Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) on Thursday sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin demanding answers about “the Department of Defense’s (DOD) presence in the Middle East,” including the number of U.S. military facilities in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen, the purpose and legality of these facilities, and the number of U.S. service members stationed in these countries.

This follows an airstrike at Tower 22 in Jordan, which killed three and injured dozens of National Guardsmen.

Gosar, in a recent newsletter, also criticizes the Biden Regime for unconstitutionally occupying these countries and using service members “as bait,” adding, “Congress has not authorized this base, called Tower 22.” Gosar continues, “Our own border is wide open.  Yet Biden has stationed 3,000 troops to lure attacks along the Syrian border.”

Gosar notes that “Most of the injured are members of the Is Battalion, 158th Infantry Regiment, or “Bushmasters,” of the Arizona National Guard, including Guardsmen from Phoenix, Tucson, Florence, Prescott, and Buckeye,” and “Due to the severity of their injuries, three of these Arizonan Guardsmen had to be medically evacuated for critical treatment.”

The attack is the first one to kill U.S. troops out of over one hundred-fifty attacks on U.S. bases and ships in the Middle East since the October 7 jihad massacre attack on Israel by Hamas. Several Americans were killed in the October 7 attack, and several more were taken hostage by Hamas and are still being held in captivity. Earlier in the month, two Navy SEALs drowned while boarding a ship off the coast of Somalia to intercept Iranian weapons bound for Houthi terrorists in Yemen.

In addition to three U.S. Servicemembers were killed, over 40 were injured, with eight requiring transport to another location for treatment. The troops were reportedly in a tent structure sleeping when they were attacked by a UAS, or unmanned aircraft system.

The following Friday, the U.S. began retaliatory strikes in the Middle East. The airstrikes employed more than 125 precision munitions, and U.S. military forces struck more than 85 targets, according to a statement released by CENTCOM.

This also comes after an appalling revelation, where the Pentagon last month admitted Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center following complications from ‘elective surgery’ – it turns out Lloyd Austin had prostate cancer and hid it from the Biden White House and the American people. Austin then refused to answer questions from reporters about the incident last Thursday in his first press conference since his secret hospitalization.

The three servicemembers killed in action were all members of the 718th Engineer Company, a reservist unit out of Fort Moore, Georgia.

The Pentagon released the names of three deceased servicemembers:

• Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, GA
• Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, GA
• Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, Savannah, GA

The Defend the Guard Act, legislation sponsored by State Senator Wendy Rogers in Arizona and introduced in several states, aims to prohibit National Guard troops from being released into active duty combat unless the U.S. Congress has passed an official declaration of war.

After Arizona Senate Republicans passed this bill last year with zero Democrat support, Arizona House Speaker RINO Ben Toma stonewalled it in the House, according to a Capitol insider and Bring our Troops Home founder Dan McKnight.

The Gateway Pundit reported that the same bill passed in the New Hampshire House of Representatives last month.

“Only Congress has the authority to declare war. I applaud the Arizona Senate’s effort to prevent the governor from sending our National Guard forces into active-duty combat to fight unconstitutional forever wars all over the globe that we have no business being in,” Congressman Gosar told The Gateway Pundit.

Click here to read the letter.