Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the decision to kill Qassem Soleimani came from intelligence that “many more Americans” could have been targeted by him.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Pompeo reiterated that President Trump’s choice to launch a drone strike against Soleimani, 62, came after much thought and consideration of relevant intelligence.
“There has been much made about this question of intelligence and imminence,” Pompeo said. “Anytime a president makes a decision of this magnitude, there are multiple pieces of information that come before us. We presented that to him and all its broad detail, we gave him all the best information that came not only from the intelligence community but from those of us who have teams in the field.”
Pompeo pointed out “Soleimani’s handiwork” in other parts of the Middle East too. He noted that the Iranian government has been involved in bolstering the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
[Read more: Pompeo swats down question about war crimes against Iran]
He said that Soleimani is responsible for “hundreds of thousands massacred in Syria” and “enormous destruction of countries like Lebanon and Iraq.”
“If you’re looking for imminence, you need look no further than the days that led up to the strike that was taken against Soleimani,” Pompeo said in reference to the death of an American contractor at the hands of an Iranian-backed militia and the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.
“And then you, in addition to that, have what we can clearly see were continuing efforts on behalf of this terrorist to build out a network of campaign activities that were going to lead potentially to the death of many more Americans,” Pompeo added.
The White House’s Iran adviser Brian Hook recently said that the strike against Soleimani prevented the deaths of “hundreds of Americans.”
