ICYMI: UANI's Lt. Gen. Barbero Testifies on the Iranian Threat Before Congressional Committee

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APRIL 12, 2017
[email protected]

ICYMI: UANI's Lt. Gen. Barbero Testifies on the Iranian Threat Before Congressional Committee

New York, NY - Lt. Gen. Michael D. Barbero (Ret.), a member of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI)'s advisory board, testified before the Subcommittee on National Security of the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on April 5, at a hearing entitled "Assessing the Iran Deal." Lt. Gen. Barbero had just returned from a trip to Israel as a part of a delegation of senior international retired military officers, where he met with leading Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Drawing from his experience as the former director of the U.S. Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, Lt. Gen. Barbero focused his opening statement on the threat posed by Iran's proxies in Lebanon and Iraq. In Lebanon, he stressed the need to work with U.S. allies in the European Union to designate the entire Hezbollah political apparatus as a foreign terrorist organization-not just its military wing. Lt. Gen. Barbero also encouraged Congress to work with the Trump administration to prevent the misuse of U.S.-supplied arms to the region-namely guaranteeing that the Lebanese army is sufficiently empowered and independent from the malign influence of Hezbollah.

Gen. Barbero observed that In Iraq, the bad news comes the day after Mosul is cleared. "In a post-ISIS Iraq Iranian proxy forces represent the greatest threat to stability and security... If unchallenged, these well-resourced Iranian proxy forces will serve in the vanguard of the Hezbollahization of Iraq... Unfortunately, with the lifting of sanctions that accompanied the signing of the Iran nuclear deal, Tehran's resourcing of its proxy forces ha[s] continued unrestricted."

Please click here for General Barbero's full testimony and on the below image for full video of the hearing.

For more information, or to speak with UANI leadership, please contact: [email protected].

###

About UANI

UANI is an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan, advocacy group founded in 2008 by Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, former CIA Director Jim Woolsey, and Middle East Expert Ambassador Dennis Ross, that seeks to heighten awareness of the danger the Iranian regime poses to the world.