U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended President Donald Trump’s decision to kill Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.
Pompeo made the administration’s case during multiple television interviews on Sunday, saying there was “no skepticism” among senior U.S. leaders who had access to all the intelligence on Friday’s targeted killing.
“We would have been culpably negligent had we not taken this action,” Pompeo said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“It’s never one thing. ... It’s never one moment. It’s never one instance. It’s a full situational awareness of risk and analysis," Reuters cited him as saying.
Pompeo said intelligence justifying the Soleimani strike has been shared with leaders in Congress and he expects they will be briefed again this week. He bolstered Trump’s promise to respond forcefully to any Iranian attack.
“We’ve told the Iranian regime: enough. You can’t get away with using proxy forces and think your homeland will be safe and secure. We’re going to respond against the actual decision-makers - the people who are causing this threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Pompeo said on ABC.
