Iran is "getting desperate" after the United States lifted sanctions waivers on five countries in early May, and the attacks on two Japanese-owned oil tankers is the "most provocative" to date, and Iranian leaders are lying when they say their nation was not involved, Rep. Michael McCaul said Friday.
"This is clearly an IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) vessel," McCaul told Fox News' "America's Newsroom," referring to a video showing an unexploded mine being removed from one of the hit ships.
"Now they're trying to cover up the evidence, going back to try to take these mines off the hull of the ship so that we couldn't catch them in the act," said McCaul. "But the good thing is, we have great surveillance over there and we see everything they do."
Iran Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, in a tweet after the attacks, denied his country's involvement, accusing the United States of immediately jumping to make allegations against Iran without "a shred of factual or circumstantial evidence." He also said the United States and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was in Iran for talks when the ships were hit, were engaging in "sabotage diplomacy."
"The Iranians lie," said McCaul. "The evidence is very clear." Abe, he said, was meeting with Iran President Hassan Rouhani and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei when the ships were attacked.
Meanwhile, the United States is not in a mission to be aggressive with Iran, and that nobody "wants to see war," said McCaul.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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