Rep. Vicky Hartzler Discusses the ObamaBomb Deal on SFR

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Frank Gaffney: A women who is very much in the front lines of the war of ideas at the moment in the United States Congress is our first guest. She is Representative Vicky Hartzler, she represents with great distinction the people of the 4^th District of Missouri. She was elected to the Congress in 2010; she is a Subcommittee Chairwoman in the House Armed Services Committee, with its Oversight and Investigations Subcommittees responsibilities. She also serves on that committee’s Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats, and Capabilities. In that regard I am particularly anxious to talk with you. Congressman welcome back good to have you with us.

Rep. Vicky Hartzler: Thank you Frank its great to be here.

FG: Speaking of emerging threats madam, we seem to be watching a kind of slow motion train wreck, or maybe even accelerating train wreck, with respect to this ObamaBomb deal as I call it. I know you’ve been very concerned about this and you’ve been talking to your constituents about why. Share with us a little bit of your thoughts if you would, both about the nuclear parts of this deal, and the possibility that with their $150 billion dollar windfall the Iranians may wind up with an awful lot bigger and more deadly conventional arsenal as well.

VH: Absolutely, there are many many reasons to oppose this bad deal. First and foremost, it does not stop Iran’s nuclear capability, and at the end of ten to fifteen years they will have all the infrastructures that they need, they’ll be able to continue to enrich with even higher ability centrifuges, they’ll have done research that we are mandated to help them with, and they’ll have money to do it, and so its very very concerning. We are actually taking away from (inaudible) to have a nuclear bomb. But as you mentioned, there are other concerns as well. Not only does it remove the economic sanctions and the personnel sanctions, that will infuse the country with up to a $150 billion dollars immediately, plus allow them to grow their economy with other nations. They will be able to use this to help shore up their proxies in the area, whether it be Hamas, or Hezbollah, or the Houthis, and continue their reign of terrorism in the Middle East. It also removes after five years, their ability to not buy arms and it will allow them to buy anything they want, from tanks, to bullets, to shoulder fired rockets, you name it, and after eight years they will once again have the ability to purchase ballistic missiles. And as Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said, “we don’t call them ICBMs for nothing, the I in ICBMs stands for inter-continental” and certainly when they have said multiple times they want death to American and death to Israel, why would we be enabling them to purchase these items? It is ludicrous.

FG: And one of the of the things that is particularly worrying to me as you may know Congressmen Vicky Hartzler, of Missouri, is that it may not be five to eight years before those embargos go over the side. It appears from the language of this agreement, that if the International Atomic Energy Agency issues a finding that there’s no active nuclear weapons program in Iran, they may get out of jail free right quick. So your concerns are especially warranted in light of that possibility. Let me ask you congresswoman, given everything that you’ve said, what do you make of the fact the Obama administrations is apparently now determined not to allow a vote to take place in the United States Senate on a resolution of disapproval. Apparently, they’ve concluded that if the President allows that to happen than has to veto the thing, that would be a problem for them I think properly, politically and diplomatically. But do you think this is advisable or even tolerable?

VH: It’s unconscionable, he agreed to this earlier and said “yes, I will allow a vote to be passed in Congress”, the bill that gives us, the direct representative of the people, the right to weigh in on this, and now at the last minute to say “no we’re going to block that”, is just the final straw that needs to just derail this entire thing, and it shows how poor this deal is. When the President doesn’t trust the ability of the people to vote on it. It’s just got to be stopped.

FG: I’m wondering how your constituents are responding as you go around your district talking about what’s going on here and the implications of it?

VH: Well they are just very very upset and almost totally unified, there are handfuls of people that believe that its good, but overall I would guess is eighty percent of my district, at least the people I’ve talked to in August, are opposed to it. They just shake their heads they cannot imagine why the leadership of our country would negotiate such as poor deal, that not only jeopardizes our country but our greatest allies in the Middle East.

FG: Well I commend you Congresswoman Hartzler for making this an educational moment for your constituents. I gather you have an hour-long presentation that you’re giving them, and I hope that your colleagues have been doing the same, if they do I think they’ll get the same kinds of response. Surprised to see that Senator McCaskill was one of those to use her colleagues, Senator Bob Menendez’ phrase, has decided to put “her name on the bomb” that Iran is going to be getting. I think that’s a terrible mistake and I hope she will reconsider. Congresswoman Hartzler, let me return to two other topics that I know your very engaged in quickly. One is the sequestration you understand particularly with your Subcommittee on Readiness Responsibilities, how dire the impact this has been on our nation’s military. Is it going to be over the side as a result of the National Defense Authorization Act or will the President veto that too?

VH: Well I certainly hope not, I was a member of the Armed Services Committee as well as the Budget Committee, and I fought very hard to try to get more funding for our defense this year to replace some of these cuts. We were able to secure $38 billion dollars and that gets up just back up to the “bare, ragged, lower edge of readiness” a quote from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, that we need this year, but we’ve got to reverse this sequestration. It is absolutely ludicrous that over this sequestration ten year period, we would be cutting one trillion dollars from our defense, at the same time that we have threats arising against us from all over the world almost on a daily basis and it’s awful.

FG: It is and I commend you for what you’re trying to do in different capacities and pray that you will succeed in at least for the United States military it’s clearly having a devastating effect. Congresswoman one of the other things you’ve been a leader on in your time in Congress is trying to preserve our ability to use the facility at Guantanamo Bay. To not only detain safely some of the most dangerous jihadists in the world, but also to conduct necessary interrogations of people in that facility. The President is apparently beavering ahead with his determination to close it, including bringing some number of the detainees to the United States. Give us a flavor of what the stakes are in this decision of his and what might be done to prevent it at this point.

VH: Well first of all, his actions are a violation of the law. If he tries to actually bring them here, because Congress has clearly spoken in the NDAA and in The Armed Services Committee, we have said and put language in there, that they cannot bring any detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United States. And it is not only a threat to Americans who may live in that area, to have terrorist housed here on our land, it also brings into question a lot of constitutional issues, and what rights do these prisoners would they potentially have when they get on our shores. You know I had the opportunity to lead a congressional delegation down to Guantanamo Bay a couple months ago as part of my duties as Chairwoman of the Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee, because we are completing this investigation of the swap for Sergeant Bergdahl with the five Taliban leaders. And I wanted to personally see what goes on down there, to tour the facilities, and to visit the men and women in uniform who carry out the difficult task of housing and securing them, and I was very very impressed with the operation our men and women in uniform are doing a very excellent job, and the facilities themselves are very appropriate for these terrorists. They are humanely treated, but they are kept secure on an island away from American citizens, and it’s the proper place to house these individuals. We don’t need to bring them here on our shore, and I’m going to continue to do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen.

FG: Bless you, well we look forward to working with you on that and so many of these other issues, Congresswomen Vicky Hartzler, we appreciate your leadership on all these fronts. Keep it up and come back to Washington tanned, rested, and ready as they say, because you’ll have your work cut out for you on the Iran deal among other things. In the meantime, I hope the rest of your district work period, I guess what it is called, is productive and you continue your pedagogy with your constituents. Thanks so much for joining us.