Schiff: Soleimani Death ‘Increased the Danger’ of War — ‘There Will Be Iranian Retaliation’

On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Newsroom,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) questioned the administration’s “broader strategy” in the wake of Quds Force Supreme Commander Qasem Soleimani’s death by an airstrike directed by President Donald Trump.

Schiff said, “This spike in the back and forth between Iran, the deadly attacks on U.S. base and loss of a U.S. contractor and injured U.S. service members followed by U.S. airstrikes on these Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militias and now the killing of Soleimani have increased the danger of a war with Iran, not decreased it”

He continued, “I have yet to be fully satisfied the administration either has a strategy, that this is not simply a one-off retaliation or a preemptive strike, that his is part of a broader coherent plan and this greatly concerns me. This is how you—when nobody seeks war ends up in a war. So if the administration has a broader strategy, they have yet to the articulate it or explain to the Congress why that strategy lacks support of our own allies, and how this is somehow going to make us safer. So all steps will have to be taken immediately to protect our personnel in the region and elsewhere. We have to fully expect there will be Iranian retaliation. I think we and the Iranians need to figure out steps that can be taken to divert us from this path of increasing act and retaliation and retaliation and increasing prospect of war.”

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