Senate lawmakers fret over war aims after classified Iran briefing

WASHINGTON (CN) — As they emerged from a classified briefing with top White House officials Tuesday afternoon, Senate lawmakers worried the Trump administration’s aims in its escalating war against Iran were evolving and that it could leave the country in open-ended hostilities.

Concerns about the length and scope of the Iran conflict came from both Republican and Democratic senators leaving the closed-doors meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And at least one lawmaker said he walked out of the briefing sure that more American service members would be killed.

Members of Congress are deciding how to respond after President Donald Trump ordered a major bombing campaign in Iran over the weekend, which the White House has said is aimed at razing Tehran’s missile infrastructure, bombmaking facilities and nuclear capabilities. The strikes, carried out in part with Israel, have killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other senior regime figures.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate are both pushing measures under the War Powers Resolution that would block Trump from continuing hostilities. And amid the legislative reaction, Rubio and other administration officials have traveled to Capitol Hill to brief members of Congress on the conflict.

Rubio’s meeting with senators was his second appearance at the Capitol — he and CIA director John Ratcliffe also spoke to lawmakers Monday evening.

Some senators leaving the second Rubio briefing seemed satisfied with the administration’s action to strike Iran and kill its leadership.

“This was a threat that no other president was willing to stand up against and eliminate like President Trump did,” Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin told reporters. He later said he felt the White House’s objectives in the war were “pretty laid out.”

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who has long urged for U.S. intervention in Iran, pushed back on claims the Trump administration should have articulated an imminent threat as justification for military action.

“The idea of imminent threat to me is an odd thing,” said Graham. “Who wants to let a homicidal maniac be able to get to the imminent stage of hurting you? If somebody is threatening my family, wants to rape your wife and burn down your house and kill your children, I don’t want to wait until they get to the gun store and the gas station.”

The Republican added the Iranian regime had been “dedicated to chaos” since the 1979 revolution which installed the Islamic Republic leadership. “They mean it when they say ‘death to America,’” Graham said. “I’m glad we didn’t let it go further.”

But other lawmakers emerged from Rubio’s briefing Tuesday afternoon exhibiting less confidence in the administration’s strategy.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy told reporters the White House appeared to have accepted the possibility that “hardline elements” could assume control of Iran after Khamenei’s death, contending that the administration planned to “permanently” conduct air operations aimed at destroying Tehran’s military manufacturing and nuclear infrastructure.

“I’m more convinced now that this is going to be open-ended and forever,” said Murphy, who worried that Trump’s war in Iran would make other U.S. interventions such as former President Barack Obama’s bombing campaign in Libya look like “child’s play.”

“They told us in that room that there are more Americans that are going to die,” the Democrat said.

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, told reporters following the classified briefing that he thought the White House’s operation in Iran was “quite large” and “very open-ended.” He said this main takeaways were that Trump’s goals in the conflict were rapidly evolving. “The aims are very ambitious,” he opined.

Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said leaving the meeting with Rubio that the administration did not appear to have fully ruled out U.S. boots on the ground in Iran.

Speaking to reporters ahead of Tuesday’s briefing, the secretary of state said the U.S. military plans to step up the “scope and intensity” of its airstrikes against targets inside Iran. And he appeared to walk back comments he made following Monday’s meeting with lawmakers during which he suggested planned Israeli action against Tehran prompted the U.S. to get involved.

“This had to happen anyway,” Rubio said. “The president made a decision and the decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program, that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ability to conduct these attacks.”

Rubio said timing rather than intent resulted in the joint operation between the U.S. and Israel.

He said Monday the Trump administration knew there would be an Israeli action against Iran that would precipitate a response against U.S. forces. “[W]e knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

As many as six U.S. service members have been killed so far in the Trump administration’s war on Iran, and the president has warned that more may die. The conflict so far does not have congressional approval — the War Powers Resolution gives the White House authority to commit troops to combat for 60 days before requiring a formal declaration of war from lawmakers.

The Senate is expected to vote on its War Powers measure, sponsored by Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, as early as Wednesday.

The number of Iranians killed in the hostilities is unclear, with the Iranian Red Crescent Society putting the death toll at over 550 as of Monday.

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