Secretary of State John Kerry can expect to be bitterly questioned by House Republicans next week about the U.S. asking foreign entities to lift charges on Iranians "who have American blood on their hands" in the nuclear deal, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said Saturday.
"In this terribly weak and dangerous deal, we are asking the U.N. and the European Community to lift sanctions against individuals who have American blood on their hands,"
the Florida Republican told Fox News. "That hasn't been talked about.
"It actually says, it spells out, individuals by name," she told host Uma Pemmaraju.
Kerry is to appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee next week. Ros-Lehtinen, who is in her second term, sits on the panel. She chaired the committee in the last Congress.
On Thursday,
Kerry came under tough scrutiny by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the deal — leading some senators to charge that the secretary had been "fleeced" and "bamboozled" by Tehran.
Ros-Lehtinen told Fox that one Iranian named in the deal was Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian army and commander of the Quds Force "who planned attacks against our U.S. servicemen and women in Iraq. He will be lifted of sanctions by the U.N. and the E.U. in our deal."
Another is Ahmad Vahidi, the former Iraqi defense minister who is wanted by Interpol for his alleged role in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Eighty-five people died in the blast.
"Why is it, in our deal, we have to call for other entities to lift sanctions against people who have nothing but hatred against freedom-loving individuals?" Ros-Lehtinen asked. "It makes no sense.
"This is a bad deal every way you look at it," she added. "The lifting of the sanctions. And we saw this play out with North Korea before. We've seen this movie before it ends with Iran being a nuclear power."
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