Congressman Mike Rogers, Chairman of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
“As Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I just want to talk about Iran’s meddling. I’ll let you talk about the crisis itself, what it means in the region and I think these have serious, serious consequences. As a matter of fact the most serious, and I would argue today that maybe the serious threat to a homeland style strike, given ISIS and its stated intention to commit both Western and US-based terrorist attacks. The United States Department of Defense estimates as many as 600 US troops have died as a result of Iran’s meddling in Iraq during the Iraq conflict. If you look at the fact that Iran was willing, using our southern border by the way, to infiltrate people into the United States, to kill the Saudi Ambassador, just a few short years ago in Washington, DC, if you look at the fact according to public reports Iran using cyber-attacks probing US financial institutions in the year 2012, some estimates as high as 400 different attempts to penetrate our US financial institutions for disruptions. And then you look at the catalyst event I think in Iraq, one of many, but that catalyst event where the United States’ official position was we are leaving, we are out, this is hard, we’re done. And if you track from that time all of the series of events, Maliki even being more emboldened to embrace Iran and seek support from Iran then he did in having a unity government. If you think of the severity of where we are going and the decisions we have to make in the next few months, I can’t think of a more important issue to deal with than this. And you can’t separate Iraq and Syria alone. We have to make certainly foreign policy decisions in Syria that will impact the outcome in Iraq. We have to make decisions between trying to find that ceasefire between Gaza and Israel that will impact what happens in Syria and Iraq. And all of those roads, if you look at all of those roads, all of the illicit support, all of the at least cash, training, weaponry that is leading to the death of hundreds of thousands of Muslims across the Middle East, those roads lead to Tehran. So I think we are going to need to use all of that soft power for the United States to start containing Iran’s activities in the region. To start trying to bring to force about a unity government in Iraq. Now it’s just the matter of the right policy at the right time pushing in on all the trouble areas, including in Tehran. So I look again forward to your discussion today. I know again that we are all in this for the same reason. If we can find peace and stability in the Middle East, the world wins, certainly the Middle East wins and US national security win. This is something that we should be able to pull together and pull off if we all agree on the same set of data points and where the problems today. Hopefully today is a good start to do that. Thank you very, very much. God speed.”
US Congress Conference – 29 July 2014