Esper contradicts Trump on intel that led to Gen. Soleimani's assassination

Young journalists club

News ID: 44809
Iran » Iran
Publish Date: 11:01 - 13 January 2020
Tehran 13 January_US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has made remarks that clearly contradict earlier comments by President Donald Trump who alleged Iranian top commander Qassem Soleimani had been plotting attacks against four US embassies before he was assassinated in an American airstrike.

Esper contradicts Trump on intel that led to Gen. Soleimani's assassinationTEHRAN, Young Journalists Club(YJC)-Trump personally ordered the drone strikes that targeted Lieutenant General Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) as well as eight other companions on January 3.

Speaking on Fox News Friday, the US president alleged that “four embassies” would have been targeted if the US had not carried out the operation, but failed to provide any details to substantiate his claims.

“We will tell you probably it was going to be the embassy in Baghdad,” Trump claimed. “I can reveal that I believe it would have been four embassies.”

Commenting on Trump’s remarks, however, Esper told CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday that he had not seen any specific piece of  evidence that would suggest those attacks were in the making.

“I didn’t see one with regard to four embassies,” he said when asked if there had been any tangible threat prior to the US airstrikes.

In a separate interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Esper appeared to be cautiously supporting Trump’s view that Iran had been planning attacks against multiple embassies.

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