Iran will have no way to avoid inspections of military or other sites that the United States and its allies deem suspicious when a nuclear pact sealed this week goes into effect, U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice said on Wednesday. Rice, in an interview with Reuters, said the deal would not give Iran any room to oppose inspections if Washington or others had information believed to reveal a secret site that they took to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for review. "If the Iranians said, 'No, you can't see that site,' whether it's a military site or not, the IAEA, if it deems the site suspicious, can ask for access to it," she said. If Iran refuses access but five of the eight international signatories to the deal demand an investigation under a newly created joint commission, Iran must comply, she said. "It's not a request. It's a requirement," Rice said. Iran would be "bound to grant that access." Under the deal announced earlier this week, sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union and United Nations will be lifted in exchange for Iran agreeing to long-term curbs on its nuclear program, which the West and Israel have suspected was aimed at creating a nuclear bomb. As part of the deal, Iran will have a 24-day period in which it can address concerns over suspicious sites and agree to inspections. But the procedure does not explicitly force Iran to admit that its military sites could be open to foreign inspections, leaving some uncertainty over the access Iran will allow in practice. Critics of the deal, including Republicans and Israel's government, have said the agreement is full of loopholes, particularly when it comes to verification and Iran's "breakout" capability - the time it would take theoretically to develop a nuclear weapon. They have called the 24-day period an unacceptable loophole for Iran.
