IT’S MY BELIEF, TOO: Defense Secretary Mark Esper, in interviews on CBS and CNN yesterday, said he shared President Trump’s belief that Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani was likely to attack more U.S. embassies than just the one in Baghdad, even as Esper admitted he was unaware of any specific intelligence to back up the president’s claim.
Pressed for details by Laura Ingrahan during a Friday interview on Fox, Trump asserted that Solemani was plotting against multiple American diplomatic facilities. “I can reveal that I believe it would have been four embassies,” Trump said. “But Baghdad certainly would have been the lead. But I think it would have been four embassies, could have been military bases, could have been a lot of other things too. But it was imminent and then all of a sudden, he was gone.’
‘I DIDN’T SEE ONE’: “What the president said was he believed that there probably and could have been attacks against additional embassies, Esper said on CBS, “The president didn’t say there was a tangible — he didn’t cite a specific piece of evidence.”
Asked by Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan if there was a “decisive piece of evidence” supporting the president’s claim, Esper said, “I didn’t see one with regard to four embassies.”
“What he said is he probably, he believed, could have been,” Esper explained, quickly adding, “I shared that view. I know other members of the national security team shared that view.”
GANG OF 8 BRIEFED: Esper insisted the so-called Gang of Eight, a bipartisan group of congressional leaders, was briefed on specific intelligence about the imminent threat to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, even though Esper himself was not in the briefing.
“That information was shared with the Gang of Eight, all that exceptional intelligence shared with the Gang of Eight, not the broader membership of the Congress,” Esper said, quoting one brieffer who spoke to him afterward.
“What the briefer said to me coming out of that meeting was his assessment that most, if not all the members thought that the intelligence was persuasive,” he said, “and that the Gang of Eight did not think that it should be released to the broader members of Congress.”
‘FUDGING’ THE INTEL: That was immediately disputed by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat leading the impeachment effort against Trump, and who appeared on CBS right after Esper.
“And so when you hear the president out there on Fox, he is fudging the intelligence. And when you hear the secretary say, well, that wasn’t what the intelligence said, but that’s my personal belief, he is fudging,” said Schiff.
A MATTER OF TRUST: In his Fox interview Trump said he didn’t trust Democrats with sensitive classified intelligence, especially prior to any planned operations. “I am worried about it. Certainly, I am worried about it,” Trump said. “Anything we give will be leaked immediately. You’ll see breaking news, ‘We’re about to attack in 25 minutes or do something.’ ”
“Everything the president has said is consistent with and his interpretation is very consistent with the intelligence which showed that Soleimani was plotting to kill Americans,” said national security adviser Robert O’Brien, on ABC. “I’d love to release the intelligence. The reason we don’t … is because that same intelligence, those same streams and channels are what allows us to protect Americans going forward. So rather than have a short-term political win, release the intelligence and say ‘I told you so,’ we want to keep Americans safe … going forward.”
Good Monday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Susan Katz Keating (@SKatzKeating). Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense.
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HAPPENING TODAY: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in California today where he is lunching with former Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz in Palo Alto.
Pompeo will also be speaking to Stanford University students at the Hoover Institution (1:35 pm EST) , and later delivering remarks to the Silicon Valley Leadership Group at the Commonwealth Club, in San Francisco, California (7:15 p.m. EST).
Pompeo’s remarks will be live streamed on www.state.gov
WE’D PREFER NOT TO: In response to the request from Iraq’s caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi that the U.S. begin discussions about the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, the State Department has issued a polite, but firm pushback.
“He didn’t quite characterize the conversation correctly,” Pompeo inisted Friday, adding,” We are happy to continue the conversation with the Iraqis about what the right structure is.
“America is a force for good in the Middle East. Our military presence in Iraq is to continue the fight against ISIS,” said spokesperson Morgan Ortagus in statement that indicated the U.S. has no plans to leave Iraq anytime soon.
“At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership — not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East,” she said.
“There does, however, need to be a conversation between the U.S. and Iraqi governments not just regarding security, but about our financial, economic, and diplomatic partnership. We want to be a friend and partner to a sovereign, prosperous, and stable Iraq,” she added.
A HIT AND A MISS: We learned Saturday that on the same day Soleimani was killed in a successful drone strike in Baghdad, an attempt to take out another senior Iranian commander in Yemen failed.
The report in the Washington Post, was later confirmed by the Associated Press, even as a Pentagon spokesperson cited the Defense Department policy of not discussing “alleged operations in the region.”
“I’m not going to speak to any plan or alleged operations,” Esper said on CBS. “We will exercise everything we need to do to protect the American people, to protect our forces, to protect our embassy.”
