We Send the Brightest to Capitol Hill

              Beleaguered
Testifying before the House of Representatives in late July on the impending Iran deal, Secretary of State John Kerry was quizzed by Texas Republican Mike McCaul, who is chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security. It went like so:

McCaul: This secret deal between the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] and Iran...

Kerry: There is no secret...

McCaul: We've never seen this. Are you going to present that to the Congress?

Kerry: There's no secret deal. There's an agreement which is the normal process of the IAEA where they negotiate a confidential agreement as they do with all countries between them and the country — and that exists. We have been briefed on it...

McCaul: Are you going to present that to the Congress, sir?

Kerry: We don't have it. It is not in our possession. We have been briefed on it. I have not personally seen it.

Andrea Mitchell later interviewed McCaul on her news program:

McCaul: These side deals...When I asked if he's going to present that to the Congress, I didn't get an adequate response to it, and I also asked him if he's actually seen these agreements, these secret deals that were done, and his response was he's been briefed but has not seen them, so this goes to the verification process itself...in terms of how can the IAEA adequately verify that Iran is not cheating?

Mitchell explained how it's done, as Kerry had, yet McCaul, although chairman of the key committee, was unaware of the IAEA's workings, the agency that monitors nuclear non-proliferation, and was seemingly incapable of grasping what it's all about, continuing with, "If we're going to hide secret deals from Congress..."