Speaker of the House Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (Ca.) announces war powers resolution as tensions with Iran escalate

Pelosi said "the Trump administration conducted a provocative and disproportionate military airstrike targeting high-level Iranian military officials."

Story by NBC News
Written by Allan Smith

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced the House will vote soon on a war powers resolution to limit President Donald Trump's military actions after he ordered the killing of a top Iranian general last week, escalating tensions with Tehran.

"Last week, the Trump administration conducted a provocative and disproportionate military airstrike targeting high-level Iranian military officials," Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues Sunday. "This action endangered our servicemembers, diplomats and others by risking a serious escalation of tensions with Iran."

"As members of Congress, our first responsibility is to keep the American people safe," she continued. "For this reason, we are concerned that the administration took this action without the consultation of Congress and without respect for Congress’s war powers granted to it by the Constitution."

She said the House resolution is similar to one introduced in the Senate by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

"It reasserts Congress’s long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days," she said.

Last week, Trump ordered an airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and other officials near the Baghdad airport. Soleimani's death came days after rioters sought to storm the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad and a U.S. contractor was killed in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk.


President Trump delivered a statement on the U.S. killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Iran and its allies vowed to retaliate for the general's death, and Trump has since escalated his language in response.

On Sunday, Iraq's Parliament voted to ask its government to end the presence of U.S. troops in the country, while Iranian state TV reported that Iran will no longer abide by any limits of the 2015 nuclear deal — an agreement Trump withdrew from in 2018.

In the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez, D-N.J., wrote to Trump asking him to "immediately declassify in full the January 4, 2020, war powers notification you submitted to Congress following the U.S. military operation targeting" Soleimani.

"It is critical that national security matters of such import be shared with the American people in a timely manner," the senators wrote. "An entirely classified notification is simply not appropriate in a democratic society, and there appears to be no legitimate justification for classifying this notification."

Speaking to reporters in the White House briefing room, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said members of Congress "will be briefed, but they should also calm down" and "celebrate" Soleimani's death.

She said it was "fine" for Trump to order an airstrike killing Soleimani without congressional authority, comparing it to former President Barack Obama ordering the mission to kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.