WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans grilled President Trump’s pick to oversee policy at the Pentagon Tuesday, asking him to state for the record whether the growing nuclear threat from Iran is “existential.”
Elbridge Colby, who was nominated as the undersecretary of defense for policy, fielded questions from members of the Senate Armed Services Committee weeks after a behind-the-scenes spat about his views on Tehran spilled into the open.
“Let’s talk about a nuclear Iran,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who sits on the Armed Services panel and also chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I have some concerns about what you’ve said in the past.”
Cotton then asked Colby directly whether Iran was an “existential danger” with atomic weapons.
“Yes, a nuclear-armed Iran — especially, senator, given that … we know they’ve worked on [Intercontinental Ballistic Missile]-range capabilities and other capabilities that would pose an existential danger to the United States,” the defense nom answered.
Sources told The Post in recent weeks that Republicans were discussing “concerns with specific comments involving whether it is tolerable to live with a nuclear Iran” made by Colby — and that GOP national security hawks in particular had been heatedly debating whether to publicly oppose his nomination.
“Members are working to ensure all defense nominees share Trump’s position that Iran must not get a nuke, and they’re working to resolve this with meetings and a hearing over next few weeks,” one source said at the time.
In 2012, Colby had said: “The only thing worse than the prospect of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons would be consequences of using force to try to stop them,” according to a resurfaced video clip reported by Jewish Insider.
Colby explained Tuesday that his past remarks were in response to “quite cavalier” statements from Republican foreign policy circles about military action against Iran, though he acknowledged that Tehran was rapidly moving toward enriching enough uranium for nukes.
“I believe we should not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” Colby told Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska). “If confirmed, I would believe it’s my responsibility to provide credible, good military options.”
In opening remarks to the committee, Colby affirmed that his policy priorities would be in line with Trump’s defense policy of “putting Americans’ interest first” and achieving “peace through strength.”
“Peace and the protection of American interests in the world cannot be assumed,” he said. “There is a real risk of major war — and we cannot afford to lose one. I recognize these realities in my bones.”
Vice President JD Vance introduced Colby to the committee as a “friend” who “more than any person I’ve ever spoken to appreciates that military power, national security influence, is downstream of economic power.”
“We cannot fight wars unless our troops have the ammunition we need; we cannot defend our own national security unless we have the tank shells, the artillery shells and increasingly the drones and other advanced weapons that are necessary to actually fight battles when — God forbid — those battles are necessary to fight,” Vance said.
“I think ‘Bridge’ has been particularly aware of and worried about the degradation of our defense industrial base and how we must rebuild it if we want to preserve our own national security,” he added, using Colby’s nickname.
Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) touted Colby’s past work as a senior policy official at the Pentagon during the first Trump administration, noting his work as “the key architect” of Trump’s 2018 National Defense Strategy.
“After two decades of prioritizing wars in the Middle East, the National Defense Strategy in the first Trump administration under Bridge rightly refocused the US military on great power competition with China and maintaining American superiority in the Pacific,” Banks said.
“Bridge has been a leader in courageously stating this truth: America’s focus must be on the military threat from Communist China, and the US and our allies are running out of time to act on it,” the Indiana Republican added.
Elsewhere in the hearing, Colby said that he had been “trying to shoot a signal flare” and refocus US defense to “enable our own forces for an effective and reasonable defense of Taiwan and for the Taiwanese, as well as the Japanese to do more” against the possibility of an invasion of the self-governing, democratic island by Beijing.
