Republican Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, thinks Congress will approve the president’s request for authorizing military force. “At the end of the day,” he said, “Congress will rise to the occasion. This is a national-security issue . . . this isn’t about Congress versus the president.”
He suggested that the intelligence case of a chemical-weapons attack would win over members of Congress, saying, “When members of congress get the evidence about the sarin-gas attack,” they’ll come around on the issue. He noted that “this is multiple attacks by now,” referring to British intelligence’s assessment that chemical weapons had been used 14 times over the past year and the U.S. conclusion that such weapons had been used on a number of occasions, too.
When asked by CNN’s Gloria Borger whether he thought the intelligence constituted a “slam dunk,” Rogers demurred, but said he thinks “evidence is convincing, and getting better, now that the forensics have come in.”