House Armed Services and iran

I have subscribed to the House Armed Services Committee releases, so as to understand where Gabby's Committee Chair stands on issues we care about. Today I have a post on Iran. Ike Skelton (chair) is no progressive, yet excerpts below at least make clear he favors engagement with Iran, that he distrusts publicized Bush intelligence estimates. Our strategy I think must be to get him (and Gabby as our rep on that committee) to act to pre-empt Bush invaion by expressly prohibiting him from proceeding without congressional approval. Bush is trying to provoke an incident so that he can attack while bypassing congressional war powers.


"Suggestions of Iranian involvement in providing weapons that kill or maim American troops are extremely serious and require careful Congressional scrutiny. We must do everything we can to ensure the safety of our forces serving in Iraq... Iran could instead play a much more productive role in Iraq by encouraging the political compromises necessary to achieve national reconciliation among the various ethnic and religious parties in Iraq...The reported capture and detention of hundreds of Al Qaeda operatives in Iran is also a significant development... Today's articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post demonstrate just how urgent it is that the United States adopts a strategy that extensively engages Iran on these and other issues, while making clear that any contributions to attacks on American forces is unacceptable.. Briefings delivered to the committee to date have not made clear the specificity or extent of the information that intelligence agencies have gathered... We will carefully review the material presented at the briefing I understand will be provided by the command of Multi-National Forces-Iraq in the near future. Congress will insist on looking at all of the evidence, as well as at what the administration has planned and what kinds of measures are required to address the situation."