PITTSBURGH -- President Barack Obama said Tuesday that opponents of the nuclear deal with Iran were behaving like those who pushed for war with Iraq more than a decade ago, and said the United States should choose diplomacy instead of another rush to armed conflict.
In remarks to members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Obama said the criticism of the Iran agreement offered "echoes of some of the same mindset and policies that failed us in the past," and that it was being put forward by "the same folks who were so quick to go to war in Iraq."
As he seeks to persuade lawmakers not to reject the Iran deal, Obama urged what he called "a smarter, more responsible way to protect our national security."
Instead of "chest-beating," he said, America should agree that "strong and disciplined diplomacy" is the best way to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon that would threaten the stability of the Middle East.
"Sending our sons and daughters into harm's way should always be a last resort," Obama said. "That is strength, and that is American leadership."
After the nuclear agreement with Iran was announced, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has continued to defend the invasion of Iraq, accused the Obama administration of sanctioning the Iranian government's acquisition of nuclear weapons in the future.
"It's a matter of months until we're going to see a situation where other people feel they have to defend themselves by acquiring their own capability," Cheney said last week on Fox News. "And that will in fact, I think, put us closer to use -- actual use -- of nuclear weapons than we've been at any time since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II."
In addition, William Kristol -- the founder of The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine, and a vocal advocate of the Iraq War after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- has been critical of the negotiations with Iran and of the agreement announced by the United States and other nations.
In a blog post on The Weekly Standard website titled "A Very Good Deal -- for Iran," Kristol called the agreement "a deal worse than even we imagined possible" and said that "if Congress cannot override the president, the recovery will have to begin a year and a half from now, but from a deeper hole, a worse position for America, the Middle East and the world. Either way, this deal cannot stand."
Obama said Tuesday that the agreement would not stop the United States from fighting against Iran's support for terrorism and its other destabilizing actions across the region. And he angrily called for Iran to release Americans who are being held prisoner there.
The president has faced criticism of his efforts to free Americans held or missing in Iran.
"We are not going to relent until we bring home our Americans who are unjustly detained in Iran," Obama said Tuesday. "Journalist Jason Rezaian should be released. Pastor Saeed Abedini should be released. Amir Hekmati, a former sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, should be released. Iran needs to help us find Robert Levinson."
During his remarks, Obama also honored the four Marines and the Navy petty officer who were slain at military offices in Chattanooga, Tenn., last week, calling them heroes whose sacrifices demonstrate the dangers of serving during the time of a global campaign against terrorism.
Obama said the U.S. service members who were "killed so senselessly" by a gunman should stand as an example of the stakes of the fight in which the military remains engaged.
"We endure because the freedoms and values you protected are now defended by a new generation," Obama said after saying a few words about each of the people killed. "We must stand up for them and honor them now and forever.
"God bless these American heroes."
Year after VA scandals
Obama last appeared before the veterans group about a year after scandals about health care delays forced out the top Department of Veterans Affairs official.
Since last year's scandals involving long waiting lists at some VA hospitals, the department has expanded access to care, Obama said Tuesday. Its doctors and nurses have handled 2.7 million more appointments this year than last year, and officials have authorized almost 1 million more patients to see outside doctors.
But the department's increase in capacity has been swamped by the increase in need, officials have said. In some areas, visits to the veterans hospitals have increased by as much as 20 percent.
The increased demand for health care services has added to delays: The number of veterans on waiting lists of one month or more is now 50 percent higher than it was a year ago, officials said.
But on average, Obama said, "veterans are waiting just a few days for an appointment."
He added that "our work is not done" and said veterans officials and lawmakers who control spending must confront delays at some of the department's hospitals and a $2.6 billion budget shortfall this year.
"In some places, wait times are higher than they were last year," the president told the several hundred veterans in the convention center. "So I want you to know, I'm not satisfied."
Obama urged lawmakers to address the department's budget shortfall, which he said was the result of a surge in requests for treatment by the nation's returning service members. And he said the budget tool known as sequestration, which imposes across-the-board cuts to services, must end.
"The best way to protect VA funding going forward," Obama said, "is to get rid of sequestration for good."
In an opinion article published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Tuesday before Obama's appearance, Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, criticized the president for not making the problems at the VA a priority.
"It is long past time for President Barack Obama to become personally engaged in fixing VA," Miller wrote. "Our veterans deserve better than this ongoing circus of failure, cover-up and scandal. Even if we give the VA all the money it asks for, I have come to expect the department will release more shockingly bad news next week, next month and next year."
Veterans groups are critical of Republican lawmakers and the administration, accusing both sides of failing to come together to find a solution that will benefit veterans.
In a statement issued before Obama's visit, several veterans groups, including the VFW, urged members of both parties to put aside their partisan squabbles and increase funds for veterans' health care.
"This continues a pattern of inadequate resources for rising demand that we have identified regularly for more than a decade, yet our calls for sufficient resources have too often fallen on deaf ears," the groups said in a written statement. "Unless this impasse is resolved quickly, it will be veterans caught in the crossfire who will have to worry about when or whether they will be able to get the health care services they need."
Obama also noted during his remarks that a new federal rule soon would go into effect that prevents payday lenders, which offer exorbitant interest rates, from promoting loans to active-duty service members. The new rules will cap such short-term loans at 36 percent interest, far short of the 400 percent to 600 percent interest that some lenders have been charging members of the military.
Obama announced the rule change five years to the day after signing the Dodd-Frank banking overhaul into law. In his remarks at the VFW convention, Obama chided Republicans for their efforts to block the banking overhaul and the new payday loan rules.
"I will not accept any effort to roll back this law," he said.
Daily Show appearance
After his speech, Obama traveled to New York for a final appearance on The Daily Show before comedian Jon Stewart retires as the host.
In his appearance, Obama poked fun at opponents of the Iran deal, saying critics think that if only Cheney had been there, "everything would be fine."
He compared the negotiations with Iran to the strategic arms talks with the Soviet Union that led to treaties reducing missile stockpiles in both countries.
"That posed a much greater threat, and we actually had to give something up," Obama said. "In this situation, we're not giving anything up."
He added that the next president will have more options because of the agreement.
In a segment that officials at the show said would appear only online, Stewart grilled the president on why the government does not work more effectively.
"Government works better now than it ever has, given what we ask it to do," Obama said in response to a series of questions about lapses in service delivery by the VA.
Stewart offered more of his trademark skepticism, contending that Veterans Affairs was an example of an agency that should be doing better, especially more than six years after Obama took office.
To counter that, Obama cited the Internal Revenue Service, which he said had been underfunded by Congress. He said critics -- including Stewart -- had been too quick to believe accusations that IRS employees had singled out conservative groups for extra scrutiny.
What really happened, the president said, was that Congress "passed a crummy law" that was vague about what employees should do. And he said employees at the agency enforced the law "poorly and stupidly."
Obama said he understands he will leave office without satisfying every one of his goals. But he said the country is better off than it was when he took office.
"If we lose sight of that, then we're feeding into this narrative that there's nothing we can do," Obama said.
Information for this article was contributed by Michael D. Shear of The New York Times; by Josh Lederman of The Associated Press; and by Justin Sink, Angela Greiling Keane and James Rowley of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 07/22/2015