‘Don’t fall for it’: Arizona congressman and former Marine who ‘gets the same intel’ as Tom Cotton warns some GOPers are ‘exaggerating’ the Iran threat

Before Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona pursued a career in politics, he served in the United States military: Gallego was a Marine infantryman in Iraq in 2005. And the 39-year-old Democratic congressman is warning that the push for a military confrontation with Iran in 2019 is full of misleading assertions.

Gallego, now a member of the House Armed Services Committee, received a classified briefing on May 17—and the following day, he told the Washington Post, “What I saw was a lot of misinterpretation and wanting conflict coming from the administration and intelligence community. Intel doesn’t show existential threats. Even what it shows, it doesn’t show threats to U.S. interests.”

The claim that Iran poses a major threat to the U.S. in 2019, according to Gallego, is mainly being advanced by National Security Adviser John Bolton and Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. On Saturday, Gallego took to Twitter and warned, “I get the same intel as Cotton. He is greatly exaggerating the situation to spur us to war. Don’t fall for it.”

View the complete May 20 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.