Pressed on claim Iranian Gen. Soleimani was plotting an 'imminent attack,' Sec. Mike Pompeo says, 'This was gonna happen. And American lives were at risk...We would have been culpably negligent' not to recommend strike.
Senior State Department officials said Friday that the plots had the potential to kill hundreds of American officials in, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere in the region. But some lawmakers, who received a classified justification for the strike on Sunday, have cast doubt on the intelligence that the administration has cited and said that classified justification doesn't match what Pompeo and others have said publicly.
But Pompeo seemed to walk those claims back slightly, telling reporters at the State Department earlier on Tuesday that the U.S. detected"continuing efforts on behalf of this terrorist to build out a network of campaign activities that were going to lead potentially to the deaths of many more Americans."
Iranians set U.S. and Israeli flags on fire during a funeral procession organised to mourn the slain military commander Qasem Soleimani, Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and others in the capital Tehran on Jan. 6, 2020.That nuanced answer made it seem Soleimani was less connected to any plans and those plans less imminently threatening to U.S. interests.
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