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Leading House Republican says admin not providing enough information on Iran plans

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said after a classified briefing that lawmakers are ‘just not getting enough answers’

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House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) speaks to the press at the U.S. Capitol on October 17, 2025 in Washington, DC.

The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee told reporters on Wednesday, after a classified briefing, that the administration isn’t giving committee members enough information about its plans in Iran.

The comments by a senior, generally hawkish Republican, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), are a sign of cracks between congressional Republicans and the administration — who have largely remained in lockstep through the first month of the war — over the strategy in Iran.

“We want to know more about what’s going on, what the options are, and why they’re being considered,” Rogers said, according to Politico. “And we’re just not getting enough answers on those questions.”

He said he’d told briefers that “this has consequences if you don’t remedy it” and told administration officials that they should be “thoughtful and deliberate” about the use of ground forces.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters, “I can see why he might have said that” but demurred when asked again about Rogers’ comments later in the afternoon, saying he hadn’t seen the context in which Rogers made the remarks and adding later that he wanted to talk to Rogers before commenting further.

Another House Republican, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who has some isolationist leanings and is prone to breaks with her party, was even more critical of the administration and suggested that the U.S. was moving toward putting troops on the ground.

“The justifications presented to the American public for the war in Iran were not the same military objectives we were briefed on today in the House Armed Services Committee,” Mace said on X. “This gap is deeply troubling. The longer this war continues, the faster it will lose the support of Congress and the American people.”

She also shared multiple posts expressing her opposition to ground forces in Iran.

“Let me repeat: I will not support troops on the ground in Iran, even more so after this briefing,” Mace said. She added, “Washington’s war machine is hard at work. They are try[ing] to drag us into Iran to make it another Iraq. We can’t let them.”

Other Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who participated in a separate Wednesday briefing, said they didn’t share Rogers’ concerns.

“I sit on Intel and I sit on Armed Services, so I get the classifieds on both — I think they’ve given us accurate information,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told Jewish Insider. “And we always want more — so I understand the desire to get more information — but I’m not going to fault them for being careful on the information they give us because it’s a very fluid situation.”

“I’m satisfied,” Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) said of the briefing on Wednesday.

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