Senator Gives Dark Warning About Trump’s War After Secret Briefing
The White House still refuses to rule out a major escalation in the Middle East conflict.
A Democratic senator said a closed-door briefing with military brass on Tuesday left him concerned about a potential escalation in President Donald Trump’s war on Iran.
Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, 80, said the bipartisan Iran briefing for the Senate Armed Services Committee left him with more questions than answers as the White House refuses to rule out the possibility of American boots on the ground.
“I emerge from this briefing as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any past briefing in my 15 years in the Senate,” he told reporters. “I am left with more questions than answers, especially about the cost of the war.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal told reporters he was unsettled by a Tuesday briefing on the Iran war.
REUTERS
“I guess I am most concerned about the threat to American lives of potentially deploying our sons and daughters on the ground in Iran,” he continued. “We seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran to accomplish any of the potential objectives here.”
Nevada Democrat Jacky Rosen similarly said that what she heard in the briefing was “not just concerning—it is disturbing.”
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“I’m not sure what the endgame is or what their plans are,” she said. “And if he does want to put us in a forever war, which it seems like he does, he needs to come out and let us be able to have that discussion.”
The White House waved off the Democrats’ concerns while refusing to take troop deployment off the table.
“I would say that Democrats on Capitol Hill are being quite disingenuous,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing. “As for boots on the ground, the president has talked about this repeatedly. Wisely, he does not rule options out as commander-in-chief, so again, I would hesitate to confirm anything that a Democrat on Capitol Hill says right now about the president’s thinking.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the Pentagon said 140 U.S. service members have been wounded in the first 10 days of the war, that is in addition to the seven service members who have been killed.
Concerns about Trump potentially deploying American troops to Iran have been mounting steadily since the U.S. joined Israel in waging war on the Islamic Republic. Last week, insiders told NBC News that the 79-year-old commander in chief has privately expressed a serious interest in putting American boots on the ground.
The U.S. has not had a military draft since the Vietnam War, though men aged 18 to 25 are mandated to register with the Selective Service System, a federal agency that maintains a database for potential military conscription.
On Sunday, Leavitt told Fox News that it was “not part of the current plan right now, but the president, again, wisely keeps his options on the table.”
Meanwhile, a Republican senator who attended the Iran briefing did not appear to be as concerned about the deployment of U.S. troops as his Democratic counterparts.
“Richard Blumenthal is my friend,” Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy told reporters. “He needs to back off the crank. That’s not going to happen.”
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