US defense chief says Congress should have been informed earlier about Syria attack

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - The Pentagon should have informed Congress about an attack on US forces in Syria earlier than it did, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday.

"After every operation, we're required to brief Congress and we lean forward and try to ensure that Congress is briefed before we conduct an operation," Austin said under intense questioning from lawmakers.

"In this case, we had an attack and we launched an attack on the adversaries in the same short period of time. And so, because of that compressed time, we did both notifications at the same time. We should have notified you earlier," he said before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"Our goal is to is to make sure that we keep you informed and we will do everything within our power to make sure that we improve our performance," he added.

The drone attack on US forces in northeastern Syria and retaliatory strikes on Iran-backed militants came as the Senate was debating a repeal of the 1991 and 2002 Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF), which approved military action against Iraq.

One US contractor was killed and five service members were injured in the March 23 attack on a coalition base near Hasakah.

Sen. Tom Cotton rejected Austin's explanation, saying it was a "conscious decision made not to inform Congress," because doing so would have influenced an amendment to the AUMF's repeal that would have halted its removal.

"Maybe you didn't personally do it. Maybe you didn't personally do it. But I believe entirely that people in your office did that," said Cotton.

“I believe that your office specifically withheld notification of this deadly strike against Americans because the Rubio amendment on which we voted midday directly touched on exactly this scenario, not repealing these use of force resolutions," he added.

The amendment from Sen. Marco Rubio would ultimately kill ongoing efforts in the Senate to rescind the AUMFs, which allowed military action to be taken against Iraq.