Mattis breaks with Trump, says Iran nuclear deal includes ‘robust’ verification

[TomSea]

Mattis breaks with Trump, says Iran nuclear deal includes ‘robust’ verification
The Associated Press Apr 26, 2018 8:14 PM

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Thursday emphasized the value of certain aspects of the Iran nuclear agreement, even as President Donald Trump considers pulling out of the 2015 deal, which he has attacked repeatedly and this week called “insane.”

Without explicitly giving his opinion about whether the United States should stick with the agreement, Mattis said that after reading the full text of the deal three times, he was struck by provisions that allow for international verification of Iran’s compliance. He said that since becoming defense secretary in January 2017, he also has read what he called a classified protocol in the agreement.

“I will say it is written almost with an assumption that Iran would try to cheat,” he said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “So the verification, what is in there, is actually pretty robust as far as our intrusive ability to get in” with representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency to check on compliance.

Read more at: https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/iran/mattis-says-iran-nuclear-deal-includes-robust-verification-1.6032581