WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said Sunday that the United States has taken away a credible military threat and given up its leverage with Syria.
The Republican congressman said that the United States' deal with Russia to remove chemical weapons from Syria benefits Russia's interests.
"By the way, the Russians have been here the whole time and our complicit, in my mind, in allowing chemical weapons to be used. They got exactly what they wanted. They wanted Assad here for a year, or at least, extended for a year. They got that," he said on CNN's "State of the Union."
Rogers also said that the deal does not include hard dates for the removal of the weapons.
"All of this has to go to the U.N.," he said. "We've taken away a credible military threat. The Russians said we maintain that right to oppose it in the national security council. And they've said that they would.
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who also appeared on Sunday's show, disagreed.
"I this agreement is a very positive step," he said. " And, if we step back six or nine months ago and said we'd be in a position today where Syria would sign the chemical weapons treaty where U.S. and Russia be on the same page in disarming under U.N. supervision Syria of all these chemical weapons, without a single shot being fired, we would have said this is a phenomenal breakthrough."
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