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a military airstrike by special operations forces targeted Abdul Reza Shahlai, a high-ranking commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
DISAGREEING WITHOUT DISPUTING: Esper’s careful comments on the intelligence behind the Solemani strike is just the latest instance in which the defense secretary has been careful not to challenge Trump’s account, while staying true to what he knows to be the facts.
In the past Esper has had to reframe Trump’s claims about seizing Syrian oil as well as the president’s description of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as “whimpering and crying and screaming all the way” to his death.
In his Fox interview Trump repeated the claim that the only remaining U.S. interest in Syria is in controlling its modest oil reserves. “I left troops to take the oil. I took the oil. The only troops I have are taking the oil. They’re protecting the oil. I took over the oil,” Trump said.
Esper has repeatedly said the U.S. is only protecting the oil to prevent it from falling into the hands of ISIS, and that the U.S. mission in Syria remains focused on defeating the terrorist group.
When Laura Ingrahan pointed out the U.S. wasn’t actually taking the oil, Trump briefly backtracked. “Maybe we will, maybe we won’t,” he said. “I don’t know, maybe we should take it. But we have the oil. Right now, the United States has the oil.”
KERRY’S RESPONSE: On Fox, Trump also repeated his criticism of the Obama administration for agreeing to unfreeze $150 billion in Iranian assets and returning $1.8 billion ($400 million plus interest) that Iran paid the U.S. for weapons that were never delivered after the fall of the Shah in 1979.
In an interview on CNN Friday, former Secretary of State John Kerry argued the money went largely to pay off Iranian debts, not to fund the missiles launched at the U.S. bases in Iraq last week.
“The president lied about that because we didn’t give $150 billion. They didn’t get anything near that,” Kerry said. “But the fact is the IRGC had all the money it wanted. The IRGC wasn’t starving at that point in time. And, in fact, Iran owed billions upon billions of dollars. Most of that money went to pay off their debts and to facilitate their economic initiatives.’
“What they got, in a totally separate arrangement, totally separate was the settlement of a lawsuit where they won and they were accruing interest,” Kerry asserted. “And the average taxpayer of America was actually having to pay more and more and more interest to the Iranians for the fact that they had won this lawsuit, and they were going to get more money.”
SCRAMBLING FOR VOTES: A measure to limit President Trump’s authority to wage war with Iran could come up for a vote in the Senate as soon as tomorrow. The sponsor of the Senate version, Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine, already has two GOP senators on board, Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky.
But Kaine needs two more Republicans to get the 51 vote simple majority needed for passage, and he’s hoping that Susan Collins of Maine and Jerry Moran of Kansas, who voted in the past for an amendment limiting funding for military action, will push the resolution over the top.
GRAHAM: “BLATANTLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL’: In a Saturday interview on Fox, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham dismissed the effort to rein in Trump as a meaningless exercise, that has “no effect of law.”
“I don’t doubt their motives,” he told Jeanine Pirro, “They’re…emboldening the enemy. ‘
“The Congress has the power to declare war. That doesn’t mean that the commander in chief can’t use military force to protect the country without Congress,” Graham, a retired military lawyer, argued. “We’ve declared war less than 10 times in the history of the country, but we’ve had military engagements hundreds of times.”
“He has all the authority he needs to protect troops in the field,” Graham added. “The War Powers Act is blatantly unconstitutional. “You cannot have 535 commander in chiefs. Can you imagine what our nation would look like if Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Rand Paul and AOC, and you name that keep going down that list that we couldn’t defend the nation unless they all agreed?”
SOLDIERS KIA ID’D: The Pentagon has identified the two U.S. soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan Saturday as Staff Sgt. Ian P. McLaughlin, 29, of Newport News, Virginia and Pfc. Miguel A. Villalon, 21, of Joliet, Illinois.
The soldiers were conducting operations as part the NATO Resolute Support mission, according to a Pentagon release, and died when their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.
Both soldiers were assigned to the 307th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
A Twitter account for Villalon’s hometown of Aurora, Illinois, posted a memorial message on Saturday.
“Tonight, the Aurora community mourns the heartbreaking loss of Miguel Villalon. He was one of two U.S. service members who passed away today while serving in Afghanistan. TA former student at East Aurora High School, Miguel was proud to serve in the United States Army,” it said.
