Trump officials say U.S. actions to deter attacks

Team’s update on Iran draws some lawmakers’ skepticism

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan (left), with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said Tuesday that “repositioning of assets” had deterred attacks.
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan (left), with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said Tuesday that “repositioning of assets” had deterred attacks.

WASHINGTON -- Tamping down talk of war, top administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that recent actions by the U.S. deterred attacks on American forces. But some lawmakers remained skeptical of the White House approach in the Middle East.

After a day of private briefings on Capitol Hill, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said their objective over recent days has been to deter Iran. Now they want to prevent further escalation, Shanahan said.

"We're not about going to war," Shanahan told reporters.

"Our biggest focus at this point is to prevent Iranian miscalculation," said Shanahan, flanked by Pompeo, after back-to-back briefings for the House and Senate. "We do not want the situation to escalate."

The officials arrived on Capitol Hill as questions mounted over President Donald Trump's tough talk on Iran and sudden policy shifts in the region. Skeptical Democrats sought out a second opinion, holding their own private briefing with former CIA Director John Brennan and Wendy Sherman, an architect of the Iran nuclear deal.

The competing sessions Tuesday came after weeks of escalating tensions that raised alarms over a possible military confrontation with Iran.

Trump threatened Monday to meet provocations by Iran with "great force," but he also said he's willing to negotiate.

The results of the meetings Tuesday were mixed, with views settling largely along partisan lines.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said the action taken by the Trump administration "is totally appropriate" and sends a message that "if you attack our people, there will be a response."

Romney characterized it as defensive in nature and meant to deter Iran from "malign" actions.

Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, a veteran of the Iraq War, left the classified House briefing, saying: "What I heard in there makes it clear that this administration feels that they do not have to come back and talk to Congress in regards to any action they do in Iran."

Democrats are particularly concerned the Trump administration may try to rely on nearly 20-year-old war authorizations rather than seek fresh approval from Congress for any action.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said he told Pompeo and the others their consultation with Congress has been "inadequate." Shananan said he and the others heard that message and vowed to better communicate with lawmakers and the public.

In recent weeks, the U.S. sent an aircraft carrier strike group, four bomber aircraft and other assets to the region, and is moving a Patriot missile battery to an undisclosed country in the area. The Trump administration has evacuated nonessential personnel from Iraq, after unspecified threats the administration says are linked to Iran.

Shanahan said the recent U.S. actions in the region were based on "credible threats" to U.S. forces and interests in the Middle East.

"We have deterred attacks based on our repositioning of assets, deterred attacks against American forces," he said.

Pompeo said he tried to put the Iran situation in the country's 40-year history of "malign" actions.

Democratic Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he interjected at one point during the briefing: "We know Iran is bad, OK? What is the policy going forward? There wasn't enough information on that."

Smith said Pompeo was asked why it took so long to brief Congress. The congressman said the secretary's answer was, "We were busy." He said it was not an acceptable answer.

Earlier, Brennan told House Democrats that while Tehran wants to avoid conflict, the country's leadership will not capitulate to Trump. Sherman warned that reckless behavior by the Trump administration in Iran is hurting the U.S.'s credibility and undermining moderates in the country. Their comments were conveyed by a person in the room who was not authorized to discuss the private meeting by name.

Top Democrats say Trump escalated problems by abruptly withdrawing the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal, a complex accord negotiated during President Barack Obama's administration to prevent Iran from nuclear weapons production.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said, "What I'm interested in more right now is what the administration's strategy is -- if they have one -- to keep us out of war."

Republicans and Trump's allies in Congress said the threats from Iran are real. GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the Republicans who had been complaining vocally last week about the administration leaving Congress in the dark on its Iran plans, has now joined senators such as Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who in the past several days have been making the case that if Tehran militarily targets the United States or its allies, a war is justified and easily winnable.

Graham warned the administration not to shy from using force.

"If one American is injured or killed by actions coming from Iran, directly or indirectly, at the direction of the Iranian government, and you don't respond, you will be up here explaining why you let those Americans get hurt and did nothing about it," he said.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sees the administration's show of force as a legitimate deterrence.

"This is not an escalation," Rubio said, arguing that the United States had "an affirmative responsibility to have military assets in the region prepared to defend" Americans deployed there, making the Trump administration's moves "not an escalation. That's a response."

IRAQ OFFERS HAND

On Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said Baghdad will send delegations to the U.S. and Iran to help end tensions between the two countries, adding that Iraq is neutral in the conflict.

Abdul-Mahdi, whose country has close ties to both Iran and the U.S., said that Iranian and U.S. officials have informed Iraq that they have "no desire in fighting a war."

After America's 2003 invasion of Iraq to oust dictator Saddam Hussein, American troops and Iranian-backed militiamen fought pitched battles around the country, and scores of U.S. troops were killed or wounded by Iranian-made weapons.

Abdul-Mahdi said Iraq is "playing a role to calm the situation but it is not a mediation." He said he will visit Kuwait today to discuss regional issues.

Separately, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his government needs more powers to push back against an "economic war" being waged by the U.S., signaling the country is bracing for a prolonged period of turmoil.

During Iran's eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, a supreme council was set up and "held all powers, and even the parliament and the judiciary did not intervene," Rouhani told a gathering of clerics Tuesday. The conflict, initiated by Iraq and referred to by Iran as the "imposed war," killed 1 million people on both sides.

Today Iran "is in a state of economic war" and "we need the same type of power," Rouhani said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency, referring to U.S. sanctions directed against the country's vital oil industry and other targets.

The U.S. has requested talks with Iran on several occasions, but Rouhani said that while he advocates diplomacy, current conditions call for "resistance," not negotiations.

The U.S. military appears to have concluded that Iran was behind the reported attack May 12 on four commercial vessels off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. A U.S. official said Monday that an investigation of the attack was finished and evidence still pointed at Iran, although the official did not provide details. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and so spoke on condition of anonymity.

On Sunday, a rocket landed near the U.S. Embassy in the Green Zone of Iraq's capital, Baghdad, days after nonessential U.S. personnel were ordered to evacuate from diplomatic posts in the country. No injuries were reported.

Defense officials said no additional Iranian threats or incidents had emerged in the days since the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group arrived in the Arabian Sea late last week.

Iran, meanwhile, announced that it has quadrupled its uranium-enrichment production capacity. Officials said it remains set to the limits of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, making it usable for a power plant but far below what's needed for an atomic weapon.

Tehran long has insisted it does not seek nuclear weapons, though the West fears its program could allow it to build them.

Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Mascaro, Susannah George, Robert Burns, Lolita Baldor, Matthew Daly and Qassim Abdul-Zahra of The Associated Press; by Ladane Nasseri of Bloomberg News; and by Karoun Demirjian, Shane Harris, Carol Morello and Karen DeYoung of The Washington Post.

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AP/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE

Former CIA Director John Brennan and Wendy Sherman, who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, arrive Tuesday on Capitol Hill for a private briefing on Iran with Democrats.

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AP/U.S. Navy/LT. LOGAN HOLSHEY

Two U.S. Navy F/A-18E fighters fly alongside a pair of AV-8B Harriers over the Arabian Sea on Saturday in this photo made available by the Navy. The aircraft are part of a beefed-up U.S. presence in the region in response to what officials say are “credible threats” from Iran.

A Section on 05/22/2019

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