A Democratic-led US House of Representatives committee said on Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to testify at a public hearing on Iran and Iraq policy, after threatening a subpoena over previous refusals to appear.
Representative Eliot Engel chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said that he spoke to Pompeo and he had agreed to appear at a hearing separate from the committee’s annual budget hearing.
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Engel said in a statement that he would announce a date for the hearing soon.
Members of Congress – including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans – have been pushing Trump’s administration for more information about the killing by a drone strike in Iraq this month of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.
On Monday, Pompeo “expressed his outrage at the continued assaults by Iran’s armed groups against US facilities in Iraq, including Sunday’s rocket attacks against our Embassy, which resulted in one injury,”
Since the US assassinated Iran’s Quds Force leader General Qasem Suleimani and Iraqi military figure Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis earlier this month in Baghdad, Iraq has become the battleground for both Iran and the US. Iran was prompted to fire ballistic missiles at an Iraqi base where US troops are stationed.
The foreign affairs panel had tried to schedule at least two public hearings with Pompeo, including one that would have taken place on Wednesday, Jan. 29, but he had declined to appear.