The Rundown
AP: Iran police shoot at those protesting plane shootdown
New York Times: A Crackdown, And Apology, From Tehran
Washington Examiner: Trump reaches out to North Korea in hopes of getting negotiations ‘back on track’
Washington Examiner: US to expel over a dozen Saudi trainees after review of Naval Air Station Pensacola shooting
Washington Examiner: British ambassador detained in Iran during demonstrations
Washington Examiner: Inspiring’: Trump tweets in Farsi to speak directly to Iranian people protesting regime
Washington Examiner: US troops at base knew Iranian attack was imminent, giving them time to shelter
Wall Street Journal: U.S. Warns Iraq It Risks Losing Access to Key Bank Account if Troops Told to Leave
CNN.com: Russian Warship ‘Aggressively Approached’ U.S. Destroyer In Arabian Sea
The Hill: Democrats scramble to rein in Trump’s Iran war powers
Task & Purpose: Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren lays out her vision for the military if she is elected president
Washington Post: Fragile cease-fire in Libya signals influence wielded by Russia and Turkey
Air Force Magazine: Due Date Looms for Space Force’s First Org Chart
Newport News Daily Press: Troubled, Wonky: The Most Expensive U.S. Aircraft Carrier Ever Built Looks To Shed These Labels For Good In 2020
Military.com: U.S. Adding Firepower And Outreach In Pacific To Counter China
Japan Times: China’s Navy Commissions Biggest And ‘Most Powerful’ Surface Warship
Washington Post: Boeing’s departing CEO leaves company with $62 million amid 737 Max supplier layoffs
Calendar
MONDAY | JANUARY 13
10 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. — Woodrow Wilson Center Asia Program discussion on “Taiwan Elections: Implications for Washington and Beijing,” with Nadia Tsao, director of Mandarin service at Radio Free Asia; Abraham Denmark, director of the WWC Asia Program; and Robert Daly, director of the WWC Kissinger Institute on China and the United States. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/taiwan-elections
10:30 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. N.E. — Heritage Foundation and the Global Taiwan Institute discussion “Assessing the Results of Taiwan’s Election,” with Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla.; Stanley Kao, representative in the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington, D.C.; Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute; Bonnie Glaser, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ China Power Project; Robert Sutter, professor at George Washington University; and Russell Hsiao, executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute. https://www.heritage.org/asia/event/taiwan-2020
POSTPONED: 11:15 a.m. 2401 M St. N.W. — Foundation for Defense of Democracies National Security Summit, with keynote address by Vice President Mike Pence. Register at https://fdd.wufoo.com/forms
1:30 p.m. — New America discussion “Guantanamo in 2020: What is the Future of the Prison Camp after Eighteen Years?” with Thomas Wilner, co-founder of Close Guantanamo; Andy Worthington, co-founder of Close Guantanamo; and Melissa Salyk-Virk, senior policy analyst in the New America International Security Program. https://www.newamerica.org
7:15 p.m. 110 The Embarcadero, San Francisco — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers remarks to the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. Livestream at https://www.state.gov/
5 p.m. 1419 37th St. W.W. — Georgetown University Center for Social Justice discussion “Iran on the Brink of War: A Teach-In,” with Omar Baddar, deputy director of the Arab American Institute; Phyllis Bennis, director of the Institute for Policy Studies’ New Internationalism Project; Mark Lance, professor of philosophy at Georgetown University; and Keyvan Shafiei, graduate student at Georgetown University. http://guevents.georgetown.edu/event/iran
7:15 p.m. 110 The Embarcadero, San Francisco — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers remarks to the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. Livestream at https://www.state.gov/
TUESDAY | JANUARY 14
8 a.m. 2401 M St. N.W. — Defense Writers Group breakfast with Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. https://nationalsecuritymedia.gwu.edu
9 a.m. 1030 15th St. N.W. — Atlantic Council discussion “The future Army in great-power competition,” with Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/event
10 a.m. 2172 Rayburn — House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing “From Sanctions to the Soleimani Strike to Escalation: Evaluating the Administration’s Iran Policy,” with testimony invited from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, followed by a second panel with Richard Haass, president, Council on Foreign Relations; Avril Haines, Brookings Institution and former deputy national security adviser and CIA deputy director; and Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser. https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearings
11:30 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. N.W. — Center for Strategic and International Studies annual U.S.-Japan Security Seminar: The U.S.-Japan Alliance at 60,” with keynote address from Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono. https://www.csis.org/events
2 p.m. 1957 E St. N.W. — George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs’ Sigur Center for Asian Studies discussion on “Rising U.S.-Iran Tensions after Suleimani’s Assassination,” with Prashanth Parameswaran, senior editor at the Diplomat; and Deepa Ollapally, associate director of the GWU Sigur Center for Asian Studies http://elliott.gwu.edu
8 p.m. Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. — Democratic National Committee presidential primary debate, expected to focus on national security aired on CNN.
