{"id":31112,"date":"2017-11-15T16:03:33","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T11:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=31112"},"modified":"2017-11-15T16:03:33","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T11:03:33","slug":"us-senate-committee-questions-trumps-nuclear-authority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=31112","title":{"rendered":"US Senate committee questions Trump’s nuclear authority"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON Nov 15 (TNS):<\/strong> A US Senate committee held the first congressional hearing in more than four decades on the president\u2019s authority to launch a nuclear strike, amid concern that tensions over North Korea\u2019s weapons program could lead to war.<\/p>\n

Senator Bob Corker, Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, held the hearing as President Donald Trump wrapped up a 12-day trip to Asia largely dominated by concerns about Pyongyang\u2019s nuclear ambitions.<\/p>\n

Corker acknowledged that senators, including Democrats and Trump\u2019s fellow Republicans, have raised questions about Trump\u2019s authority to wage war, use nuclear weapons and enter into or end international agreements.<\/p>\n

Trump has traded insults and threats with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un and used expressions like \u201cfire and fury\u201d to hint that any use of lethal force against North Korea would be overwhelming. On Sunday, he again insulted Kim by calling him \u201cshort and fat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corker himself warned last month that Trump might be putting the United States \u201con the path to World War Three.\u201d<\/p>\n

But on Tuesday Corker said the hearing was not intended to target Trump. \u201cThis is not specific to anybody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Democrats made clear they were concerned about Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are concerned that the president of the United States is so unstable, is so volatile, has a decision-making process that is so quixotic, that he might order a nuclear weapons strike that is wildly out of step with US national security interests,\u201d Senator Chris Murphy said.<\/p>\n

During the hearing, retired General Robert Kehler, former commander of US Strategic Command, said the military can refuse to follow what it considers an illegal order, even a nuclear one. But it was not clear after questions from committee members how that process would work.<\/p>\n

Some senators want legislation to alter the president\u2019s nuclear authority. Corker said he did not now support that idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not see a legislative solution today, but that doesn\u2019t mean that over the course of the next several months one might develop,\u201d he told reporters after the hearing.<\/p>\n

Some senators seemed to bristle about the hearing\u2019s tone, warning against comments depicting Trump as unable to strongly retaliate for any attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single word that has been uttered this morning at this hearing is going to be analyzed in Pyongyang,\u201d said Republican Senator Jim Risch, who is in line to become chairman after Corker retires next year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON Nov 15 (TNS): A US Senate committee held the first congressional hearing in more than four decades on the president\u2019s authority to launch a nuclear strike, amid concern that tensions over North Korea\u2019s weapons program could lead to war. Senator Bob Corker, Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, held the hearing as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,303],"tags":[304,733],"class_list":["post-31112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-washington","tag-washington","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31117,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31112\/revisions\/31117"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}