Rep. Brad Wenstrup: Facing a New “Anti-American Axis”

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Frank Gaffney: We’re back, I couldn’t be more pleased to say joined by yet another member of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Brad Wenstrup. He is also a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the Committee on Veterans Affairs, appropriately enough as he is a member of the United States Army Reserves, now holding the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. A medical doctor by training, a combat surgeon in Iraq as a matter of fact as well, and is a distinguished member of the House of Representatives, representing the people of the Second District of Ohio. Congressman welcome back, it’s great to have you with us sir.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup: Thank you Frank, appreciate it.

FG: I was talking with your colleague Chris Stewart a moment ago about the appropriations process that is seriously broken; it seems, thanks to Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats. This has real implications as you know so well for the various programs of the Defense Department, but most especially those that need to have new starts or need to ramp up over what they did the last year. Could you talk a little bit about that and how you see the way forward in terms of trying to help the Defense Department meet it’s requirements.

BW: Well you know first of all let’s start with the notion and the fact that our number one priority today for Americans is their security. This has become their greatest concern and the lack of trust in the American government, and I think they have plenty of good reasons. We have got to put forward and get through our Bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, we have to provide at least some certainty to the military of what they can and cannot do if we move forward, and unfortunately they keep getting it in short bits and it’s very difficult to plan and defend this nation if we’re doing thing that way. It’s very frustrating, as you and I now know that it’s very frustrating.

FG: Speaking of the National Defense Authorization Act, and again for those not intimately familiar with the ways of Congress, the authorization takes place theoretically before the appropriations and sort of sets the ceilings, and broad policy guidance, and then the appropriators are supposed to flesh it out with the funding. But where are we with respect to what has been, as I understand it, a repeated threat by the President to veto this Defense Authorization Act now that you’ve gotten it through conference.

BW: Well that’s the last that we heard that he intends to veto it and I don’t know if he’s paying attention to what’s going on in the world and what has been going on with our military, and we cannot afford any further setbacks. We hear it time and time again from our military leaders, that we are putting ourselves in more and more danger, and I think it sends a signal to our adversaries that the President isn’t serious about our defense if he’s saying he would veto this, and not proceed with giving our military some certainty and some direction.

FG: I couldn’t agree with you more, and in various places it’s obvious that he doesn’t want the direction; notably, I think, with respect to not closing down Guantanamo Bay, and some impediments to the idea of putting women into combat positions, and the like, and for all these reasons it seems to me, as well as authorizing more expenditure on the defense projects of the nation that that fight is one we ought to have, and if he does decide to veto it so be it.

BW: You know when we say ready-aim-fire, when we say ready it’s supposed to be a command, not a question mark. It’s not suppose to be a question, we need to be ready, we need to be ready for what comes our way, and we have to address realistically when you take a look at what we’re seeing happening now when the Russians are bombing in Syria, and the were suppose to be attacking ISIS and they are not.

FG: Well we’ve been talking about that throughout the program and I know you must, as do your colleagues, and my other guests, regard this as a very troubling development, that Russia is moving into this void, as well as it seems an embolden Iran, and I know your were opposing this nuclear deal with Iran. Any thoughts as to whether this might warrant or perhaps create conditions under which there might be a revisiting of giving $150 billion to this Iranian-Russian axis.

BW: I think you would see Congress take that up in heartbeat. I’m not so sure about the Senate, but certainly the House would, I don’t know if the President is willing to go in that direction. He, I think, considered this deal his baby, just as he does the Affordable Care Act. I mean he doesn’t seem to want to budge from it, and we’re going to try to put things up to try to get in the way of it. The Victims of Iranian Terrorism Act is one, where we have had victims that were awarded settlements that they need to receive and it’s suppose to come from the sanction money, instead we’re turning it back to the terrorist, and to the terrorist nation, and it makes no sense. We’re going to try to continue to win (inaudible) at the House with this deal. But you know to me it seems there’s an Axis of Evil, or at least an anti-American axis, that is very much for me, you can take Iran, China, Russia, and it’s interesting the President said to Mitt Romney ‘you need to call the 1980s and get your foreign policy back’. Well maybe it’s time that he make that phone call.

FG: And you know this really is such an important point Congressman Brad Wenstrup, that we’re looking at an environment in which, as I talked earlier in the program with Congressman Stewart and Ralph Peters, we’re actually incentivizing this kind of Axis of Evil if you will to emerge and to act aggressively against us. Before I lose your window here Congressman, let me turn to one other place that’s of great concern, and it actually involves the Department of Energy, which of course is responsible for several key nuclear programs in support of the United States Military, the Naval Reactors Program, and of course our nuclear weapons material. Your district or state at least has got a facility in it that the DOE has just announced they’re going to close, that’s responsible for a key part of that support function. Talk about that and what’s at stake?

BW: Well there’s a lot a stake, and it’s a great national security risk, and it was done very poorly. Congress has been very much involved in wanting to keep this facility open and running, to be able to provide the only domestic source of uranium enrichment that our military needs, and you know when it comes to military, it’s very difficult, and especially something this scientific, to just shut it down and think you can turn it back on in a heartbeat, and so we’re sending another message to our enemies that America is letting their readiness slip, they are letting it go, and this was done very poorly because there were reports on what was taking place. This is the type of demonstration and operation that were taking place in Pitten, Ohio, which is in my district. The reports we were supposed to get in Congress from the DOE by April, they’ve made their decision to do this based on these reports, and we have yet to get those reports, and we haven’t even had a chance to weigh in on it. So people are losing their jobs, we’re shutting down our only domestic source of Uranium enrichment, which is vital to our national security, and you couldn’t come at a worse time. It just sends one more signal to our adversaries that we’re weak, and takes away jobs.

FG: What do we do without it Congressman? I mean if it is the only site, what does the Naval Nuclear Reactor Program do for enriched uranium to power its submarines and aircraft carrier reactors. What does the nuclear deterrent do for enriched Uranium?

BW: Well their claiming that it can stand on it’s own with our surplus, with our supplies. You know in this day in age with terrorism the way it is, I don’t think we take that risk.

FG: I don’t think we take that risk but it’s especially a risk we seem to be taking without much public debate or scrutiny, and this is why it’s so important that you and your colleagues are raising a ruckus about it, and we are very anxious to learn more. Keep us posted if you would on this Congressman Brad Wenstrup. Let me just ask you very quickly in closing, one other issues the we’ve been talking about throughout the program is, as a member of the Intelligence Committee, your thoughts on this idea of contracting out inspection of the Iran deal to the International Atomic Energy Agency? Several of our guests have expressed real concern about that. In light of what we’ve seen just recently, how do you feel with sort of self-sampling by the Iranians?

BW: Well I think that that’s ridiculous, I mean who gets to correct their own test, and there’s certainly nothing that Iran has done since 1979 that would makes us feel that they can be trusted in any way, shape, or form on this, and we don’t even have access to what this process is really all about in the deal, which is why in the House we gave a sense that the House disapproval of the deal, and we said we haven’t gotten all the information to take the vote that we were suppose to take on disapproval, because we were suppose to take that vote sixty days after we got the entire deal, and John Kerry and the President haven’t even seen the entire deal, we’re leaving it up to other people.

FG: It’s scandalous and I do hope that your efforts to impede it will work. Congressman Brad Wenstrup thank you, I know we’ve got to let you go back to your day job, but keep up the good work and thank you for your Service both in uniform and in the Congress of the United States. It’s greatly appreciated.