The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, needs to be watched like a hawk because he is making pronouncements on Syria’s use of chemical weapons that are totally unsupported by any available intelligence or by the administration. Rep. Rogers is trying to gin up a war.
“I think when you look at the whole body of information over the last two years there is mounting evidence that it is probable that the Assad regime has used at least a small quantity of chemical weapons during the course of conflict,” Rogers said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Citing President Barack Obama’s comments nearly a year ago that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government a “red line” for U.S. intervention, the Republican congressman from Michigan said it’s “abundantly clear that red line has been crossed.”
The administration has been pushing back.
The U.S. ambassador to Syria says the Obama administration has no evidence so far to support claims of chemical weapon use but is looking carefully at the conflicting reports.
Robert Ford made the comments Tuesday at a House hearing, one day after President Bashar Assad accused U.S.-backed rebels of using such weapons in Aleppo province.
The Obama administration disputed that claim, and a U.S. official said there was no evidence that either Assad forces or the opposition had used chemical weapons in an attack in northern Syria.
As the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Rogers is privy to information that the rest of us don’t have, but he isn’t privy to any information that the administration doesn’t have.
Look at how Rep. Rogers moves seamlessly from saying there is “mounting evidence that it is probable” to arguing that “it’s abundantly clear that [a] red line has been crossed.” Those two statements are completely inconsistent, and yet he made them both on today’s Face the Nation program.
The press has been making a great show on the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq of showing remorse for not getting the story right. The big story was that we were being lied into a war, and they were loathe to reach that conclusion, let alone blast it in the front-pages and headlines. Well, ladies and gentlemen of the press, now is the time to go after Rep. Mike Rogers like a bulldog, grab ahold of his trousers and don’t let go until he can back up what he is saying. Because I think he is making this up out of whole cloth. I think he is lying. I think he is taking advantage of his position to make it appear that he is getting reports that he is not in fact getting. I do not believe that there is any evidence…none…that Syria has been using a little bit of chemical weapons or a lot.
So, here is what you ask him.
Have you received intelligence reports that the Assad regime has used at least a small quantity of chemical weapons during the course of conflict? Was that briefing from the CIA, the Pentagon, or some other intelligence agency? Will those findings be in the next National Intelligence Report? To your knowledge, has the administration seen the same reports? Who else on your committee has seen these reports or heard these briefings?
He should be hounded with these questions morning, noon, and night until he either provides satisfactory answers that can lead to further inquiry or until he stops lying.
You want to redeem yourself? Don’t let this man get away with this. This is the type of loose talk about war that the president warned against before he traveled to Israel.
It needs to be treated for what it is: a threat against peace and an effort to embroil this country in a civil war in Syria. If he is lying, he should be removed for his position on the intelligence committee and he should be voted out of office.