WATCH Trump and Pompeo Offer Conflicting Statements on Iranian Threat That Led to Soleimani Killing
Trump and others face continuing questions over their claims of an 'imminent' threat
The Associated Press
Jan 12, 2020 12:50 PM
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers remarks during the press conference where he announced the U.S. policy shift on Israeli settlements, in Washington, DC., on November 18, 2019.AFP
Confronted by persistent questions about his military action in the Middle East, President Donald Trump and his top officials offered a string of fresh explanations Friday, with Trump now contending Iranian militants had planned major attacks on four U.S. embassies. Just hours earlier, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said the U.S. didn’t know when or where attacks might occur. Trump and other officials insisted anew that Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani had posed an imminent threat to the U.S., but they rebuffed repeated attempts to explain what they meant by “imminent.”
Trump, meanwhile, announced additional sanctions against Iran, which he had promised after a barrage of missiles fired by the Islamic Republic against American bases in Iraq earlier this week.
twitter.com/davidgura/status/1215506861614600193
Those Iranian missiles, which caused no casualties, were prompted by the U.S. drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani last week in Baghdad. That U.S. assault set off a chain of events that included the unintentional downing of a Ukrainian jetliner by the Iran military, and calls by the Iraqi government to expel U.S. troops from their country.
At the White House, Trump issued an executive order adding additional U.S. sanctions to the already long list his administration had imposed in an effort to force Iran to accept a new agreement that would curb its nuclear program and to halt support for militant groups throughout the Middle East.
Trump declared the U.S. was holding Iran responsible for attacks against the United States as well as a threat to U.S. service members, diplomats and civilians — an apparent reference to the justification for killing Soleimani.
“The United States will continue to counter the Iranian regime’s destructive and destabilizing behavior,” he said