U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego questions President Donald Trump’s justification for striking Iran

PHOENIX — As the U.S. and Israel continue to strike Iran and casualties climb on all sides, Arizona U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego expressed skepticism toward the purpose of the assault.

“When you go to war as quickly as we did without approval of Congress — which you should — or at least a minimum notification to the whole country, it’s because there is an actual imminent threat to our troops or the mainland,” Gallego told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Outspoken with Bruce & Gaydos on Monday.

President Donald Trump has said the U.S.-Israeli operation could take several weeks.

“There was no capability for Iran to hit the mainland of the United States with ballistic missiles. That is absolute BS. Everyone that actually follows their trajectory of how they’re building things knows that they were years away from that,” Gallego said.

The Democratic senator added that he wishes the Trump administration would be more transparent about its motives.

“Whenever we’re sending our men and women into harm’s away, we should be actually over communicating to the public, like ‘What are we doing? Why are we doing it? What’s the end goal? How do we get out?’ All these questions that just have not exactly been answered by this administration,” Gallego said.

Gallego noted that he will be able to get some of his questions answered during a classified briefing scheduled for Tuesday.

Sen. Ruben Gallego calls Trump attacking Iran ‘war of choice’

Gallego emphasized that something he learned serving as a Marine in Iraq, is that the president shouldn’t be sending men and women to war unless there is an actual threat to the homeland or national security.

“For example, … (there) was a reason we should have gone to Afghanistan. That is where the 9/11 attackers were trained. They were harboring al-Qaida,” Gallego said. “Iraq was a war of choice. A war of choice that distracted us from where we needed to be focused on, which should have been Afghanistan, Russia and China. Now, we’re engaging in another war of choice.”

He added that because of the conflict, the U.S. will likely have to pull away from Asia and Europe.

“In terms of just money, this is expensive. We’re spending money, money, money right now, when we need to be focusing on the domestic problems we have in this country right now,” Gallego said.

The senator used three American fighter jets being mistakenly downed by friendly Kuwaiti fire Monday as another reason why going to war shouldn’t be rushed.

“In a proper planning of war, you would have actually deconflicted this whole system,” Gallego said. “You would have actually had the technology that would have recognized, ‘Hey, I’m an American-made missile and I’m now shooting (at) an American-made platform, I’m going to reject that command.’ But because these guys are rushing through, they didn’t think this out.”

Despite knowing that Iran-proxy-provided IEDs hit him and other troops in Iraq, Gallego also made it clear that he wouldn’t want the U.S. to go to war because he wants revenge.

“I don’t want to doom another generation of veterans to PTSD, to missing limbs (and) everything else like that because I want my revenge,” Gallego said. “I would rather spend my time enjoying peace and hoping that we can get peace between our countries.

“Now, if we ever have to go to war against Iran because it is actually in our national interest, because we have to defend ourselves or something that’s directly in our national interest, then I’m not against that.”

The Associated Press and KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Serena O’Sullivan contributed to this report.

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