The Harris-Biden administration [aka Biden-Harris administration] privately claimed to Congress that no Iranians were involved in drone attacks on Americans over the past year. Lawmakers and experts are saying that the administration is intentionally denying the extent of Iran’s aggression in the Middle East.
In a confidential report given to Congress recently, the State Department mentioned that it “has not identified any Iranian individuals” who were responsible for attacking “an American from October 27, 2023, to July 23, 2024, with a drone,” according to a document seen by the Washington Free Beacon.
This report was sent to Congress during a huge conflict in the Middle East, where groups supported by Iran are causing chaos. They're attacking Israel, messing with ships around the world, and hitting U.S. troops in the area.
Drones are a major weapon for Iran's friends. Groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Syrian fighters, and especially the militias in Iraq backed by Tehran, have been using drones a lot in their fights.
Three US soldiers were killed in January in a drone attack on an American outpost in Jordan, which President Joe Biden said was “carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq.”
The State Department’s late September analysis was mandated under a 2024 law that required a report to Congress on “any Iranian person that has attacked a United States citizen using an unmanned combat aerial vehicle.”
The State Department's report was crafted with a narrow interpretation of the law by the Biden-Harris administration, focusing solely on individuals "directly involved" in the physical act of launching drone attacks on American targets.
This selective interpretation allowed the administration to assert officially that there is "no evidence" implicating any Iranian individuals in these drone attacks. However, this stance exists despite substantial evidence suggesting that Iranian-backed terrorist groups have indeed carried out such operations.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who wrote the part of the law that requires a report on drone activities, accused the State Department of twisting the law's meaning on purpose. This was done, he believes, to prevent pointing out Iran as the main culprit behind drone attacks on Americans.
“It’s obvious that State Department lawyers worked overtime to deny Iran’s role in attacking Americans, and it’s also obvious why they did so,” Cruz told the Free Beacon.
He criticized the Biden-Harris administration, saying, “The Biden-Harris administration has been financing Iran’s war against America and our allies since the day they took office. They have allowed over $100 billion to flow towards the Ayatollah, which enabled the Iranian regime to finance not just the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel but attacks on our soldiers across the Middle East. Rather than acknowledge the Iranian regime’s role in those attacks, they have chosen to lawlessly ignore them.”
A State Department spokesperson argued that their report strictly followed “the specific reporting requirements” set by Congress.
“The Biden Administration takes seriously the range of threats posed by Iran to the safety and security of U.S. citizens, including those posed by Iran’s UAV proliferation,” the spokesperson stated.
“One of the reasons we've had to carry out defensive strikes is because of the attacks enabled by Iran in places like Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and also in Yemen and its surrounding waters.”
The U.S. is now also rolling out new sanctions against people “involved in Iran’s UAV program” and will keep addressing this threat as it changes, according to the State Department.
Michael Knights, who follows Iran-backed attacks for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, commented that the State Department’s view seems to show “the U.S. government is not keen to openly state that Iran is functionally at war with the United States, hence the use of legalese to describe Iranian involvement.”
He also pointed out, “Iranian nationals were clearly involved in designing the Shahed-101 and KAS-04 drones that are used to attack U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria.”
Since Hamas's terror attacks on October 7, groups backed by Iran have kept up their assaults on American and Israeli sites in the area.
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy pointed out that various terror groups, acting on Iran's command, have been attacking U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria.
The State Department agreed with this assessment but wouldn't say that Iran was directly behind these attacks, even though the groups are guided by Tehran.
“Iran relies on and supports an extensive network of proxies and partners in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen that can conduct armed operations aligned with Iran’s interests, including against U.S. forces in the region,” according to the State Department's report sent to Congress.
Groups in Iraq and Syria that support Iran have carried out "upwards of 170 attacks against U.S. forces since October 2023, the majority of which involved the use of UAVs.”
The State Department recognized that Iran’s “lethal aid, training, and advice” made “many of these attacks” on Americans possible.
However, they clarified that the "individuals identified as conducting the attacks were non-Iranian foreign national members of proxy or partner groups.”
A former U.S. official who dealt with Middle Eastern affairs found the State Department's conclusion to be ridiculous, stating, “Any suggestion that Iran doesn’t have influence over and direct not just Iraqi militias but the Iraqi government is disingenuous.”
He further explained that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) “has near full control of Iraqi militias, including decisions on whether or not to attack U.S. personnel. Those decisions are not made in Baghdad by Iraqis—they are made by Iranians and the IRGC.”
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