The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed on Friday that there were four more attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria in the past 24 hours, making a total of 82 total attacks since October 17, POLITICO reported.
Additionally, Friday morning, a rocket was launched targeting the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Since the October 7 massacre of Israeli citizens “Iran-backed militias in Iraq have claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks that targeted bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria” CBS News reported. “The U.S. military says 78 attacks have been carried out against U.S. facilities over the past weeks.”
Earlier this week, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), who served in the U.S. military for 23 years, including as a company commander in Kuwait and Iraq, slammed President Joe Biden for his weakness in defending U.S. troops from repeated attacks by Iran’s proxies, calling on Biden to be “more aggressive in pushing back.”
Ernst was interviewed by Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, who noted, “They’re coming after us. We’ve been attacked 75 times on our troops in the Middle East since October 17,” before asking, “How would you assess the White House’s response to this escalation coming out of Iran. It is Iran, even though it’s its proxies, Iran is pulling the strings, right?”
“Right, and there is no secret how I feel about the White House’s response to the attacks in the Middle East: I am sorely disappointed in the president and his lack of response when our troops are being targeted,” Ernst responded. “So I think we need to be much more aggressive in pushing back. We are defending our troops. It is our right; it is our responsibility, to make sure these men and women can defend themselves.”
Ernst had warned in late October that Biden was weak in dealing with threats against U.S. troops. She appeared on Fox News with host Harris Faulkner, who played a clip of South Carolina GOP Senator Lindsey Graham adding there would be harsh consequences if Iran escalated the war between Israel and Hamas as he declared, “If this war grows, it’s coming to your backyard. There won’t be two fronts; there’ll be three. If there’s an effort to unleash Hezbollah on the Jewish state to destroy it, my attention will be to Tehran. If these innocent hostages get slaughtered, I hold you, Iran, accountable, because you could stop it if you chose to. The idea that this happened without Iranian involvement is laughable.”
Faulkner then turned to Ernst: “Is he right?”
“He is absolutely correct, Harris,” Ernst answered. “Iran is behind this. They fund 93% of Hamas’ activities; they fund 100% of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s activities; not to mention Hezbollah and the Houthis. This all goes right back to Iran.”
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“But you know what, who else is involved in this?” she asked rhetorically. “President Biden has been so actively appeasing Iran instead of standing up to them, and I’m telling you, if we lose more Americans, we need to go after Iran. It is incredibly important that we push back against them. We need to be interdicting their oil just as our sanctions call for, we need to refreeze that $6 billion.”
“We, the United States of America, are not standing strong enough when it comes to pushing back against this terrorism,” she said. “It’s infiltrating all around the globe. I know that President Biden gave up on the War on Terror, but it’s not over yet.”
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