Sunday, Mike Turner (R-OH), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, criticized the Biden administration’s response to assaults against U.S. forces in the Middle East.
Turner uttered the statement during an interview with CBS News, where he was discussing the strikes initiated by the administration in response to the assassination of three U.S. personnel in an assault on a U.S. base in Jordan late last week.
“They’ve tolerated over 160 of these attacks.” Turner noted.
“They keep saying that they want to retaliate, but then they say it’s about deterrence, then they say it’s about diminishing capabilities. Those are all different goals and objectives. And they’re not doing any of those. We all know that this is just about Iran. These are all franchises of Iran. And the administration has no policy with respect to Iran, how to diminish their capability, diminish these attacks and diminish their nefarious activities in the Middle East.” he continued.
Turner refuted the assertions made by the administration that they would react in the event of an assault on American forces, stating unequivocally that such claims were “not true.”
According to Turner, the inadequate reactions of the administration to the attacks have effectively communicated to Iran that the United States is amenable to the attacks and, consequently, casualties.
“And the problem here is that the administration, back to goals and objectives, has no goal and objective,” he said. “Iran pays no price when militias are attacked; the militias don’t care. And when you diminish their capability for the moment that you’ve struck them, you haven’t diminished their overall capability, these attacks are still going to happen.” Turner said.
“The administration needs two things: a real plan with respect to Iran and countering Iran in the area. But secondly, diminishing capacity to stop these attacks. We can’t play defense forever. Our systems to protect our troops and our ships cannot continue to respond to these attacks with 100% success. Tolerating the attacks, tolerates casualties. We need to diminish their capability and we need to take this problem to Iran.” he concluded.
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