Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said Thursday that Iran's capture of 10 U.S. Navy sailors this week proved further that America's enemies "keep pushing us to the limit" because of a "feckless" Obama administration.
"This is outrageous," the Florida Republican, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told
Greta Van Susteren on Fox News. "But it is representative of this feckless administration that is so weak and that gives all of our enemies concessions after concessions — whether it's Iran, whether it's Cuba."
She accused Tehran of deliberately apprehending the sailors, nine men and a woman, on Tuesday after their boats drifted into the Persian Gulf off Farsi Island.
The Navy personnel were released on Wednesday, and Iran issued a video with the commander apologizing for the mishap.
"They boarded the ship," Ros-Lehtinen said of the Iran National Guard. "They searched it. They seized their weapons. They had them kneel. They had their hands behind their heads.
"They had them apologize. It was degrading," she said. "They took our sailors and humiliated them."
Ros-Lehtinen also bashed Vice President Joe Biden for saying that Iran's moves were "standard nautical procedure" and Secretary of State John Kerry for praising Tehran for releasing the sailors "peacefully and efficiently."
"Thanking Iran, for Kerry to have done that, that's like thanking the bully of your school for taking your lunch money," she told Van Susteren. How could we possibly be in this situation?
"They just keep provoking and doing these bellicose actions — and they know there is nothing to be paid."
Ros-Lehtinen tied Iran's brazen activity to the more than $100 billion in sanctions relief due as early as this week under the nuclear deal.
Congress is expected to vote this week to halt the funds from being released, she said.
"The president said he is going to veto it," Ros-Lehtinen said. "The only thing that is going to go on as scheduled is the $100 billion that's going to be unfrozen."
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