The chairman of the Home International Affairs Committee on Friday blasted the Trump administration for claiming in a brand new report that it had authority to order the controversial killing final month of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Iraq beneath Congress’ authorization in 2002 for the usage of army pressure in opposition to Iraq.

Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the committee’s chairman, argued that the administration’s new report back to Congress about the Jan. 3 assault on Soleimani “immediately contradicts the President’s false assertion that he attacked Iran to stop an imminent assault in opposition to United States personnel and embassies.”

“The administration’s clarification on this report makes no point out of any imminent risk and reveals that the justification the President supplied to the American folks was false, plain and easy,” mentioned Engel in a ready assertion.

He and different Democrats already had been skeptical about President Donald Trump‘s authorized rationale for the assault with out prior authorization from Congress.

The administration’s report made public Friday says that Trump “directed this motion in response to an escalating collection of assaults in previous months by Iran and Iran-back militias on United States forces and pursuits within the Center East area.”

The report additionally mentioned that the assault on Soleimani at Baghdad’s airport was “in line with” a “longstanding interpretation of the President’s authority” beneath each Article II of the Structure and the 2002 authorization of use of pressure in Iraq.

Engel, in his assertion, known as that argument “absurd.”

“To make issues worse, to keep away from having to justify its actions to Congress, the administration falsely claims Congress had already licensed the strike beneath the 2002 Iraq struggle decision,” Engel mentioned.

“This authorized idea is absurd. The 2002 authorization was handed to cope with Saddam Hussein,” he mentioned. “This regulation had nothing to do with Iran or Iranian authorities officers in Iraq.”

The chairman added, “To recommend that 18 years later this authorization may justify killing an Iranian official stretches the regulation far past something Congress ever supposed. I used to be happy to affix a lot of my colleagues in voting to repeal the outdated Iraq struggle authorization, and I hope the Senate will observe swimsuit.”

In its report, the administration mentioned the aim of the assault on Soleimani was “to guard United States personnel, to discourage Iran from conducting or supporting additional assaults in opposition to United States forces and pursuits, to degrade Iran’s and [its] Qods Power-backed militias’ skill to conduct assaults, and to finish Iran’s strategic escalation of assaults on, and threats to U.S. pursuits.”

On the time of his dying, Soleimani, 62, was commander of Iran’s Quds Power, the international operations wing of the elite paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Trump administration officers mentioned after the strike that Soleimani had been planning imminent assaults on Individuals and because of this needed to be stopped.

Per week after his killing, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mentioned, “There was little question that there have been a collection of imminent assaults that had been being plotted by Qasem Soleimani.”

However Pompeo, in an interview with Fox Information, added, “We do not know exactly when and we do not know exactly the place, nevertheless it was actual,” Pompeo mentioned in an interview that aired Thursday night time on Fox Information.

NBC Information reported in mid-January that Trump licensed Soleimani’s killing seven months earlier than he truly was killed.

“The presidential directive in June got here with the situation that Trump would have ultimate signoff on any particular operation to kill Soleimani,” NBC reported, citing 5 present and former senior administration officers.

NBC Information famous that the timing of that directive “may undermine” the administration’s already publicly said rationale for the killing.

The administration’s report on Friday mentioned that Article II of the Structure empowers the president, as commander in chief, “to direct the usage of army pressure to guard the Nation from an assault or risk of imminent assault and to guard vital nationwide pursuits.”

“Article II thus licensed the President to make use of pressure in opposition to the forces of Iran, a state chargeable for conducting and directing assaults in opposition to United States forces within the area,” the report argued.

The report additionally mentioned that beneath the 2002 Authorization for Use of Navy Power Towards Iraq, the president has the ability to make use of American army forces “as he determines to be needed and acceptable” with a purpose to defend U.S. nationwide safety in opposition to the risk posed by Iraq.

Whereas Iraq’s late chief Saddam Hussein was the preliminary focus of that statute, the report notes, the statute lengthy has been used to “authorize the usage of pressure for the aim of building a steady, democratic Iraq and addressing terrorist threats emanating from Iraq.”

Such makes use of of pressure can tackle “threats to america posed by militias, terrorist teams, or different armed teams in Iraq,” the report mentioned.