Sheila Vemmer / Defense News Media Group U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie is a senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

Members of Congress are already bracing for political retribution from U.S. voters as the price of gasoline passes $3 a gallon. Imagine what will happen if the price hits $10 a gallon, U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii mused.

It could well happen if the United States attacks Iran, he told a conference attended by defense contractors and military personnel April 27.

Iran would likely respond to a U.S. attack by launching cruise missiles at oil ship traffic in the Persian Gulf, Abercrombie said at the 2006 Cruise Missile & IED Defense Conference: Joint Engagement of Time-Critical Air & Ground Targets, sponsored by the Defense News Media Group, in Arlington, Va.

The international economic impact of just a few Iranian cruise-missile strikes against Persian Gulf oil tankers would be enormous, he said.

Abercrombie, an outspoken senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, called discussion of “a preemptory strike” and follow-up air strikes against Iran “political lunacy.” He characterized the threats and counter-threats issued by U.S. President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as “mutual school yard taunts.”

Abercrombie stressed that it is important to “do all we can to avoid war in the first place.”

Much has been said and written about what the United States — the world’s greatest military power — might do to Iran. But little has been said about retaliation by Iran, he said. “If you think the price of a barrel of oil is high now, wait til you see what takes place” if the United States wages war with Iran.

The United States is already struggling to pay the cost of war with Iraq, Abercrombie said. During legislative markups this week, the House Armed Services air and land forces subcommittee reprogrammed money from the Army’s Future Combat Systems program, the new presidential helicopter, the Joint Strike Fighter and other future-oriented programs to help pay war-related expenses.

“Every other part of the defense budget is being squeezed” by war costs, said Abercrombie, who is the senior Democrat on the subcommittee.

Programs are also being squeezed by fast-rising costs and slow development schedules, he said.

Abercrombie urged small and large defense companies with innovative ideas for the military to send them to Congress if they fail to get a satisfactory hearing from the Defense Department.

“There is a tendency to think of the executive [branch] as the sole purveyor of ideas, but more and more, Congress is asserting its constitutional authority” to initiate, authorize and appropriate for new programs, he said.

“The Constitution is still in effect, and you still have the right to petition your government, and that includes Congress,” he told the conferees.

Return to news coverage