KT McFarland offered a blunt appraisal Monday of Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim that the United States had never sought "anytime, anywhere" inspections of Iran’s suspected nuclear sites.
"It’s a lie," McFarland, a former State Department official for Ronald Reagan, said. "The reason anytime, anyplace inspections are crucial is because Iran in the past has cheated, so you really need ironclad inspections."
"You think he was lying?" Fox News host Bill Hemmer asked.
"I think he wants this deal so badly he’s willing to stretch the truth around this," McFarland responded.
Several of Kerry’s close confidants during the Iran negotiations, including Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, are on record earlier in the year assuring reporters that the United States would insist on "anytime, anywhere" inspections as part of any deal.
McFarland said the inspections process that the United States ultimately agreed to gives Iran the ability to stall inspectors for almost a month before they can visit a suspicious site.
"When the president said that we have 24-hour access to key nuclear installations, no you don’t—you have a 24-day period to request to look inside, and Iran has 24 days to say yes you can or no you can’t," McFarland said.
Observers have expressed grave concern about the complicated bureaucratic mechanism that the United States will have to fight through at the United Nations to gain approval for an IAEA inspection.
By the time inspectors reach a suspected site, they may find only "elaborate cleanup efforts" like those that have been found at Iran’s Parchin military complex during past inspections.