Congress to vote on curbing president's war powers – as it happened

Live political reporting continues in Thursday’s blog

• Congress will vote tomorrow on legislation to curb the president’s war powers. “The Admin must work with the Congress to advance an immediate, effective de-escalatory strategy which prevents further violence,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said, after she and other members of the House disparaged Trump for failing to consult or inform them before ordering the assassination of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani.
• Rockets reportedly fell on the “Green Zone” around the US embassy and military facilities in Baghdad today, but details have been scarce.
• Trump spoke with Justin Trudeau and Boris Johnson on the phone. The leaders discussed working together to ensure that Iran doesn’t acquire a nuclear weapon.

Catch up on news and analysis of the US-Iran crisis:

• Trump pulls back for now but game of chicken with Tehran far from over
• The optics of Trump’s announcement: America stands ready to strike
• EU leaders relieved as Trump steps away from Iran conflict
• ‘They took good revenge’: Iranians respond to Iraq strikes
• False claims spread online after Iran missile attack on Iraqi airbases

Mike Pence said the US isn’t seeking a regime change in Iran, but wants “to see the regime change its behavior” in an interview on CBS.

The vice-president earlier tweeted that the “America is safer and stronger because of President Trump’s decisive action” toward Iran.

Pence’s tone matches that of Trump, vacillating between appearing strong and backing off. As the Guardian’s Tom McCarthy wrote in his analysis, though Trump’s public address this morning, which he delivered while “flanked by cabinet members and backed by eight military officers, communicated a clear subtext: America stood ready to strike” – even as his speech was notably non-provocative.

Lindsey Graham said that fellow Republican senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul were “overreacting” and that those seeking to limit the president’s war powers were “empowering the enemy”.

Lee told Fox News that it was “wrong” for the Trump administration to insist that there must be “no dissension” in the GOP over warlike actions from the president.

In the aftermath of the Iran missile attacks, there’s been a spread of online disinformation. The Guardian’s Jim Waterson reports:

Iran’s missile attacks on two Iraqi airbases have been accompanied by a spread of online disinformation, falsely labelled images and claims of news sources being hacked, which have added to jitters in the region regarding the attacks.

Iranian state television said on Wednesday that at least 80 “American terrorists” were killed, despite the US making clear that it had not sustained any casualties as a result of rocket attacks on Iraqi military bases hosting American troops. The attacks occurred in retaliation for the US’s assassination of the powerful Iranian general Qassem Suleimani.

Iran has a long history of running state-backed disinformation campaigns which attempt to influence opinion overseas, with Facebook regularly banning Iranian pages it believes are spreading false and divisive material aimed at audiences in the US and UK.

Twitter suspended an account impersonating the Israeli journalist Jack Khoury, which had been used to promote false claims that hundreds of US soldiers had been injured in the attacks and claimed they had been secretly evacuated to a hospital in Tel Aviv by a military aircraft.

An initial assessment by western intelligence agencies has found that the Ukrainian airliner that crashed in Iran wasn’t brought down by a missile, according to a Reuters report citing an anonymous Canadian security source.

Earlier today, Tehran said it would not be handing the plane’s black box to Boeing, fueling concerns that the crash, which killed all 176 passengers, was caused by a missile aimed at Iraqi bases used by US forces.

The chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, told reporters that Iran’s missile attack had been intended to kill American personnel and cause damage to the al-Asad airbase.

“I believe, based on what I saw and what I know, is that (the strikes) were intended to cause structural damage, destroy vehicles and equipment and aircraft and to kill personnel. That’s my own personal assessment,” Milley said. “But the analytics is in the hands of professional intelligence analysts. So they’re looking at that.”

The defense secretary, Mark Esper, said the intent has yet to be determined.

Hello again, US politics watchers, I take my leave now after a lively day but hand you over to my colleague, Maanvi Singh, in California to take you through the next few hours of US-involved geopolitical events and reaction here in the United States.

Key events so far today:

• The US House will vote tomorrow on new legislation to curb the president’s war powers, after Donald Trump failed to consult or inform Congress before he ordered the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani last week.
• Rockets have been falling in the heavily-fortified “Green Zone” around the US Embassy and military facilities in Baghdad. Details scarce so far.
• Boris Johnson and Justin Trudeau spoke on the phone about the US-Iranian crisis and the crash of a Ukrainian flight outside Tehran earlier today in which many Canadian passengers were killed.
• The British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, and US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, are meeting in Washington this hour.
• Donald Trump gave a live televised address at the White House this morning, in which he said “Iran appears to be standing down” after its relatively restrained missile strike on US facilities in Iraq overnight, and pledged more sanctions against Iran, but also appealed to the Islamic republic to explored “shared priorities” with the US, such as Islamic State.

“No evidence of imminent threat” - Booker

Here is some more reaction from both sides of the aisle - but in surprisingly parallel directions, rather than the usual polar opposite.

Democratic 2020 candidate Cory Booker just tweeted about the Capitol Hill briefing on the US-Iran crisis.

Booker and other Democrats running for president have had their campaigns rudely interrupted by the rising tension over Iran.

View image in fullscreen

Less prominent 2020 candidate Tulsi Gabbard was, seconds ago, on CNN saying more or less the same thing.

Meanwhile, Republican maverick Senators of the day, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Utah’s Mike Lee, are also exasperated.

Lee told Fox News that the congressional briefing was “lame” and that it was “wrong” for the senior Trump administration briefers - the secretary of state, defense secretary, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and director of the CIA - to tell GOP members of congress that there must be “no dissension” in the ranks over any warlike actions from Donald Trump.

It seems the members were given very luke warm, unreassuring assurances over whether Congress would be involved in any near future further actions of aggression towards Iran.

Lee called it the worst briefing he’d ever heard in his nine years in the Senate.

No casualties in Green Zone - initial reports

Still very few details about the latest incident in Baghdad. But here are a few more fragments, via Reuters.

Sirens were sounding inside the Green Zone. Police sources told Reuters at least one of the rockets fell 100 metres from the US Embassy.
“Two Katyusha rockets fall inside the Green Zone without causing casualties. Details to follow,” the military said.

Two loud blasts followed by sirens had been heard in Baghdad, Reuters witnesses said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

US Democrats, who dominate the House of Representatives, are still furious that they were not consulted or even notified before Donald Trump took unilateral action late last week to assassinate senior Iranian general Qassem Suleimani as he was being driven away from the Baghdad airport in Iraq.

It may be no more than a democratic gesture (given that the Republicans dominate the Senate and are foursquare behind their president, Trump) but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced the introduction of legislation to curb the president’s war powers, and it will come up for voting tomorrow.

As the Guardian’s senior political reporter, Lauren Gambino, just noted.

Nancy Pelosi tweeted about it earlier.

View image in fullscreen

Here’s a bitter little tit-for-tat on Twitter last weekend.

For some slightly deeper dives on this topic, here are interesting pieces about presidential war powers from the New Yorker and NPR.

Meanwhile, my world affairs editor colleague, Julian Borger, analyses the bigger picture on the US and Iran and where things stand this afternoon.