Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) raised the specter of U.S. ground forces being deployed in Iran on Tuesday, saying that he feared for American lives.
Speaking to reporters after a closed-door Senate Armed Services Committee briefing about the progress of “Operation Epic Fury,” Blumenthal said that he was “left with more questions than answers” from the Trump administration’s witnesses.
“I emerged from this briefing as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any past briefing in my 15 years in the Senate,” the senator said. “We seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran to accomplish any of the potential objectives here.”
The Trump administration has not ruled out the possibility of deploying U.S. ground troops in Iran to achieve objectives, including degrading the Islamic Republic’s drone and ballistic-missile capabilities and setting back its nuclear program.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth initially gave an ambiguous answer on Sunday when CBS News asked him if the United States had “any overt or covert forces inside Iran now.”
“I wouldn’t tell you that if we did,” Hegseth replied, before apparently clarifying that the United States does not currently have boots on the ground in Iran.
“But we reserve the right,” he said. “We would be completely unwise if we did not reserve the right to take any particular option, whether it included boots on the ground or no boots on the ground.”
Prior U.S. administrations have contested the meaning of “boots on the ground” to try to exclude the deployment of special forces, ground-based helicopter operations and other military actions short of invasion.
“When I said ‘no boots on the ground,’ I think the American people understood generally that we’re not going to do an Iraq-style invasion of Iraq or Syria with battalions that are moving across the desert,” then-president Barack Obama said in 2015, after his administration deployed a “specialized expeditionary targeting force” to Iraq and Syria.
Blumenthal called on Tuesday for greater transparency from the Trump administration about U.S. operations against Iran.
“The American people deserve to know much more than this administration has told them about the cost of the war, the danger to our sons and daughters in uniform, and the potential for further escalation and widening of this war,” Blumenthal said.
