Early last week, President Trump sent his Saudi nuclear cooperative agreement to Capitol Hill. The agreement will come into force by year’s end unless Congress opposes or amends it. Here’s the rub, though: it’s unclear if Congress has received all that the Administration agreed to with the Kingdom. Worse, the Energy Department has yet to publicly release what it sent the Hill.
With every previous U.S. nuclear cooperative agreement, the Executive has always made the text and any side agreements, appendices, agreed minutes, or side letters public.
As four other former senior national security officials and I wrote last Friday to Energy Secretary Chris Wright (see letter text below), such transparency has been the rule for the simplest of reasons: It’s the surest way to assure a proper review of the agreement.
This written request to make these documents available included Eric Edelman, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (Bush II); Robert Einhorn, Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation (Clinton); Robert Joseph, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security (Bush II); and Gary Samore, White House Coordinator for Arms Control and WMD (Obama).
As always, I am curious to get your take on the attached.
As Ever,
Henry S.
Department of Energy
1000 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20585
Dear Secretary Wright,
We, the undersigned former nonproliferation and security officials, are writing to request that the text and side letters of the U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperative agreement be made available to the public just as every other previous U.S. nuclear cooperative agreement has. There are news reports that these critical documents are being kept from the public and that the side letters may have been submitted to Congress as classified information because of their “sensitivity.” If true, it is unprecedented and makes no sense.The whole point of sharing the text and side agreements of any U.S. civilian nuclear cooperative agreement with Congress is so it can review the merits of the agreement and secure the opinions not just of the government officials that negotiated them, but of outside experts whose job security does not depend on their support of what their Executive Branch employer has negotiated.Keeping these documents from the public also raises a fundamental question: If the agreement and supporting side letters were negotiated to promote a peaceful, safe, nuclear exchange, what is it that the Energy Department or the administration has to hide? The only appropriate answer should be nothing and that if these documents are not made public, something must be wrong. The easiest way to dispel such suspicion is to release these documents to the public.
We are sharing this letter with the House and Senate foreign affairs committees so that they might reconsider the suitability of holding the required hearings to review the agreement unless and until these documents are made public.
Not all of us have the same view as to how desirable securing nuclear cooperation with the Kingdom might be, but all of us believe keeping the texts of the agreement and its side letters from the public is not in the interest of the American public or its security.
We support the powers of the Executive but also the requirement of proper Congressional review and of public transparency.
Respectfully,
Eric Edelman, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, George W. Bush Administration
Robert Einhorn, former Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation, Clinton Administration
Robert G. Joesph, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, George W. Bush Administration
Gary Samore, White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Barack Obama Administration
Henry Sokolski, Defense Department Deputy for Nonproliferation, George H.W. Bush Administration
CC: Senator James Risch, SFRC; Senator Jeanne Shaheen, SFRC; Congressman Brian Mast, HFAC; and Congressman Gregory Meeks, HFAC
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