By Sen. Ted Cruz-Tuesday, June 16, 2015
A little over a month ago, five Senate colleagues and I sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry requesting information about the ongoing delay of the annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. In recent days the State Department informed my office it has been unable to release the long-overdue annual report on Iran’s human rights abuses because of a scheduling conflict.
The State Department is required by law to release this report on February 25 of this year. On April 16, the department announced a further delay but gave no indication of when it might appear. Our letter requested the department release the report by May 15 or furnish a thorough explanation for the delay.
In a letter dated June 9, Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Julia Frifield responded that Secretary Kerry’s rigorous travel schedule caused the delay: “The Secretary’s participation in the rollout, even if it must be delayed by his travel, elevates the report. The Secretary has needed to travel abroad for extended periods, often on short notice, during the past three months to address a variety of pressing foreign policy concerns”—thus implying that the report is complete but that scheduling conflicts with more pressing matters have prevented its release.
With all due respect to Assistant Secretary Frifield and Secretary Kerry, this is unacceptable. The single greatest threat to the national security of the United States is a nuclear-armed Iran. If allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, there is a dangerously high chance that the Iranians would use them, or share them with their terrorist proxies who are currently on a violent rampage through the Middle East, from Gaza to Lebanon to Syria to Iraq to Yemen.
As my colleagues and I noted in our letter, the issue of Iran’s abysmal human rights record is inextricably intertwined with its nuclear ambitions. “The history of the twentieth century,” we wrote, “elucidates a dangerous axis between internal suppression of human rights and external aggression.” There is every reason to believe that the mullahs’ willingness to oppress their own people at home would extend to their perceived enemies around the globe, if they had the means to threaten them.
For this reason, Congress must have access to the most recent information our government has collected on Iran’s human rights violations. While many hoped that the election of the so-called moderate President Hassan Rouhani in 2013 would lead to an improvement in the regime’s behavior, the opposite has proven true.
Congress must have access to our State Department’s next official assessment before it can cast judgment on any deal the P5+1 might strike with Iran. If Iran’s already dismal human rights record has indeed continued to worsen over the last year, it would raise significant additional concerns about engaging in nuclear negotiations with this regime.
I appreciate Secretary Kerry’s enthusiasm for his job and the frequent overseas travel it entails, and hope for a quick recovery from the recent accident that has caused further strain on his calendar. But as the June 30th deadline looms, we cannot wait any longer. Anyone alarmed by Tehran’s brutal and aggressive conduct should take a keen interest in this report even if Secretary Kerry is unable to attend its release.
If, as Assistant Secretary Frifield suggests in her letter, the report is complete, it should be released immediately. If it is not immediately released, a full and thorough explanation for the delay must be forthcoming. For this reason, I intend to file legislation that will fine the State Department five percent of its operating budget for every 30 days the report is delayed. As inconvenient as this may be for the State Department, it must respect the law and Congress owes it to the American people to gather all relevant information before it casts what may well be the most significant vote of this legislative session.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) serves on the Committee on Armed Services and is a candidate for the Republican nomination for president.