Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on Sunday called for extended military involvement against Iraq, saying that the U.S. could not "just fire missiles and come home."
In an interview on Fox News, Rogers slammed President Barack Obama for an "absence of leadership" because he had delayed taking military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al Qaeda-related faction that recently moved into Iraq from Syria with the goal of creating an Islamic empire.
"You have an al Qaeda army on the move," Rogers warned. "This is dangerous as it gets. Why? We have thousands of Westerners and Americans in both eastern Syria and Iraq who have Western passports."
The Michigan Republican asserted that Westerners had come to "jihadist Disneyland" and were being radicalized to be sent back to the United States for terrorist attacks.
"Should the U.S. be directly involved?" Fox News host Chris Wallace wondered. "Should we be sending Tomahawk cruise missiles, jet fighters off our assets in the Persian Gulf?"
"Well, if we learned anything, you can't fire missiles and then turn around and come home," Rogers insisted, adding that it did not necessarily mean U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq.
"We can't wait days and weeks and months to scratch our heads," he explained. "I guarantee you that this is problem that we will have to face. We are either going to face it in New York City or we're going to face it here."
"You can't fire and release, you have to fire and continue the pressure."
