Top US lawmakers press Pompeo for answers on Iran arms control report
The chairmen of three congressional committees on national
security on Thursday pressed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to explain
whether a Trump administration arms control report was politicized and slanted
assessments about Iran.
The chairmen of Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and
Intelligence committees in the US House of Representatives - all Democrats -
asked Pompeo in a letter to provide a State Department briefing and documents
no later than May 23.
The letter cited a Reuters story from April 17 that reported
how the administration's annual report to Congress assessing compliance with arms
control agreements provoked a dispute with US intelligence agencies and some
State Department officials.
The dissenting officials, sources said, were concerned that
the document politicized and skewed assessments against Iran.
"Our nation knows all too well the perils of ignoring
and 'cherry-picking' intelligence in foreign policy and national security
decisions," the chairmen said in their letter. They referred to the
selective use of intelligence "to justify the march to war" in Iraq
in 2003.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Tensions have risen between the United States and Iran this
month following statements from Washington that the US military was braced
for "possibly imminent threats to US forces in Iraq" from
Iran-backed groups.
US President Donald Trump has told top advisers he does
not want to get the United States involved in a war with Iran, three US
officials said on Thursday.
The letter signed by Chairmen Eliot Engel of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, Adam Smith of Armed Services and Adam Schiff of
Intelligence also questioned why the unclassified report was only 12 pages
compared to 45 the previous year.
Trump has tightened economic sanctions on Iran and intensified
efforts to contain its power in the Middle East after withdrawing Washington a
year ago from a 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran, raising fears among
some in Congress about intelligence possibly being misused to lay the
groundwork to justify military action. Under the accord, Tehran curbed its
uranium enrichment capacity, a potential pathway to a nuclear bomb, and won
sanctions relief in return.
Trump is sending an aircraft carrier group, B-52 bombers and
Patriot missiles to the Middle East to counter what Washington has called a
heightened threat from Iran in the region.
Iran described the US moves as "psychological
warfare", and a British commander cast doubt on US military concerns
about threats to its roughly 5,000 soldiers in Iraq.