Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) ripped into Speaker of the House Nancy Pelsoi (D-CA) on Thursday for labelling the airstrike president authorized that killed Iranian general and terrorist leader Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, as a "disproportionate" reaction to the attack on America's embassy in Iraq.
Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes was also killed in the same airstrike. The two were in a car at Baghdad's international airport. The airstrike was in response to Iranian proxy militias launching rockets that resulted in the death of a U.S. Defense Department contractor.
"I raise in total support of the decision to remove Qassem Soleimani. I've heard the use of the word 'disproportionate' from the Speaker," Zeldin said. "I've heard it today on the House floor and it's just a shocking word to use to describe what took place and it makes me ask the question: At what point is it proportionate to take out a designated terrorist who kills 600 U.S. troops, wounds thousands of others, kills and wounds troops recently, his proxies attack a U.S. embassy."
Zeldin said even the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps admitted Soleimani was in Iraq to plan more attacks against Americans and their allies in the country.
"Who needs to an intelligence briefing to determine that this was totally legitimate?" he continued, saying if Democrats need proof that Americans were in harms way, then "Go to Walter Reed! You need proof? Sit down with some of these Gold Star families who lost their sons, their daughters, their fathers, their mothers, their brothers, and their sisters" to a terrorist leader.
"I say good riddance!" Zeldin added.