Pentagon: no specific evidence of imminent attack on US embassies

Pentagon: no specific evidence of imminent attack on US embassies

WASHINGTON--U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Sunday said he did not see specific evidence from intelligence officials that Iran was planning to attack four U.S. embassies, an assertion made by President Donald Trump in justifying the killing of Iran's top general.
  While Esper said he agreed with Trump that additional attacks against U.S. embassies were likely, he said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that Trump's remarks to Fox News were not based on specific evidence on an attack on four embassies.


  "What the president said was that there probably could be additional attacks against embassies. I shared that view," Esper said. "The president didn't cite a specific piece of evidence."
  When pressed on whether intelligence officers offered concrete evidence on that point he said: "I didn't see one with regards to four embassies."
  Since confirming that Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani had been killed by a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, administration officials have claimed they acted because of an imminent risk of attacks on American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. Democrats and a few Republicans in Congress have questioned the justification of the attacks and said they have not been given adequate, detailed briefings.
  Trump said on Friday Iran probably had targeted the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and was aiming to attack four U.S. embassies before Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike on Jan. 3. “We will tell you probably it was going to be the embassy in Baghdad,” Trump said in a clip of an interview on Fox News. “I can reveal that I believe it would have been four embassies.”
  Esper said in a separate interview on CNN's "State of the Union" that the administration had "exquisite intelligence" that a broader attack against multiple embassies was likely but that could only be shared with the "Gang of Eight," a group of top congressional leaders who get briefed on sensitive information that the rest of Congress does not have access to.
  National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien echoed Esper's comment that the administration had "exquisite intelligence" on NBC's "Meet the Press" that a threat was imminent but did not comment on evidence saying four embassies were targeted.
  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and member of the Gang of Eight, said on Sunday that the group was not informed about possible attacks on four embassies. "There was no discussion in the Gang of Eight briefings that these are the four embassies that are being targeted and we have exquisite intelligence that shows these are the specific targets," he said.

The Daily Herald

Copyright © 2020 All copyrights on articles and/or content of The Caribbean Herald N.V. dba The Daily Herald are reserved.


Without permission of The Daily Herald no copyrighted content may be used by anyone.

Comodo SSL
mastercard.png
visa.png

Hosted by

SiteGround
© 2024 The Daily Herald. All Rights Reserved.