Seth Moulton, presidential candidate, says he doesn’t ‘trust’ U.S. intel on Iranian threat

Presidential candidate Rep. Seth Moulton said Wednesday he trusts the British assessment of the threat level posed by Iran over the U.S.’ belief there are “credible threats” in the Middle Eastern state.

“It’s disappointing to not be able to say that I trust the American intelligence and the American administration but from everything I’ve seen, both classified and unclassified, I think the British assessment is much more accurate in this case,” the Massachusetts Democrat said on CNN’s “Right Now” show.

Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika said in a briefing to the Pentagon “there’s been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces” in the region, according to The Guardian.

This contradicts U.S. intelligence that led the Trump administration to both deploy additional military to the Persian Gulf and order U.S. Embassy personnel in Iraq to vacate amid the Iranian tensions.

Mr. Moulton, who is running for the Democratic presidential nominee, accused National Security Adviser John Bolton of “pushing” the president toward war.

“It’s just frightening how similar this roll up to war in Iran is to the roll up to war in Iraq. Back then we had Dick Cheney and John Bolton pushing George W. Bush, a president who had no idea what fighting on the ground, what combat is actually like, into a disastrous war in Iraq,” he said.

Today we have John Bolton, back in that same role, pushing President Trump, who dodged the draft, who lied about his feet to get out of serving in combat himself, into a war with a more dangerous adversary,” Mr. Moulton said.

“Don’t start a war without a plan to end it, and it’s pretty clear this administration has no plan,” he said.