{"id":154320,"date":"2025-06-22T20:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T20:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/democrats-say-they-were-left-in-dark-about-plans-for-us-strikes-on-iran-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-06-22T20:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T20:32:10","slug":"democrats-say-they-were-left-in-dark-about-plans-for-us-strikes-on-iran-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/democrats-say-they-were-left-in-dark-about-plans-for-us-strikes-on-iran-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats say they were left in dark about plans for US strikes on Iran – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leading figures on Senate and House intelligence committees not briefed in advance in break with custom
Middle East war \u2013 live updates<\/a>
Senior Democrats<\/a> have claimed they were left in the dark about operation Midnight Hammer, the US\u2019s highly coordinated strike<\/a> on Saturday on Iran\u2019s nuclear enrichment program.
Neither Mark Warner, a US senator of Virginia, nor Jim Himes, a representative of Connecticut, both top Democrats<\/a> on the Senate and House intelligence panels, were briefed before the attack, according to reports.
But that came amid claims that Republican counterparts were given advance notice of the operation, which involved 125 aircraft \u2013 including seven B-2 bombers carrying 14 bunker busters weighing three tons \u2013 and 75 Tomahawk missiles launched from US submarines. Axios reported<\/a> that the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, had been informed shortly before the attacks began at 6.40pm eastern time.
Himes\u2019s committee staff received notification about the strike from the Pentagon only after Donald Trump<\/a> made the announcement on social media soon before 8pm, according to the outlet.
The president\u2019s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, told a press conference early on Sunday that the strikes \u201ctook months and weeks of positioning and preparation so that we could be ready when the president called\u201d.
\u201cIt took misdirection and the highest of operational security,\u201d Hegseth said, in part alluding to the US\u2019s deployment<\/a> of B-2 bombers to the Pacific island of Guam earlier on Saturday.
The US attack of Iran<\/a> came as most Democrats had left Washington for the Juneteenth holiday \u2013 but the apparent lack of forewarning to lawmakers on intelligence committees is striking. Top lawmakers are typically informed of military operations in advance.
\u201cCost, duration, risk to our troops, strategy \u2013 the basics before we make a decision of this consequence,\u201d said Chris Coons, a senior Democratic member of the Senate foreign relations committee, last week.
Arizona senator Mark Kelly told NBC\u2019s Meet the Press on Sunday that the White House should have been \u201cright up front\u201d in coming to Congress \u201cand asking for authorization to do this\u201d.
\u201cThat\u2019s the constitutional approach to this,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cHe could have talked to us about what the goal is and what the plan is ahead of time.\u201d
Tim Kaine, a Virginia senator who sits on the armed services as well as the foreign relations committees, said Congress needed to be informed ahead of time.
\u201cCongress needs to authorize a war against Iran,\u201d he said. \u201cThis Trump war against Iran \u2013 we have not.\u201d <\/strong>
Senators are expected to receive a briefing on the strikes next week. But the signs that an attack was imminent were there to see: additional US military assets had been moved into the region, and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had postponed a briefing with the Senate intelligence committee last week.
Moderate and progressive Democrats have been in conflict over the engagement of US forces in support of Israel<\/a>. Trump\u2019s use of force could now deepen the ideological schism.
Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, told CNN on Sunday that \u201cthe destruction of these facilities is a positive in the sense that it will set back Iran\u2019s program\u201d. But he warned that Iran could now \u201csprint for a bomb\u201d.
He added that the strikes were \u201cnot constitutional\u201d and Congress should be brought in \u201con an action this substantial that could lead to a major outbreak of war\u201d. But Schiff refused to be drawn in on whether the world was safer following the strike. \u201cWe simply don\u2019t know,\u201d he said.
Schiff maintained that in absence of a briefing \u201cthis is an order that should not have been given\u201d.
Prominent Democrats with 2028 presidential aspirations have been notably silent on the 10-day war between Israel and Iran. \u201cThey are sort of hedging their bets,\u201d said Joel Rubin, a former deputy assistant secretary of state during the Obama administration.
\u201cThe beasts of the Democratic party\u2019s constituencies right now are so hostile to Israel\u2019s war in Gaza that it\u2019s really difficult to come out looking like one would corroborate an unauthorized war that supports Israel without blowback.\u201d
But some had spoken out. Ro Khanna, a California congressman, called the White House threats of an attack on Iran \u201ca defining moment for our party\u201d. That came as progressive and isolationist lawmakers on the right found themselves uncomfortably aligned.
Khanna had introduced legislation with the Kentucky Republican US House member Thomas Massie that called on Trump to \u201cterminate\u201d the use of US armed forces against Iran unless \u201cexplicitly authorized\u201d by a declaration of war from Congress.
Following the strike, Khanna posted on X: \u201cTrump struck Iran<\/a> without any authorization of Congress.\u201d
Khanna said Congress needed to \u201cimmediately return\u201d to Washington to vote on the measure he and Massie co-authored. Kaine said he would bring a similar resolution to the Senate in the coming days.
Massie said in response<\/a> to the strikes: \u201cThis is not Constitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n

The independent US senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats, said supporting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin \u201cNetanyahu\u2019s war against Iran would be a catastrophic mistake\u201d. He introduced legislation prohibiting the use of federal money for force against Iran.
The New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on X that the decision to attack Iran\u2019s nuclear sites was \u201cdisastrous\u201d.<\/a>
\u201cThe President\u2019s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers. He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment,\u201d Ocasio-Cortez wrote.
Halie Soifer, the chief executive officer of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said in a statement: \u201cThis is an incredibly difficult moment for the vast majority of American Jews, who are supportive of Israel, concerned about the security and safety of the Israeli people and Jews in the United States and around the world, and fearful that president Trump lacks a clear strategy about what happens next with Iran.\u201d
On NBC\u2019s Meet the Press JD Vance, the US vice-president, maintained that it was untrue to say that Saturday\u2019s strikes in Iran exceeded Trump\u2019s presidential authority.
Schiff, meanwhile, declined to support calls for impeachment proceedings against Trump, saying the failure to brief Democrats ahead of the strike was \u201canother partisan exercise\u201d.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leading figures on Senate and House intelligence committees not briefed in advance in break with customMiddle East war \u2013 live updatesSenior Democrats have claimed they were left in the dark about operation Midnight Hammer, the US\u2019s highly coordinated strike on Saturday on Iran\u2019s nuclear enrichment program.Neither Mark Warner, a US senator of Virginia, nor Jim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":154321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}