Secretary of State Mike Pompeo scoffed at the notion that top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani was on a peacemaking mission when he was killed during a U.S. airstrike in Iraq last week.
“Is there any history that would indicate it was remotely possible that this kind gentleman, this diplomat of great order, Qassem Soleimani, had traveled to Baghdad for the idea of conducting a peace mission?” Pompeo asked reporters during a press briefing on Tuesday.
Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif suggested over the weekend that Soleimani was a “peacemaking general” who was in Iraq at the time of his death to ease tension with the Iraqi government and put an end to the violence there.
“Anybody here believe that?” Pompeo asked to audible laughter from the press pool. “I made you reporters laugh this morning. That’s fantastic.”
Trump ordered the killing of Soleimani last week, claiming Soleimani was plotting to kill American diplomats and military personnel in the region. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday, “There was a greater risk in inaction.”
The Iranian government has vowed to avenge Soleimani’s killing, and members of the national parliament chanted, “Death to America,” over the weekend.
Pompeo called any suggestion that Soleimani had the best interest of anyone other than the Iranian regime in mind “propaganda.”
“Zarif is a propagandist of the first order,” he said. “We’ve heard these same lies before. It’s fundamentally false. He was not there on a diplomatic mission trying to resolve a problem.”
