House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH) blasted the Biden administration over the weekend for its weakness toward Iran, warning that the administration was emboldening and empowering Iran’s terror throughout the Middle East.
Turner made the remarks during a Sunday interview on NBC News’s “Meet The Press” while talking about Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel Saturday night, which included 185 one-way suicide drones, 110 surface-to-surface missiles, and 36 cruise missiles.
“Unfortunately, the Biden Administration’s view is that if you use missile defense, an attack didn’t happen,” he said. “That’s the way they reacted to the over 100 attacks that have occurred on U.S. troops from terrorist groups and organizations in Iraq and Syria, resulting in three deaths of American troops in Jordan, all by – by Iranian-backed groups and organizations. I think the administration needs to take seriously that this attack has happened. It’s unprecedented. And certainly, it needs to be viewed as an escalation. This is an escalating conflict.”
Welker repeatedly interrupted throughout the interview to defend the Biden administration and claimed that it carried out “more than 100” counterattacks on Iranian proxies throughout the Middle East.
“That’s not necessarily true,” Turner fired back. “So they – what the Biden Administration said is, if there are deaths, if American troops are hit, they’re going to respond. Over 100 attacks on American troops, they did not respond.”
“Israel has been under attack – under attack by Iran, for decades,” he said. “They fund and train Hezbollah. They fund and train Hamas, Hamas which undertook the October 7th attacks into Israel that were just, you know, vicious in a number of deaths in the manner in which it was executed, all as a result of they were trained, funded, and given weapons by Iran. So this has already been an ongoing conflict, where Israel understands that they have been under siege and under attack by Iran. It’s the first time, though, that they have attacked directly from Iran. And certainly, this is an escalation.”
“It is already escalating and the administration needs to respond,” Turner said. “Over 300 weapons were shot from Iran at Israel. This is an escalating conflict. The administration – because we were successful, because we invested in missile-defense technology with Israel, the administration is acting like, ‘Well, you know, done. We defended Israel against these attacks. This is not escalating.’ This is escalating.”
Turner said what the Biden administration needed to understand was that Iran has “already taken the next step” and if there is no response then that will be giving them “a free pass” which will lead to more attacks.
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