Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) raised the alarm about the possibility of U.S. troop deployment to Iran after Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed the Senate on the state of the conflict in the Middle East.
“I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground and that troops from the United States may be necessary to accomplish objectives that the administration seems to have,” Blumenthal told reporters after the briefing.
Rubio, War Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine briefed senators on Tuesday about the conflict that started in the early hours Saturday morning when the U.S. and Israel launched preemptive airstrikes on Iran and eliminated much of its leadership, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran has launched several retaliatory strikes on Israel and on U.S. facilities in the region that have killed six U.S. service members.
“I also am no more clear on what the priorities are going to be of the administration going forward, whether it is destroying the nuclear capacity of Iran or simply the missiles or regime change or stopping terrorist activities,” Blumenthal said.
Rubio told reporters yesterday that “Right now we’re not postured for ground forces” but left the option open.
“The president always has the options to undertake whatever operations he decides to do as the commander in chief,” Rubio said. “That said, we believe the objective that we have set for this mission, which is the destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities, both launch capability and manufacturing, can be achieved without ground forces.”
President Donald Trump also did not rule out deploying ground troops in the Iran conflict in a Monday interview with the New York Post.
“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump told the outlet. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”
Rubio, Hegseth, Ratcliffe, and Caine are briefing the House on Tuesday evening following their Senate briefing. The briefings come as U.S. citizens continue to evacuate from the Middle East to avoid the threat of Iranian strikes in the region.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called the administration’s answers “very unsatisfying” and raised concerns about the possibility of “mission creep” and “endless war.”
STATE DEPARTMENT DEPLOYING MILITARY AIRCRAFT TO EVACUATE US CITIZENS FROM MIDDLE EAST
“No one wants an endless war, but we certainly don’t want a nuclear Iran,” Schumer said after the Tuesday briefing.
The State Department announced it has safely evacuated over 9,000 U.S. citizens from the region. The department said it is chartering government flights from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, while commercial flights are still available for people in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, and Egypt.
