Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) called for congressional approval of any military operations in Syria following Saturday’s alleged “poison gas” attack in the country. He made his remarks in a Monday interview with SiriusXM host Rebecca Mansour for Breitbart News Tonight.
Gosar said, “It doesn’t make sense to me. I didn’t serve in the military, but what’s in it for Bashar al-Assad to gas his people? I don’t get that, because he was at least one of those people that protected the Christians and different religious sects. So I don’t get what’s in it for him, and particularly to try to spite fate when you look at the previous handlings of strongmen like Qaddafi and others, where they were actually toppled egregiously against the wishes, where they had to balance off. They complied with United States doctrine, and still Libya took out Qaddafi.”
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Gosar continued, “I don’t get it. I’ve had friends that are from the area and their folks still don’t buy that it’s Assad. There’s other people trying to impugn Assad. I think that has to be the first thing. Intelligence has got to be very formal as to the facts. You’ve got Iran and the Russians in there. Iran has really got some mixed messages coming out of there in Yemen and Syria, expanding their nuclear capabilities.”
Gosar added, “It wouldn’t surprise me that somebody sympathetic with Iran is actually trying to pull this off, trying to blame Assad. We need to have the facts.”
Gosar called for more congressional oversight on warmaking. He said, “It also needs to come before Congress. It’s been way over 90 days for consent for war. I don’t care if it’s a little war or a big war. You have to have consent from Congress. We have to get back to the Constitution.”
Gosar continued, “We’ve had boots on the ground. They may be in the search of intelligence gathering, but they’re going to fire on people when they’re been fired upon. … There’s actually been boots on the ground for some time there.”
Gosar reiterated his call for increased congressional oversight on warmaking. He remarked, “It’s way beyond the 90 days. Barack Obama should’ve come to the Congress with the details and further justification as to why we needed to stay and be there. Let the facts ring out for themselves and have the military generals parlay to what the facts are for staying and what the facts are for not staying.”
Trump commented on the event on Sunday morning via Twitter:
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