Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Friday morning that he was briefed about the plan to kill Iran’s top military official, Qassim Soleimani, while later on the same day Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that President Donald Trump failed to notify Congress about the attack.
“I was briefed about the potential operation when I was down in Florida,” Graham said on Fox News. “I appreciate being brought into the orbit. I really appreciate President Trump letting the world know you cannot kill an American without impunity. We will stand up for our people, and that is an absolutely essential message.”
It is unclear whether other members of Congress were also notified about the strike on Soleimani (also known as Qassem Soleimani) prior to his death.
On the same day, speaking on the Senate floor, Schumer said that the operation against Soleimani was conducted “without specific authorization and any advanced notification or consultation with Congress.”
“I’m a member of the Gang of Eight, which is typically briefed in advance of operations of this level of significance. We were not,” Schumer said.
Schumer called Soleimani “a notorious terrorist” and said that “no one should shed a tear over his death.” However, apparently commenting on the lack of a briefing from the president, Schumer said that “a lack of advance consultation and transparency with Congress can lead to hasty and ill-considered decisions.”
“When the security of the nation is at stake, decisions must not be made in a vacuum,” Schumer said. “The framers of the Constitution gave war powers to the legislature and made the executive the commander in chief for the precise reason of forcing the two branches of government to consult with one another when it came to matters of war and peace.”
“It is my view that the president does not have the authority for a war with Iran,” Schumer later added. “If he plans a large increase in troops and potential hostility over a longer time, the administration will require congressional approval and the approval of the American people.”
Pelosi also said that the strike on Soleimani “risks provoking further dangerous escalation of violence.”
“[The United States] took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war,” he told reporters in Florida.
“We do not seek regime change. However, the Iranian regime’s aggression in the region, including the use of proxy fighters to destabilize its neighbors must end and it must end now,” he later said. “I am ready and prepared to take whatever action is necessary and that, in particular, refers to Iran.”
“We will always protect our diplomats, service members, all Americans, and our allies,” he said, adding that Soleimani’s Quds Force killed and injured hundreds of Americans over the years. For any would-be adversary—Iran or otherwise—Trump warned the United States has the strongest military and the greatest ability to gather intelligence in the world.
Soleimani is considered the architect behind Iran’s elite Quds Force—an elite unit within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) that is tasked with Iran’s extra-territorial military operations—including activities to expand Iranian influence in Syria and rocket attacks on Israel. The Quds force reports directly to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The force also supports Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen’s Houthis, and a variety of Shia militia groups in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
“He’s not dead today because of what he did in the past, he’s dead today because he miscalculated what President Trump would do regarding future attacks,” said Graham.
Trump, he said, should make it now clear to Iran and its supreme leader that any future attack will put its oil refineries at risk. Iran is one of the world’s top exporters of oil.
Trump added that Soleimani was “directly and indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people, including the recent large number of PROTESTERS killed in Iran itself.”
“While Iran will never be able to properly admit it, Soleimani was both hated and feared within the country. They are not nearly as saddened as the leaders will let the outside world believe,” Trump wrote.
The United States has deployed 14,000 troops to the Middle East since May 2019, not including the approximately 700 troops it sent from the IRF earlier this week after Iran-backed militias breached the outer walls of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
