President Donald Trump does not have to ask for congressional approval to continue the Iran war as long as no troops are deployed to the country, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said on Friday.
“If there are troops on the ground, I believe that the administration has to come back and get authorization for the use of military forces. Today there are no boots on the ground,” the Republican senator from Maine said during a visit to a wastewater plant in Hartland, which was partially funded by money she secured through congressionally directed spending, also known as earmarks.
Collins avoided calling the United States’ and Israel’s attacks on Iran a “war,” but did say there “is widespread agreement that we can never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
If the war were to stretch on, Trump would need congressional approval, Collins said, but she did not say how long it could continue without approval. The War Powers Resolution allows the president to deploy troops for 60 days without approval, but Collins did not say if that was the time limit Trump should follow.
The U.S. and Israel launched coordinated attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, starting a war in which 13 U.S. service members have died. Collins said in February that strikes on Iran should be used as a “last resort,” but her comments Friday reflected that the strikes are needed.
“I’m happy that none of them were from the state of Maine or from the Bangor base, but it’s obviously a tragedy nevertheless. In times of military hostilities, there are always casualties, and my heart goes out to the families of the service members who have been lost,” Collins said.
As of Friday, Collins has attended three classified meetings on military actions, she said. Collins spoke about two main goals of the war but did not go into detail about how they would be achieved or how long they would take.
Strikes on Iran’s ballistic missiles that “provide a shield for the development of a nuclear weapon” work toward the “important goal” of stopping the country’s development of nuclear weapons, Collins said.
An equally important goal is “debilitating Iran’s Navy so that it can no longer block the Strait of Hormuz,” Collins said. The Strait of Hormuz is a Persian Gulf channel that carries 20% of the world’s oil. U.S. officials have said Iran is laying mines in the strait to deter ships from using the channel for shipping.
The U.S. military has been destroying Iranian ships that could be used for laying mines in the water, according to U.S. officials.
“It is a very dangerous situation for a country that chants ‘Death to America’ to have control over the Strait of Hormuz. So our goal is to ensure that the Iranian Navy cannot mine the strait, which it is trying to do right now, bringing shipping to a halt,” Collins said.
Oil prices have risen due to the lack of shipping in the channel. The national average price of one gallon of regular grade gas shot up by 15 cents since the beginning of the week, which Collins said she is “never happy” about.
