’s Guardians of the Revolution and financed and armed by Tehran, Hezbollah has become a powerful armed party advocating armed struggle against Israel.

The party, which the United States classifies as a terrorist organisation, is also fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against rebels in Syria, itself an ally of Iran.

On Friday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem also said the nuclear deal would not affect Iranian support for the Damascus government.

 

 

Did Obama Miss that Ayatollah Tweet to Barack?

Iran’s supreme leader tweeted a graphic Saturday that appears to depict President Obama holding a gun to his head as Britain relaxed its travel advice to the nation, citing decreased hostility under the Iranian government.

“US president has said he could knock out Iran’s military. We welcome no war, nor do we initiate any war, but..” reads the caption above the tweet sent by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on @khamenei_ir, his English language account.

Khamenei’s account has not been verified by Twitter but is widely believed to be the supreme leader’s based on its content, which often rails against the United States and Israel. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also has an unverified Twitter account, @HassanRouhani.

The latest tweet on Khamenei’s account mirrors a similar one sent July 17 that didn’t contain an image, but said: “US pres. said he could knock out Iran’s army. Of course we neither welcome, nor begin war, but in case of war, US will leave it disgraced.”

That tweet came just three days after the United States and other world powers reached a historic agreement with Iran that called for limits on Tehran’s nuclear program in return for lifting economic sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.

Meanwhile, the British government eased its travel advice to Iran on Saturday, saying it no longer advises “against all but essential travel to the rest of Iran” and has “updated our advice to provide greater clarity on the risks that may affect British nationals traveling to Iran.”

The government still maintains its advice to avoid travel in some areas, particularly along Iran’s borders. “Our policy is to recommend against travel to an area when we judge that the risk is unacceptably high. We consider that continues to be the case for specific areas of Iran, notably along Iran’s borders with Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan,” British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said in a statement.

“But we believe that in other areas of Iran the risk to British nationals has changed, in part due to decreasing hostility under President Rouhani’s government,” he added.

***

Congress Alarmed by Iran Pact’s Secret Understandings

By &

As the White House campaign to persuade Congress about the wisdom of its Iran nuclear deal moves into its second week, important components of the complex agreement are emerging that will be shrouded from the public and in some cases from the U.S. government itself.

The existence of these secret clauses and interpretations could undermine the public’s trust in the Barack Obama administration’s presentations about the nuclear pact. Already Republicans and other critics of the deal have seized on the side agreements between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency as a weakness in the deal closed last week in Vienna.

The controversy began on Wednesday when Secretary of State John Kerry told House lawmakers behind closed doors that he neither possessed nor had read a copy of two secret side deals between the IAEA and Iran, according to Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee who was inside the session. Congress hasn’t seen those side agreements either.

“Kerry told me directly that he has not read the secret side deals,” Pompeo told us in an interview. “He told us the State Department does not have possession of these documents.”

In other cases, secret understandings were provided to legislators. Congress on Monday was given a set of non-public interpretations of the Iran deal, according to House and Senate staffers who have seen the documents. These were part of 18 documents the White House provided to Congress as required under legislation passed this spring that gives Congress 60 days to review the Iran deal.

Of the 18 documents, six are classified or confidential, the staffers told us. These include secret letters of understanding between the U.S. and France, Germany and the U.K. that spell out some of the more ambiguous parts of the agreement, and classified explanations of the Iran deal’s provisions that commit other countries to provide Iran with research and development assistance on its nuclear program. There is also a draft of the U.S. statement to be made public on the day the Iran agreement formally goes into effect.

Those are the secret understandings Congress and the administration have put on paper. But in the case of the side agreements with the IAEA, Congress and the executive branch may not have all the facts. In Wednesday’s closed session, Kerry sparred with Pompeo, who last weekend traveled with Republican Senator Tom Cotton to Vienna last weekend to meet with IAEA officials. Those agency representatives told the lawmakers the that two secret side deals covered how the IAEA would be able to inspect the Parchin military complex and how the IAEA and Iran would resolve concerns about the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program.

The briefing for lawmakers was classified, but the Kerry-Pompeo exchange was not. Pompeo pressed Kerry on the details of the side agreements between the IAEA and Iran. Kerry acknowledged he didn’t know all of the specifics.

A statement distributed by the State Department on Wednesday disputed the characterization that the agreements between Iran and the IAEA were “secret.” Instead, it described them as “technical arrangements” and said U.S. experts were “comfortable with the contents,” which the State Department would brief to Congress if asked.

“It is standard practice for the IAEA and member states to treat bilateral documents as ‘safeguards confidential,'” the State Department statement said. “This is a principal the United States has championed throughout the IAEA’s existence to protect both proprietary and proliferation sensitive information. We must be able to ensure that information given to the IAEA does not leak out and become a how to guide for producing nuclear materials that can be used in nuclear weapons, and that countries know their patented or proprietary information won’t be stolen because they are released in IAEA documents.”

But while these agreements may be standard operating procedure in the case of other IAEA nuclear inspections, with Iran it’s potentially more serious. On Thursday, during an open session before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Senator James Risch said his understanding was that one of the IAEA-Iran side agreements would allow Iran to take its own environmental samples at Parchin. Speaking around the specifics, Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the committee, compared this arrangement to the NFL allowing athletes suspected of taking steroids to mail in their own urine samples.

Kerry and others have told Congress that the agreement about Parchin and the understandings about IAEA inspections in general are largely technical and do not weaken a strong agreement. Needless to say, Pompeo disagrees. “Kerry gave no indications they are seeking these documents and there is no indication he is the least bit worried he doesn’t have access to this. The Ayatollah knows what’s in the deal but we don’t,” he told us, referring to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

For the Obama administration, not having copies of the side agreements between Iran and the IAEA is convenient. The law requires it to give Congress all the documents it possesses and only those documents. If the side agreements are outside the reach of Kerry, they are outside the reach of Congress and the American people.

On the other hand, that fact undermines Obama’s argument that the overall deal can be verified and is transparent. Already Iranian leaders have publicly spoken about the Iran deal in terms vastly different from their American counterparts. The existence of secret understandings of that deal will only exacerbate this tension over time.