Sen. Mark Warner Tells Chesapeake Dems: It’s “A War of Choice”

By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

Before Israel and the U.S. launched a recent attack on Iran that has killed an undetermined number, Virginia Senator Mark Warner said he did not see  any intelligence indicating that Iran intended to launch a preemptive strike.

Calling the war a “war of choice,” Sen. Warner has spoken out about the surprise attacks Iran authorized by President Trump on February 28. On March 1, Warner was in parts of Hampton Roads, including Chesapeake at the New Galilee Church for a conversation hosted by the Chesapeake Democratic Women and the HERstory TroubleNation. He was accompanied in Chesapeake by Congressman Bobby Scott.

“I saw no intelligence that Iran was on the verge of launching any kind of preemptive strike against the United States of America,” Warner said repeating what he had said earlier in a Sunday morning, March 1 appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Warner is the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee,

“There was no imminent threat to the United States,” he told host Dana Bash on CNN. “So the decision to put our service members in harm’s way and bases around the region in harm’s way was entirely based upon the president’s decision, not an imminent threat to America.”

On March 1, Warner said Trump “needs to come before Congress and the American people and ask for a declaration of war.”

The president, he told the Chesapeake audience, needs to explain to American families why their children are being put in harm’s way and called to a war that was initiated without Congressional knowledge or approval.

To date, Republicans largely back Trump, and most Democrats oppose the war.