Attorney General Todd Blanche’s press conference on Tuesday reiterated the Trump administration’s official position that the conflict in Iran is not a “war” — but this is absurd, Col. Cedric Leighton told CNN’s Boris Sanchez.
Blanche, noted Sanchez, makes these claims “despite the deaths of 18 U.S. service members, hundreds of others injured,” as well as $28 billion spent on the effort already per new Congressional Budget Office numbers. “That doesn’t count bases that have been destroyed in the Middle East, which the Pentagon hasn’t given an estimate of the cost of. And also whether or not they would actually repair them. So you, hearing the Attorney General say this, what’s your reaction?”
“I mean, it’s hard to believe that something that costs at least $28 billion is not a war,” said Leighton. “You know, when you’re dealing with conflict, when bullets are flying, missiles are flying, drones are flying.”
Moreover, he said, “We have basically lost our ability to move forces into and out of about 15 to 18 bases in the Middle East. This is a significant strategic defeat.” If the administration continues to deny this is a war, he said, “you’re really making it difficult for the American people to understand what exactly happened here. And what happened here is that we lost the ability to use these bases, bases that had been used by the United States all the way back to the beginning of the War on Terror.”
Without those bases, said Leighton, “we have to figure out, are we going to let places like Saudi Arabia move off on their own, or are we going to put them at risk of Iranian proxies like the Houthis? Are we going to be doing things that will basically change the face of the Middle East?”
“That’s the kind of thing that really happens when there is a conflict, or we’re leading up to a conflict, or we’re coming back from a conflict,” said Leighton. The simple fact, he concluded, is that “these conflicts are, by any other name, wars. And to use expressions that cover that up is really a disservice to the American people.”
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