WEDNESDAY | JANUARY 15
8 a.m. 2401 M St. N.W. — Defense Writers Group breakfast with Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy https://nationalsecuritymedia.gwu.edu
10 a.m. Rayburn 2118 — House Armed Services Committee hearing: “DOD’s Role in Competing with China,” with Michele Flournoy, former undersecretary of defense for policy; Andrew Philip Hunter, Center for Strategic and International Studies; retired Rear Adm. Michael McDevitt, senior fellow, Center for Naval Analyses. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings
10 a.m. 2172 Rayburn — House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing “U.S. Lessons Learned in Afghanistan,” with John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearings
10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. N.W. — Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion “The Prospects for U.S.-Russia Arms Control,” with Andrey Baklitskiy, visiting fellow in the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program; and Jeffrey Mankoff, deputy director of the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program https://www.csis.org/events
11:30 a.m. 1030 15th St. N.W. — Atlantic Council discussion on “Reflections on 25 years of U.S. Policy in the Middle East,” with Nabeel Khoury, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council; and Thomas Friedman, foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/event
12 p.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. — Hudson Institute discussion on “The Future of Iran,” with former Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi; and Michael Doran, senior fellow at Hudson Livestream at https://www.hudson.org/events
12 p.m. 1135 16th St. N.W. — American Bar Association discussion on “key future challenges confronting the national security sector,” with Glenn Gerstell, general counsel of the National Security Agency https://www.americanbar.org/events
THURSDAY | JANUARY 16
8 a.m. 300 First St. N.E. — Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and the Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance Deterrence Center forum on “National Nuclear Security Administration: The Cornerstone of Strategic Nuclear Deterrence,” with Energy Undersecretary for Nuclear Security Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. http://www.mitchellaerospacepower.org
8 a.m. 2799 Richmond Hwy., Arl. — Surface Navy Association’s 32nd National Symposium, with Adm. Christopher Grady, commander, U.S. Fleet Forces and commander, U.S. Naval Forces Northern Command; Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, commander, Naval Sea Systems Command; and James Geurts assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development, and acquisition. https://www.navysnaevents.org/national-symposium
9 a.m. 4301 Wilson Blvd., Arl. — Intelligence and National Security Alliance forum on “2020 National Security Legal Outlook,” with Jason Klitenic, general counsel in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. https://www.insaonline.org/event
9:30 a.m. SD-G50, Dirksen — Senate Armed Services Committee hearing to consider the nominations of James McPherson to be undersecretary of the Army and Charles Williams, to be assistant secretary of the Navy for energy, installations, and environment. https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings
10 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. — Brookings Institution discussion on “Impacts and Implications of the 2020 Taiwan General Elections,” with Jacques deLisle, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for East Asian Studies; Alexander Huang, director of the Tamkang University Institute of Strategic Studies and Institute of American Studies; Thomas Wright, director of the Brookings Center on the United States and Europe; Richard Bush, chair in Taiwan studies at Brookings; and Yun Sun, nonresident fellow at Brookings https://www.brookings.edu/events
3 p.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. — Hudson Institute releases the Afghanistan Institute of Strategic Studies’ 2019 Report, with Shoaib Rahim, senior adviser at the Afghanistan State Ministry for Peace; Yaqub Ibrahimi, research fellow at AISS; Nazif Shahrani, professor of anthropology at Indiana University; and Husain Haqqani, director for South and Central Asia at Hudson https://www.hudson.org/events
FRIDAY | JANUARY 17
10 a.m. 485 Russell — Middle East Policy Council conference on “U.S.-Iranian Confrontation: Domestic, Regional and Global Implications,” with John Limbert, former deputy assistant secretary of State for Iran; former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Kuwait Douglas Silliman; former U.S. Ambassador to Oman Richard Schmierer, chairman and president of MEPC; Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy; Joyce Karam, Washington correspondent at The National; and Thomas Mattair, executive director of MEPC https://mepc.org/hill-forums
1 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. N.W. — Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion on “the growing security challenges posed by U.S. strategic competitors, with Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Air Force Gen. John Hyten; and Kathleen Hicks, director of the CSIS International Security Program. https://www.csis.org/events
WEDNESDAY | JANUARY 29
11:30 a.m. 1667 K St. N.W. — Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment discussion of new report, “Taking Back the Seas: Transforming the U.S. Surface Fleet for Decision-Centric Warfare,” with Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly. https://files.constantcontact.com
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“You cannot have 535 commander in chiefs. Can you imagine what our nation would look like if Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Rand Paul and AOC, and you name that keep going down that list that we couldn’t defend the nation unless they all agreed?”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, on Fox, arguing that the president’s authority to launch a preemptive attack to protect Americans cannot be limited by Congress
