Congress is pressing Pompeo for clarification on a report on Iran

Three presidents of the US Congress on National Security pressed Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo to say whether a report by Donald Rumsfeld's administration on arms control had been politicized and deviated from its assessments of Iran. 
The heads of the foreign affairs and armed forces and intelligence in the House of Representatives, all Democrats, asked Pompeo in a letter to brief the State Department and documents in this regard by May 23. 
The letter referred to a Reuters report published on April 17 that the annual report submitted by the US administration to Congress on the assessment of compliance with arms control agreements raised a dispute with US intelligence agencies and some State Department officials. 
The sources said that the opposition officials expressed concern that the report had been politicized and included a deflection of assessments of Iran.
"Our country knows best the risks of ignoring and selecting intelligence in foreign policy and national security decisions," said the heads of the three committees in their speech. 
They referred to the selective use of intelligence to "justify the march to war" in Iraq in 2003. 
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment. 
Tension between the United States and Iran escalated this month after comments from Washington that the US military was preparing to face "imminent threats to US forces in Iraq" by Iranian-backed groups there. 
Three US officials said on Thursday that Trump had told his senior advisers he did not want to engage the United States in a war with Iran.
The letter, signed by Elliott Angel, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Adam Smith, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Adam Schiff, chairman of the intelligence committee, questioned why the unclassified report was only 12 pages while the previous year's report was 45 pages long. 
Trump has tightened economic sanctions on Iran and intensified efforts to contain its influence in the Middle East after it pulled out a year before the nuclear deal signed in 2015, raising concerns among some in Congress that intelligence could be misused to justify military action. 
The agreement imposed restrictions on Iran's nuclear program and, in turn, the economic sanctions imposed on Tehran were relaxed. 
The US president announced the dispatch of a carrier group aircraft and bombers B-52 and Patriot missiles to the Middle East to counter what Washington described as a growing threat from Iran in the region.
Iran has described US moves as a "psychological war" and a British commander cast doubt on the US military's concerns about threats to its nearly 5,000 troops in Iraq.