Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State, has explained why Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian commander, was killed, following President Donald Trump‘s order.
YaahooJournalist reports that Pompeo said the action was in a bid to disrupt an “imminent attack” that could have cost American lives in the Middle East region.
His words: “I can’t talk too much about the nature of the threats. But the American people should know that the President’s decision to remove Soleimani from the battlefield saved American lives,” Pompeo said on CNN.
The US Secretary of State explained that there were plans by Soleimani to “take big action, as he described it, that would have put hundreds of lives at risk.”
Pompeo further noted that the death of Soleimani would make Americans safer in the region.
The US Secretary of State stressed that a US intelligence community assessment had led to the strike.
“The risk of doing nothing was enormous. Intelligence community made that assessment and President Trump acted decisively last night”.
He added that after the death of a US contractor in Iraq on December 27, “we watched the intelligence flow in that talked about Soleimani’s travels in the region and the work that he was doing to put Americans further at risk.”
“And it was time to take this action so that we could disrupt this plot, deter further aggression from Qasem Soleimani and the Iranian regime, as well as to attempt to de-escalate the situation,” he said.
The US Secretary of State said on the advisory to US citizens to leave Iraq, “the statement that we issued, was appropriate, that the timing was right for that.”
However, Pompeo has spoken with his counterparts in China, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Statements released by the State Department said Pompeo “made clear that the United States remains committed to de-escalation”.
