Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) and more than two dozen lawmakers signed a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio about “multiple nuclear-armed states… directly involved in or immediately adjacent to” the US-Israeli war on Iran, the Hill reported.
Castro and other lawmakers said that Iranian missile attacks have targeted Israeli nuclear facilities in Dimona following the initial US and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28.
“We are, in the fullest sense, fighting this war side by side with a (regime) whose potential nuclear weapons program the United States officially refuses to acknowledge,” the letter states. “The risks of miscalculation, escalation, and nuclear use in this environment are not theoretical.”
The Democratic lawmakers warn that Congress “has a constitutional responsibility to be fully informed about the nuclear balance in the Middle East.” They called for the Trump administration to hold Israel to the same standard as countries with nuclear weapons programs like the United Kingdom, France, Russia, India, Pakistan, China and North Korea.
“If any such disclosure of any Israeli nuclear weapons capability would implicate US laws concerning nonproliferation, we are ready to work with you to address those concerns through legislative action,” Castro and other lawmakers wrote to Rubio.
“We cannot develop coherent nonproliferation policy for the Middle East, including with respect to Iran’s civil nuclear program and Saudi Arabia’s civil nuclear ambitions, while maintaining a policy of official silence about the nuclear weapons capabilities of one party central to the ongoing conflict in which the United States is a direct participant,” the letter reads.
The letter asks Rubio and the administration to specify what Israel’s nuclear capacity is, what its enrichment capabilities are, what assurances Israel has given that it will not use its nuclear weapons, and under what circumstances could Israel use its nuclear weapons, among several others.
The Hill said it has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Castro and other lawmakers also cite how the “public record strongly and consistently supports the conclusion that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, starting with an unrefuted reference to detailed evidence of Israel’s nuclear weapons program reported by the Sunday Times of London in 1986.
The letter also goes on to cite former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who in 2006 referred to powers surrounding Iran with nuclear capabilities, including “the Israelis to the west” while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee.