Part 4: Pompeo on Soleimani, Iran Tensions

On January 3, Secretary of State Pompeo alleged that Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Qods Force, was planning an “imminent attack” on Americans. In several interviews with the press, he argued that the United States would have been negligent if it had not killed the general in a drone strike on January 2. “The American people would have said that we weren’t doing the right thing to protect and defend American lives,” he told NBC on January 5. But he declined to offer details about the plot other than that dozens, if not hundreds, of American lives were at stake. “I can’t talk too much about the nature of the threats, but the American people should know that President Trump’s decision to remove Qasem Soleimani from the battlefield saved American lives,” he told CNN. 

Pompeo said that the drone strike was intended to deter Iran from future attacks on U.S. interests. “I hope that the Iranian leadership will see that and they’ll see American resolve and that their decision will be to de-escalate, to take actions consistent with what normal nations do.  And in the event that they do not, in the event they go the other direction, I know that President Trump and the entire United States Government is prepared to respond appropriately,” he told Fox News. 

Pompeo dismissed questions about the legality of the targeted killing. “He’s a military commander who was actively engaged in plotting to kill Americans in the region. We had an important set of underlying reasons to take this strike. It was wholly lawful.  We’re confident that we not only got it right legally but we got it right strategically,” he added. 

The following is a roundup of Pompeo’s interviews with the press since the drone strike. 

 

January 7, 2019

Secretary Michael R. Pompeo Remarks to the Press

SECRETARY POMPEO: In Afghanistan, there was an aspect of that conflict that deserves more attention, and that is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s involvement there.  Iran has refused to join the regional and international consensus for peace and is, in fact, today actively working to undermine the peace process by continuing its long global efforts to support militant groups there.  Most people know about Iran’s proxy networks in the Arab world, but the regime also has a relationship with the Taliban and related groups, such as the Haqqanis, the Tora Bora, and the Mullah Dadullah group.  The Taliban’s entanglement in Iran’s dirty work will only harm the Afghanistan peace process.

QUESTION: One is there continue to be questions about the nature of the intelligence that led to the strike on – that killed General Soleimani.  Can you be at all more specific about how imminent this was, what exactly it was?  Secondly, why not allow Foreign Minister Zarif to come to the UN to speak at the Security Council?  And then lastly, did the situation in Iran have any – contribute at all to your decision not to run for the Senate from Kansas?  Thanks.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Thank you.  Last one’s easy.  I said the same thing yesterday that I said for months – no real news there.  I’ve said that I’m going to stay serving as Secretary of State so long as President Trump shall have me.  So, no, if I – you can accuse me of being inconsistent elsewise, but not on that one.

Second, we don’t comment on visa matters, those traveling here to the United States on visas, so I can’t add much more to this issue of Foreign Minister Zarif’s travel to the United States.  I’ll say only this:  We will always comply with our obligations under the UN requirements and the Headquarters Agreement, and we will do so in this particular instance and more broadly every day.

And finally, there’s been much made about this question of intelligence and imminence.  I answered it multiple times on Sunday.  I’m happy to walk through it again.  Anytime a president makes a decision of this magnitude there are multiple pieces of information that come before us.  We presented that to him, in all its broad detail.  We gave him all the best information that came not only from the intelligence community but for those of us who have teams in the field.  We evaluated the relevant risks and the opportunity that we thought might present itself at some point.

And we could see clearly that not only had Soleimani done all of the things that we have recounted – right, hundreds of thousands – a massacre in Syria, enormous destruction of countries like Lebanon and Iraq, where they’ve denied them sovereignty, and the Iranians have really denied people in those two countries what it is they want, right, sovereignty, independence and freedom.  This is all Soleimani’s handiwork.  And then we’d watch as he was continuing the terror campaign in the region.  We know what happened at the end of last year, in December, ultimately leading to the death of an American.  So if you’re looking for imminence, you need to look no further than the days that led up to the strike that was taken against Soleimani.

And then you, in addition to that, have what we could 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.  It was the right decision.  We got it right.  The Department of Defense did excellent work.  And the President had an entirely legal, appropriate, and a basis, as well as a decision that fit perfectly within our strategy and how to counter the threat of malign activity from Iran more broadly.

QUESTION:  Two questions, if you don’t mind.  Iran’s Foreign Affairs Minister Zarif granted an interview saying that Soleimani was on a diplomatic visit to Iraq, that the U.S. strike to take him out was state terrorism, that President Trump has prepared to commit war crimes, and that Iranians are enraged.  First – that’s the first question.  I’d like your reaction to that.

Second question.  President Trump has indicated that Iran’s cultural sites could be targeted.  Is that true?  Are they on the target list, and if so, do you consider that a war crime?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  So, let’s see – so Zarif’s statement.  His first statement that Soleimani was traveling to Baghdad on a diplomatic mission – anybody here believe that?  Is there any history that would indicate that it was remotely possible that this kind gentleman, this diplomat of great order, Qasem Soleimani, had traveled to Baghdad for the idea of conducting a peace mission?  I made you reporters laugh this morning.  That’s fantastic.  We know that wasn’t true.  We not only know the history, we know in that moment that was not true.

Zarif is a propagandist of the first order, and most of what you suggested in his text message or email or message that you laid out there was, indeed, Iranian propaganda.  It’s not new.  We’ve heard these same lies before.  It’s fundamentally false.  He was not there on a diplomatic mission trying to resolve a problem.  I know there’s been some story that he was there representing a Saudi peace deal.  I’ve spoken to my Saudi counterparts at great length.  I’ll leave to them what the contents of their messages may be.  But I can assure you that they will share my view, that he was not there representing some kind of agreement that was going to reduce risk or reduce the risks to the lives of Americans when he was on that trip.

Your last piece was about cultural sites.  I said on Sunday – I will reiterate it again – every target that’s being reviewed, every effort that’s being made will always be conducted inside the international laws of war.  I’ve seen it.  I’ve worked on this project, and I’m very confident of that.

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, it’s an election year, and you’re now facing two nuclear-related crises in – with Iran and North Korea.  Are you optimistic about resolving either of those without them sort of blowing up, so to speak, at inopportune moments?

And on the Iran front, Iran’s breakout time when you came into office was considered to be about a year.  Is it now longer or shorter?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  I’ll leave it to the intelligence team to talk to you about the details of Iran’s breakout time for the moment, but President Trump could not be more clear.  On our watch, Iran will not get a nuclear weapon, and as we came into office, Iran was on a pathway that had been provided by the nuclear deal, which clearly gave them the opportunity to have those nuclear weapons.  We won’t let that happen.

As for the first question, which was more broadly, what President Trump laid out is a national security strategy, with respect to both North Korea and Iran, is the plan that we have executed, the strategy that we have executed for this past three years.  We have put Iran in a place that it has never been before, where they’ve had to make some very difficult choices – choices about how to pay for and underwrite their proxy militias around the region, whether and how to build out their missile program.  This is a flip from where we were eight years before.  It’s not political.  Previous administration made a different choice.  They chose to underwrite and appease.  We have chosen to confront and contain.  Those are different strategies.  We believe ours is successful, and we ultimately believe it will be successful at making Iran behave like a normal nation, will deny them the capacity to build out their nuclear program and threaten not only Americans and our lives – to keep Americans safe, which is our mission set – but also to create enhanced stability throughout the Middle East.  We’re confident that that’s the case.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, two quick things here on the Soleimani strike.  Since the Trump administration withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal – what, about two years ago or so – the Trump administration has said repeatedly that it is pursuing against Iran a maximum pressure campaign.  First question:  The Soleimani operation, was that part of the maximum pressure campaign?

To your knowledge, was any legal counsel in the Executive Branch consulted for his or her input surrounding the legal aspects of the strike prior to its execution?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, I’ll leave to others to comment on that, but I can say, as a pattern of practice, I have never seen this administration engage in an activity of this nature without a thorough and complete legal review of what the bases would be if the President were to make a series of decisions.  Often, the lawyers review all of the options that are being presented to the President of the United States in advance of them being presented, such that every option that is presented to him has been fully vetted through the legal process.  I – I’m confident that that was the case here, although I don’t have specific knowledge of that.  I’m confident that that was the case.

Second, you asked about the scope of the – the strategy and the maximum pressure campaign that we’ve had in place.  It has a diplomatic component, it has had an economic component, and it has had a military component.  And what you have seen over the course of these past – May 2018 when we withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal – you’ve seen us execute that with enormous vigor and energy.  You’ve seen it diplomatically.  We’ve built out coalitions around the region – with the Israelis, with the Gulf states – on certain files, on the missile file and on the terror file, with our European partners as well, not just the E3.  Go back and look from May of last year, go look at the statement that was made in Warsaw, a united statement centering the instability in the Middle East on the Islamic Republic of Iran.  We’ve got a coalition now in the Straits of Hormuz.  We’ve diplomatically isolated the Iranian regime.

Second, economically, we’ve all seen the sanctions put in place.  It’s now over some thousand sanctions.  We’ve watched the regime struggle to figure out how it was they were going to make it through 2020.  They’ve got a budget that will fall short by a significant amount in 2020 as a direct result of the pressure that we’ve put on the regime.  And then you saw, over not just this past week but over the last year, you’ve seen our security component to this.  You’ve seen us reinforce allies in the region by ensuring that the Emirates and the Saudis and all of the others were prepared for what might happen if Iran decided to make choices that were bad for the Iranian people.  And then you saw more tactically, just these last few days, the President’s response when the Iranians made a bad decision to kill an American.  We hope they won’t make another bad decision just like that one.

QUESTION:  So just to be clear, the Soleimani strike was part of the administration’s maximum pressure campaign, and going forward, the Iranians should understand, as they develop their calculus, that similar actions such as the Soleimani strike could well continue to be a feature of this maximum pressure campaign?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  I think the President’s been unambiguous in his – both the remarks he made down in Florida as well as the tweets that he’s put out – about the seriousness with which we take this, the risk attendant that we are deeply aware of, and the preparations we’ve made to prevent those risks, as well as our determination that in the event the Iranians make another bad choice, that the President will respond in a way that he did last week, which was decisive, serious, and messaged Iran about the constraints that we are going to place on that regime so that it doesn’t continue to put American lives at risk.

At the end, our Iran policy is about protecting and defending the homeland and securing American lives.  I know that the efforts that we have taken not only last week with the strike against Soleimani, but the strategy that we’ve employed, has saved American lives.  I’m highly confident in that.

QUESTION:  A question about the issue of cultural sites, because the President said on Air Force One coming back, after you had been on the Sunday talk shows, that “They’re allowed to kill our people.  They’re allowed to torture and maim our people.  They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people.  And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites.  It doesn’t work that way.”

Defense Secretary Esper has made it clear that he would not follow an order to hit a cultural site, would – would be a war crime.  I’m wondering whether you would also push back in your advice or in your role.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  I was unambiguous on Sunday.  It is completely consistent with what the President has said.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Let me tell you who’s done damage to the Persian culture.  It’s not the United States of America; it’s the ayatollah.  If you want to look at who has denied religious freedom, if you want to know who has denied – the Persian culture is rich and steeped in history and intellect and they’ve denied the capacity for that culture to continue.  If you go back and look at the holidays around Cyrus and Nowruz, they’ve not permitted people to celebrate.  They’ve not allowed people that they’ve killed – that Qasem Soleimani killed – they’ve not allowed them to go mourn their family members.  The real risk to Persian culture does not come from the United States of America.

 

January 3, 2019

Secretary Michael R. Pompeo With Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends

QUESTION:  Meanwhile, let’s go out to the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, kind enough to be joining us live at this very important moment in American military and security history.  Mr. Secretary, thanks so much for joining us.  Can you bring us back to that decision when you realized you would have a shot at General Soleimani and you wanted to take that shot?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  President Trump made the decision, a serious decision which was necessary.  There was an imminent attack.  The orchestrator, the primary motivator for the attack was Qasem Soleimani, an attempt to disrupt that plot.  You all have been talking this morning about the history of who Qasem Soleimani is.  He’s got hundreds of American lives’ blood on his hands.  But what was sitting before us was his travels throughout the region and his efforts to make a significant strike against Americans.  There would have been many Muslims killed as well – Iraqis, people in other countries as well.  It was a strike that was aimed at both disrupting that plot, deterring further aggression, and we hope setting the conditions for de-escalation as well.

QUESTION:  All right.  The Pentagon did release a statement that one of the reasons that he was taken out now was because he was planning more attacks on Americans.  What can you tell us about that generally?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Steve, I can’t say much more, but you need not look any further back than just the last few months – dozens and dozens of attacks against American and allied interests throughout the region by Iran and its proxies, culminating in what happened with an American killed on December 27th.  But we’ve had artillery rounds fired in the direction of Americans to Iraqi facilities.  There have been a series of actions and we’ve watched that escalation take place.  There was an American UAV shot down.  The restraint that President Trump had shown was important, and it’s now the time we needed to take action to restore deterrence.  So the men and women who are on the ground there today, we take seriously the need for their security and we’re working on it.  We’ve been planning for this and we’re prepared.

QUESTION:  Now, if Iran does retaliate – I’ve heard some experts say they don’t always retaliate immediately; it could take a long time – what are the President’s military options?  Lindsey Graham has suggested maybe taking out their three oil refineries.  What do you say?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Ainsley, I certainly don’t want to get out in front of how the President will decide to respond other than to say this:  I think the Iranian leadership understands that President Trump will take action.  We’ve made this clear for months.  When I was the CIA director, we made very clear that these responses would be swift and decisive.  We’ve now demonstrated that.  I hope that the Iranian leadership will see that and they’ll see American resolve and that their decision will be to de-escalate, to take actions consistent with what normal nations do.  And in the event that they do not, in the event they go the other direction, I know that President Trump and the entire United States Government is prepared to respond appropriately.

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, I was struck by some of the people that were calling out you and other members of the administration, one of which is Ambassador Chris Hill, who for I think 16 months was in Iraq, and I really can’t point out much that went well during his tenure.

But he felt secure enough to make this comment a couple of days ago:  “The U.S. Government has a kind of cartoon image of what is happening in that part of the world, and one worries whether the administration has the sort of horsepower and brainpower to deal with them.”

Do you have the brainpower or horsepower to deal with this?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  I don’t pay much attention to what folks like that say.  I know precisely what President Trump has given as our direction.  I know the mission set; the whole team does.  We’re focused on making sure for the day that we’re secure, that we’re doing everything we can to prepare to have the resources in the region to respond.  I think they’re positioned appropriately and we’re confident.

QUESTION:  Right.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  We also – I can’t fail to mention we gave the Iraqis a real opportunity.  We watched these protests over the last months.  These protests weren’t against America.  They were against the terrible leadership that had come out of Iraq over the past decades.  And we watched last night and you saw the video of Iraqis dancing in the streets.  They’re happy too.  The absence of Qasem Soleimani is a boon to this region, and we reduced risk last night.  It was very clear that we did so and we will continue to take actions to reduce risk and to protect Americans.  President Trump’s been very clear about that, and nothing is different today than it was yesterday with respect to that.

QUESTION:  Clearly, this is part of the President’s maximum pressure campaign which he has launched on a number of entities.  In the past, I know you have been critical of certain members of President Obama’s administration who you felt were undermining the President’s maximum pressure campaign by saying to Iran behind the scenes, hey, just hang on, once he loses in 2020 we’ll be able to go back to the way things used to be.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, that kind of activity is never appropriate.  It is especially bad when it puts American lives at risk.  So I would hope that those former administration officials will just simply get off the stage and allow President Trump and our team to do the right thing.  Look, we took a very different approach.  We didn’t send pallets of cash to the Iranians.  We didn’t pay for hostages.  We didn’t create a deal which would have given them a clear pathway to a nuclear weapon.  We’ve taken a very different approach.  We believe it’s the one that will ultimately lead to success and stability in the Middle East.

QUESTION:  Yeah.  This is the non-Benghazi.  So what do you know about the other individuals that were killed?  I’ve heard seven, I’ve heard eight people.  One of the guys in addition to Soleimani was the Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.  What do you know about him?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  So he was the leader of the Iraqi Shia – he was the primary contact for Qasem Soleimani when it came to Shia militia forces acting in Iraq.  He was a bad guy.  I can only confirm that General Soleimani is dead; but if Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis is passed away as well, again, less risk in the Middle East, more freedom for Iraqis, more opportunity for Iraqi people to stand up and get a independent, free, sovereign Iraq built.  It’s what America has been there for.  We’ll continue to work it.  We’ll continue to fight ISIS in the region.  We’re committed to making sure that Americans are safe from terror wherever we find it.

QUESTION:  So I understand – The New York Times is reporting that Donald Trump did something that George W. Bush and Barack Obama did not want to do because they feared there would be reprisals.  They could have taken out Soleimani in the past, but they didn’t want to take the risk.  You know there’s a risk to every move like this.  Why was this risk worth it now?  Because I imagine over the last two and a half, three years, you’ve also had a shot at him in the past, you as CIA director or as – might have heard from your own former secretary of defense.  Why now?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Well, now was important because of the escalations that’s taken place as well as the imminency of attack that Qasem Soleimani himself was planning.  But, Brian, I think you know this.  The risk of doing nothing was enormous, enormous in the short term in terms of the imminent attack that Qasem Soleimani was plotting, but also highly risky – doing nothing in this region shows weakness.  It emboldens Iran.  It’s what’s happened under the previous administration for eight years where the Iranians felt free to conduct hundreds of attacks.  We know that this didn’t work.  President Trump has taken a fundamentally different approach, and we’re confident that our strategy that we’ve developed, not only the economic pressure but building out coalition forces in the Straits of Hormuz, working to reinforce our Saudi and Emirati partners – all of the things that we have done to create the conditions for a more stable and peaceful and prosperous Middle East, we think this is a part of.

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, a number of Democrats running for president had said, yup, he was a bad guy.  But at the same time, a number of Democrats are also wanting the President to explain what legal authority he used to take this guy out, because he wasn’t just a terrorist.  He was a member of the Iranian Government.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, it’s – we shouldn’t forget it’s General Soleimani.  He’s a military commander.  He’s a military commander who was actively engaged in plotting to kill Americans in the region.  We had an important set of underlying reasons to take this strike.  It was wholly lawful.  We’re confident that we not only got it right legally but we got it right strategically.

QUESTION:  We’ve heard the experts say that this is the number two guy over there.  I know you delayed your trip to the Middle East.  What does this mean for negotiations going forward?

QUESTION:  To Ukraine.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  I’m sorry, is the question about Iraq or Iran?

QUESTION:  Well, what does this mean for negotiations going forward?  I know you delayed your trip to the Ukraine.  What does this mean for negotiations with Iran going forward?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Well, the President’s been pretty clear.  We don’t seek war with Iran, but we at the same time are not going to stand by and watch the Iranians escalate and continue to put American lives at risk without responding in a way that disrupts, defends, deters, and creates an opportunity to de-escalate the situation.

QUESTION:  Are you prepared for the retaliation of – on embassies around the region, whether it’s Yemen, Oman, Iraq in particular?  The way – the one thing about Iran – and they even were rumored to have sleeper cells here – they are – they do – they are pretty fanned out.  How fortified and how firm are our defenses?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, Brian, we’ve known for a long time that there was risk not only in Baghdad at our embassy but around the region.  We’ve done all that we can to prepare to secure those facilities.  The Department of Defense, the State Department have been working closely together on that, and President Trump’s made clear we’re going to take all necessary action.  We’ll have the resources we need to achieve that.

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, there’s no doubt about it.  The reports were that you were about to hit back at Iran after they took out our $200 million drone, and others say you were ready to – and the President at the last minute changed his mind.  When did the President make the decision?  And up until the last minute, were you ready to – to back off had the President – if the President changed his mind?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Brian, I don’t want to talk about the decision-making process.  I’ll only say this:  This was a thoughtful approach.  It was an intelligence-based approach.  It was a whole-of-government approach.  President Trump, through this whole process, was in charge of directing our actions.  And as we moved through the day yesterday, it became clear that we were going to have this opportunity to disrupt this plot, and we achieved that.

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, final question for you.  While Brian was asking about the embassies and the potential for terrorism over there, for the folks watching right here, they’re way over there.  There could be some terrorism here, but something that’s a real concern is cyberterrorism.  I would imagine that precautions have been taken to make sure they can’t fiddle with our internet.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Steve, there’s always risk of cyber attacks.  The Iranians have a deep and complex cyber capability, to be sure.  Know that we’ve certainly considered that risk.  Your point about risk here in the United States is real too.  Qasem Soleimani himself, the man that we took out yesterday, orchestrated an attack right here in Washington, D.C., not too terribly long ago.  It was unsuccessful, but that was him.  That was this same guy.  He’s a bad actor.  He was involved in the Beirut bombings in – that killed Americans.  This is a guy with enormous blood on his hands, and the actions that we took yesterday were both consistent with deterrence and with disrupting that imminent attack.

 

Secretary Michael R. Pompeo With John Berman of CNN New Day

QUESTION:  You put out a statement a short time ago that says the decision to eliminate General Soleimani was in response to imminent threats to American lives.  What was the nature of those imminent threats?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  John, I can’t talk too much about the nature of the threats, but the American people should know that President Trump’s decision to remove Qasem Soleimani from the battlefield saved American lives.  There’s no doubt about that.  He was actively plotting in the region to take actions – a big action, as he described it – that would have put dozens if not  hundreds of American lives at risk.

We know it was imminent.  This was an intelligence-based assessment that drove our decision-making process.  The American people also know the history of Qasem Soleimani – hundreds of American lives on his hands too.  He was involved in the Beirut bombings.  He had orchestrated an attack right here in Washington, D.C.  It ultimately failed.  This is a man who has put American lives at risk for an awfully long time, and last night was the time that we needed to strike to make sure that this imminent attack that he was working actively was disrupted.

QUESTION:  A specific target overseas?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  I’m not going to say anything more about the nature of the attack, but know that this was not just in Iraq.  It was throughout the region.  It was using these proxy forces that he has manipulated for so long to bring so much destruction to the Shias and Sunnis, the Muslims throughout the region.  This is a man who inflicted enormous harm not only on American lives but created terribly destructive activities supporting Lebanese Hizballah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – all of the bad actors in the Middle East.  Qasem Soleimani was at the center of all of it.

QUESTION:  Right.  Was there any imminent threat to the U.S. homeland?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  These were threats that were located in the region.

QUESTION:  And when I ask about the timing, the reason I am asking is because General Soleimani, as you well note, has been an enormous threat to the United States and U.S. interests for decades.  I was in Iraq between 2003 and 2008, when he was responsible for the death of probably 600 or more U.S. servicemen.  So what is different or what was different yesterday than over the last 15 years?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Well, John, you’re right about the history of General Soleimani for sure.  What’s different today is that Iran has now been engaged for months and Iran managed to – dozens and dozens of attacks throughout the region.  President Trump has shown enormous restraint to date.  Well, we’ve made clear to the Iranians that we weren’t going to tolerate the killing of Americans on December 27th and Americans killed in Iraq, and then we watched the intelligence flow in that talked about Soleimani’s travels in the region and the work that he was doing to put Americans further at risk, and it was the time to take this action so that we could disrupt this plot, deter further aggression from Qasem Soleimani and the Iranian regime, as well as to attempt to de-escalate the situation.  The risk of doing nothing was enormous.  The Intelligence Community made that assessment, and President Trump acted decisively last night.

QUESTION:  Was this attack in the coming days, do you expect?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  We’re prepared.  We’ve thought about this a great deal.  But remember, they’ve been attacking for months.

QUESTION:  Right.  But I was asking, was the imminent attack —

SECRETARY POMPEO:  I don’t want to talk about the details of the plotting that was taking place.  I’m sorry, John.  I didn’t understand your questioning.

QUESTION:  Okay, no problem.  Listen, listen, the President of the United States moments ago retweeted the State Department directive for all U.S. citizens in Iraq to get out.  Why?  What is the nature of the threat against U.S. citizens in Iraq this morning?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  I don’t want to elaborate on the statement that we put out just a handful of hours ago, but make no mistake about it:  The Trump administration is focused on protecting Americans to the maximum extent feasible.  We made the conclusion that a statement that we issued was appropriate, that the timing was right for that.  We have, as you’ve seen over the past weeks, we’ve taken actions by building out coalitions in the region, by working to make sure we strengthen our partners in Saudi Arabia and the Emiratis – all things aimed at deterring Iran from aggression.  We will continue that action, and we’ll continue to prepare to respond if that’s what’s required to keep Americans safe.

QUESTION:  Will you remove – will you call for the removal or evacuation of U.S. State Department personnel from Iraq?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Well, we constantly evaluate our personnel not only in Iraq but all across the region and across the world.  Every day we’re evaluating what the right security posture is.  We will ensure that we get it right.  We’ll rely on the people on the ground to help give us guidance about what they’re seeing and hearing, and we will make appropriate decisions about the posture of our diplomats and our military personnel throughout the region.

QUESTION:  What do you anticipate the possible range of responses from Iran will be?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  John, we’ve anticipated a wide range of possible responses and we have done our level best under the direct guidance of the President to prepare for all of those possibilities.  We hope the actual response, John, is that the Iraqi people will do what they’ve been doing for months: they’ll demand that the Iraqi Government give them freedom, prosperity, and sovereignty.  We’ve watched these protests over the last weeks.  They weren’t burning American flags; they were demanding that Iraqi political leadership stop their kleptocracy, stop their political shenanigans.  And Qasem Soleimani was at the center of that.  He was driving bad outcomes for the Iraqi people.  He was causing many Muslims in the region to be killed.  I saw last night there was dancing in the streets in parts of Iraq.  We have every expectation that people not only in Iraq, but in Iran will view the American action last night as giving them freedom.

QUESTION:  Well —

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Freedom to have the opportunity for success and prosperity for their nations.  And while the political leadership may not want that, the people in these nations will demand it.

QUESTION:  We’ll see.  So far this morning on the streets of Tehran, we’ve been seeing pictures and we have a reporter there – we’ve been seeing pictures of large-scale anti-American demonstrations following the death – this is in Iran – following the death.  We’ve heard from Iraqi leaders so far condemning the U.S. action.  We heard from a French official this morning putting out a statement saying that the world is less safe following the killing of General Soleimani.  And the concern there, no one is saying that General Soleimani was a good actor – he was a bad actor.  What they’re suggesting is that destabilization will create a threatening environment.  So when you hear from France the world is a less safe place this morning, how do you respond to that?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, well, the French are just wrong about that.  The world’s a much safer place today.  And I can assure you that Americans in the region are much safer today after the demise of Qasem Soleimani.  And as for the protest that you described, there is no doubt the last vestiges of theocracy, the kleptocracy in Iran will continue to try and put down these uprisings from the people.  They’ve jailed thousands, they’ve killed hundreds.  It won’t surprise me if they try to continue to do that.  But know this: The Iranian people understand that America is a force for good in the region, and I am convinced that the support that we have provided to the people in Iran and the support we will continue to provide for the people in Iraq will work to protect American interests and make lives better for those people as well.

QUESTION:  I’m very interested in what the future role for the United States in Iraq will be, particularly after this.  Iraq’s prime minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, condemned this attack.  He said it’s “a flagrant violation of the conditions for the presence of American forces in Iraq,” and the role which is supposed to be “limited to training Iraqi forces and fighting ISIS.”  So do you see this as a threat to the U.S. presence in Iraq, which has been crucial over the last several years in the battle against ISIS?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  John, I’ve spoken to acting Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi several times over the last couple days.  The President spoke to him.  I spoke with the head of the chamber of representatives, Mr. Halbousi.  I spoke last night with the Iraqi foreign minister.  I’ve seen their public statements.  I know privately what it is they also see, and I know that what the Iraqi people will ultimately demand is that the Iranians get out, that the Iranians stop fomenting trouble, stop with these militias that are undermining their government.  America is there to help protect Iraqi people.  I’ve had friends – I’m sure you have too, John – that have been killed defending Iraqi sovereignty.

QUESTION:  Yes.

SECRETARY POMPEO:  We’re there to continue our counter-terror campaign.  And in the process of doing that, we will make sure that as we engage that, as we try and stand up Iraqi sovereignty and give them the space to do that for themselves, we’ll protect American interests there.

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, I do have to let you go.  But will the administration be releasing details of the intelligence which did lead to the raid, the imminent threat, over the next few days?

SECRETARY POMPEO:  John, we’ll do our best to release everything that we know that’s appropriate, that we can, that doesn’t put anyone at risk.  We’ll do our best.  We want the world to understand that there was, in fact, an imminent attack taking place.  The American people should know that this was an intelligence-based assessment that drove this.

 

January 5, 2019

Secretary Michael R. Pompeo With Margaret Brennan of CBS Face the Nation

QUESTION: Does eliminating Qasem Soleimani take out the specific plot that you say was an imminent threat?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Margaret, we made the right decision to take out this terrorist. He’d not only caused enormous death and destruction throughout the region, killed hundreds of Americans over the years, but had done so in the past couple of days, killed an American on December 27th. We watched him. We watched him continue to actively build out for what was going to be a significant attack – that’s what we believed – and we made the right decision.

As General Milley said —

QUESTION: But has it been eliminated?

SECRETARY POMPEO: There are constant threats. We’ve been under threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran since at least 2015, when the previous administration made the mistake of entering that horrific nuclear deal and gave money and resources to this regime. The threats remain, and we’ll continue to take actions to respond to them.

QUESTION: So Iran can still carry out that specific threat you described as imminent? Is it still imminent?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Margaret, we continue to prepare for whatever it is the Iranian regime may put in front of us within the next 10 minutes, within the next 10 days, and within the next 10 weeks. We are focused on delivering a strategy for the American people. We’re going to get it right in the moment, but we’re more importantly going to get it right over the days and weeks and months ahead.

We have put Iran in a position it has been in before. It is under enormous pressure, and we are continuing to be successful at denying them the resources to conduct precisely the types of campaign that we’re confronting as a direct result of what happened over the past eight years before we came into office.

QUESTION: Up until this point, the U.S. had avoided specifically targeting and taking out top Iranian military leaders. Were all of the President’s national security advisors in full agreement that Qasem Soleimani needed to be killed?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Yes.

QUESTION: Complete agreement across the cabinet?

SECRETARY POMPEO: It was a collective decision. It was intelligence analysis that doing nothing created far more risk than the action that we took.

QUESTION: But doing nothing isn’t the same as saying specifically Qasem Soleimani needed to be killed.

SECRETARY POMPEO: Margaret, there was unanimity that we were making the right decision that day. It was based not only on this intelligence, but you need to look no further than the days that led up to this. Qasem Soleimani led and orchestrated a Kata’ib Hizballah attack on an American that killed an American. There was sound and just and legal reason for the actions the President took, and the world is safer as a result of the bold action that President Trump took.

QUESTION: President Trump is saying that there are 52 sites that the U.S. would target if Iran retaliates. How is that consistent with what you say is your message of de-escalation?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Entirely consistent.

QUESTION: Threatening to bomb mainland Iran?

SECRETARY POMPEO: The Iranian leadership needs to understand that attacking Americans is not cost-free. Setting out conditions to say these are our expectations, these are the things that America is expecting from you, and if you don’t do them the costs will be clear and direct. And we have an obligation to speak to the Iranian leadership clearly and directly so that they understand that America is prepared, that we will continue to keep the American people safe, that we will reduce threats throughout the region if they take certain actions.

So they’re entirely consistent. The entire strategy has been one of deterrence, to convince the Iranians that it would be so costly, and to support the Iranian people so that they could see that what their leadership was doing was destroying their country. We’ve been very effective at this —

QUESTION: But they’re not backing down. Why do you think that this will make them back down? If this such a threat to Iranian pride to have one of their most powerful leaders killed, doesn’t it force them —

SECRETARY POMPEO: Qasem Soleimani killed hundreds of Americans. To take a terrorist off the battlefield does not increase the risk of terror. The risk of terror is increased by appeasement. That’s what the Obama-Biden administration did. It’s what President Trump will never do, Margaret.

QUESTION: He also killed thousands of people in the region. He directed mass murder.

SECRETARY POMPEO: Hundreds of thousands. A massacre in Syria. Absolutely true.

QUESTION: But does this mean other Iranian leaders are now potential U.S. targets?

SECRETARY POMPEO: We’re going to do everything required to keep the American people safe.

QUESTION: That sounds like a yes.

SECRETARY POMPEO: We’re going to do, under President Trump, what he has directed for months. We’re going to execute our National Security Strategy and convince the people of Iran that we are with them, that the Islamic Republic regime leadership – that their terrorism will not benefit them.

QUESTION: Iraq this morning has been carrying out some votes and debate over the presence of U.S. troops, and now the question is if Iraq legally requires – this is what they’re looking at – U.S. troops to leave, will the U.S. comply?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Margaret, I don’t want to speculate about what the Iraqi leadership will do. We’ll watch. We’re following very closely what’s taking place in the Iraqi parliament. Make no mistake about it. The Iraqi people too are protesting, but not against America. What you see on TV is happening at the direction —

QUESTION: But this is a prime minister of Iraq who is talking about this right now. Expelling 5,000 U.S. troops.

SECRETARY POMPEO: The acting prime minister of Iraq, who resigned because of massive Iranian interference in his own government’s ability to execute sovereignty and independence for Iraq. It’s why he left. And it is the United States —

QUESTION: But the Iraqi parliament has now voted to approve it.

SECRETARY POMPEO: It is the United States that is prepared to help the Iraqi people get what it is they deserve and continue our mission there to take down terrorism from ISIS and others in the region that is in defense of the Iraqi people and is good for America too.

QUESTION: So I hear you saying the U.S. wants to keep those troops there and will work on that. What are you doing diplomatically behind the scenes to try to de-escalate?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Well, it’s not just behind the scenes. We’re doing some of it publicly too. The messages —

QUESTION: Have you reached out to the regime in Iran?

SECRETARY POMPEO: The messages that we’re – the Iranian leadership, including my counterpart, knows precisely what President Trump believes, wants, and desires and is demanding from the Iranian leadership. Make no mistake about it.

But it’s not just the last few days, Margaret. This is something we’ve been working on for an awfully long time. We’ve built out an enormous coalition – Gulf states, Israel. We’ve built out a maritime coalition. We’ve got an air defense initiative that is a multi-country effort. We’ve flowed American forces, but we’ve had forces coming in from our European friends and partners as well and the Canadians. This is a multi-country, global diplomatic effort to deter Iran.

QUESTION: But for the first time since World War II, the U.S. has now taken out a foreign military leader on foreign soil. This is —

SECRETARY POMPEO: He’s a terrorist.

QUESTION: He may be, but this is a significant action. Do you really believe that Iran’s going to sit down and negotiate now?

SECRETARY POMPEO: It depends how smart they are. It depends how much they take seriously what President Trump has communicated. If they take it seriously, they’ll do the right thing; they will not continue to threaten not only Americans but the entire region. The instability that they have created for our ally Israel, for our partners the Saudis, our friends the Emiratis, all of these countries – Soleimani and his band of merry brothers have been a negative influence in the region for an awfully long time, and they are thankful for the action that America took.

QUESTION: The details of the threat that you describe as imminent, and it sounds like you were also saying is ongoing, have not been shared with Congress. The details that were transmitted yesterday were kept classified. When will the American people know why President Trump decided to do what he did?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Margaret, those aren’t the same thing. You said they have been kept from Congress and kept classified. They have been shared with Congress. The congressional leadership has certainly seen it. Those members who have come back will get to see most all of that same information. I don’t think any reasonable American elected official would see what President Trump and I and Secretary Esper saw and conclude that we could have done anything but the action that we took and —

QUESTION: But will that be declassified and explained to the American public?

SECRETARY POMPEO: — and we – and Margaret, we will do our best. We understand the obligation to share with the American people why it is we’re taking the actions we can, and we will do so. President Trump has done so in tweets. I’ve done so in messages. I’m sitting here with you today, articulating why it is in America’s best interest the action we took.

As for specific pieces of intelligence, you and I both know – I was a director of the CIA – there are things you simply cannot share. There are valuable information streams that we must protect. We will need them in the days and weeks ahead, and we will never present risk to the United States by putting at risk that valuable information.

QUESTION: But to be clear, that threat continues to exist – that plot?

SECRETARY POMPEO: There remain an enormous set of risks in the region, and America is preparing for each and every one of them. That includes not only the threats from the proxy militias in Iraq but in the region more broadly along every vector, including cyber.

 

Secretary Michael R. Pompeo With Chuck Todd of NBC Meet the Press

QUESTION: Let me start with the shooting – the strike against Soleimani, the killing of him. He’s been a threat to the United States, to U.S. interests, for years. Why now? Why was it urgent this week?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Well, Chuck, you’ve captured it. We’ve all known about Qasem Soleimani for a long time. He’s been a terrorist. He’s a designated terrorist. He’s someone who has afflicted many deaths on Americans, over 600 in Iraq, in countless other places. He was even connected to what happened in Beirut so many years ago. You would know this, too, Chuck.

This was different in the sense of we’ve seen recent deaths, a recent killing on December 27th. A strike, an operation conducted by Kata’ib Hizballah, directed and orchestrated by Soleimani himself, killed an American. We could see that he was continuing down this path, that there were, in fact, plots that he was working on that were aimed directly at significant harm to American interests throughout the region, not just in Iraq.

And President Trump made the decision this was the time to stop this reign of terror from this guy who was the glue, who put this all together, who was the IRGC leader for, goodness, a couple of decades and who had put so much pain and suffering on the American people and, frankly, the people in the region, too.

QUESTION: Why are you —

SECRETARY POMPEO: Hundreds of thousands of deaths in Syria, millions displaced in Syria. This was a bad guy, and it was time to take him out.

QUESTION: Yeah. Why are you confident that – they’ve already promoted his deputy. The ayatollah’s already basically pumped this guy up, his replacement. Why are you convinced – if there is an imminent operational attack getting put together against American interests, why are you convinced that taking out Soleimani has done anything to stop it?

SECRETARY POMPEO: We would have been culpably negligent had we not taken this action. The American people would have said that we weren’t doing the right thing to protect and defend American lives. President Trump has been crystal clear – has been crystal clear.

QUESTION: Is it that imminent? Is the threat – is what the attacks he was putting together so imminent and so big it would have been seen as that kind of negligence?

SECRETARY POMPEO: We made the right decision. There was lots of intelligence. You’ve seen some of it’s out in the public, right? The death of the American on December 27th. We had intelligence on the go forward basis of risk as well. The President made the right decision. We will reduce risk. I think General Milley said: Is there still risk of attack? Of course there is. There’s a tremendous risk. We’re doing everything we can to make sure that we take that down and protect American lives. That’s the mission set.

When the President laid out his National Security Strategy three years ago, this is all in the context of a larger American strategy to create peace and stability in the Middle East. A key element of that is taking down Qasem Soleimani, who has been such a destabilizing force in the region for so long.

QUESTION: Okay. I just – so was the justification in that he’s been this destabilizing force in the region for so long, or was the justification this imminent threat?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Chuck, it’s never one thing. You’ve been at this a long time. The American people are smart, too. It’s never one moment. It’s never one instance. It’s a collective. It’s a full situational awareness of risk and analysis. And I am confident – and the Intelligence Community presented us a set of facts that made clear – that the risk from doing nothing exceeded the risk of taking the action that we took. And we made the right decision; we protected and defended the American people. And as President Trump has said repeatedly, as he tweeted again just last night, we will continue to take all actions necessary to preserve and protect and defend America.

QUESTION: Can you confidently say America is safer today?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Absolutely.

QUESTION: How do you square that statement with the fact that we’re bringing – you’re advising American citizens essentially to leave the region if – particularly Iraq. We have the Homeland Security Department bracing Americans for cyber attacks, saying that we know the Iranians have been through our infrastructure, it is likely to happen and there won’t be a warning from it. It doesn’t sound like we’re safer today after this.

SECRETARY POMPEO: Yeah, Chuck, we’re definitely safer today, 100 percent certainty that America is safer today. In the moment —

QUESTION: Then why did we put out that warning after the Soleimani – I mean, we do expect retaliations against American citizens now, correct?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Chuck, you’re concentrating on the second and the moment. President Trump is focused deeply on keeping Americans safe over the long haul. Preserving and protecting and defending America is the mission that we have. It may be that there’s a little noise here in the interim and that the Iranians make the choice to respond. I hope that they don’t. President Trump has made clear what we will do in response if they do, that our response will be decisive and vigorous, just as it has been so far.

But we’re going to take all actions necessary, not only in Iraq but throughout the region, to protect Americans, American citizens as well as my diplomats and service members who are serving overseas. We’re always going to do the right thing to protect America, and I am confident that the decision we make – made to take down this terrorist, this designated terrorist who had inflicted so much harm over such an extended period, was the right course of action to reduce risk to America.

QUESTION: During the State Department briefing on Friday, the aides that were not put on – named, but there was a lot of confidence being expressed without a lot of evidence that you thought there’s – the Iranians aren’t going to – they might – they likely won’t retaliate. Why do you think they won’t? Why do you have this potential confidence that they may not retaliate?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Chuck, we’re prepared for everything. I’m not going to get into the game of predictions. We have intelligence. We have lots of reconnaissance. We have good observation of what’s taking place. What we’re doing is preparing for all possible courses of actions that the Iranian regime may take, and we are driving – we are driving a strategy that we have had in place now for three years – diplomatic, economic, now military – to convince the Iranian regime to simply behave like a normal nation and to raise the cost when they inflict harm on America if they don’t.

QUESTION: You guys talked about a maximum pressure campaign. You just outlined it now. You went through what we’ve been going through the last three years. The fact that you’ve had to go to military, doesn’t that tell you that sanctions haven’t worked and the maximum pressure campaign is not working?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Just the opposite, Chuck. We suffered from eight years of Iranian support from America. We gave them billions of dollars. We gave them resources. We allowed countries to trade with them, to build up their economy. What we are now having to correct for is the enormous economic activity that took place during this Iranian nuclear deal that President Trump rightly got out of in May of 2018. It’s taken a little bit of time and it will continue to take time, but are going to restore deterrence. We just had a big hill to climb up, Chuck.

We had seen hundreds of thousands of people killed in Syria, millions had to depart the region. We’d seen Lebanese Hizballah, Hamas, the PIJ in Gaza Strip – all of these terror organizations, the Shia militias, the Shia militias that we are now challenged to push back against today – all underwritten by American policy in the Obama administration. We’ve flipped the switch. We’re draining those resources. We’re going to protect America and keep American people safe.

QUESTION: I’m curious, how do we get out of a cycle of escalating violence? I want to – the President tweeted yesterday saying this: We have targeted 52 Iranian sites, representing, he said, the 52 American hostages taken back in 1979, and he said to Iran those targets and Iran itself, we’ll hit very fast, very hard. He even noted there were cultural sites that were being targeted. Is that already being lined up at the Pentagon, that we have our response ready for whatever Iran – and we have target sites here, these 52 target sites? Can you confirm that?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Chuck, the American people should know that we have prepared for this, that we are ready.

QUESTION: We’re going to target cultural —

SECRETARY POMPEO: That our responses are lawful and that they – the President will take every action necessary to respond should Iran decide to escalate. We hope that they don’t. We’ve communicated clearly and crisply to them with respect to what it is we have as an expectation. And we have communicated clearly and crisply what we will do in response if they choose another path. We hope that they will not, but we are prepared in the event that they choose to do so.

QUESTION: Finally, what do you tell the families that have – there are some Americans being held hostage by this Iranian regime. What do you tell Americans right now, who – I know they’ve been working with the you at the State Department, those families, who probably look at this and think okay, whatever progress we were making, no more progress. Is that – is it – is that what these families have to prepare for, that maybe their loved ones are going to be there longer, not shorter?

SECRETARY POMPEO: I love these families. They are suffering greatly. They’re suffering from the very Iranian regime we’re seeking to counter. Most of these folks were taken during the previous administration. It was a policy that was designed to guarantee that the Iranian regime would have power, authority, capacity to take Americans, but not only Americans, other Westerners too.

Those families should know that we’ve built out a coalition. We’re patrolling the Straits of Hormuz with that coalition. There is an air defense strategy attached to the coalition. We’ve gotten multiple countries now to sanction Mahan Air. We have built out a strategy that will ultimately put America in a place where the Iranian regime will no longer threaten American hostages.

And they should know this, too. We have worked diligently to get those held in Iran back. We had one returned just within the last several weeks. We continue to work on that process, to get every American held anywhere in the world, including by the kleptocrats and theocrats in Iran, to get them to return American hostages. We will never give up on that mission.

QUESTION: Finally, last question. If targeting Soleimani is not regime change, then what are we advocating, if not regime change?

SECRETARY POMPEO: As I said before, Chuck, we’ve clearly stated our strategy for three years. We want the regime to change its behavior. And ultimately, the leadership in Iran will be determined by the Iranian people. We saw the protests. I am confident we will continue to see protests. They weren’t protesting against America. They weren’t protesting saying, “Death to America.” They were demanding that the Iranian leadership behave in a way that takes care of the Iranian people. I am confident that the American support that we provide to that and support that’s provided from countries in the region and around the world will continue to support the Iranian people in their quest for freedom.

 

Secretary Michael R. Pompeo With Maria Bartiromo of Fox Sunday Morning Futures

QUESTION: You said this – you said this weekend the Soleimani was traveling for the purpose of building out what they were referring to as the “big attack.” Can you tell us more about that threat? Are American interests still at risk?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Yes, ma’am. The statement that I made that day was accurate. We need no look – look no further than Soleimani’s actions at the end of December, where he killed an American, to know that he not only posed the risk that we all know about from Lebanon and from Syria and the hundreds that were killed in Iraq, but a continuing risk that’s killed – resulted in the death of an American on December 27th.

He was, in fact, traveling in the region. He was in Baghdad, where we struck him, traveling outside of Iran, continuing to plot, to build out attacks that would have threatened American lives. President Trump saw that, saw that information, knew the history, knew that Soleimani was a terrorist designated by the United States, and took action to reduce that risk to the United States of America.

QUESTION: Iran is vowing retaliation this morning, as you know. Specifically, a former military leader, and now the main military advisor to the ayatollah, we understand, in an interview, said that the response, for sure, will be military and against military sites. What kind of retaliation are you expecting?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Maria, we’re preparing for all kinds of various responses. You’ve seen the work that we’ve done to enhance our posture in the region by flowing increased military troops. We’re also taking action to protect, to preserve our cyber security systems to make sure that they’re as prepared as possibly can be. My team, my diplomats around the region, are also doing everything they can to make sure that those sites are prepared for what Iran may do by making a mistake in coming after them. I think President Trump’s statements are pretty clear. Should the ayatollah make the mistake of coming after an American interest, the response will be swift, it will be decisive, and it will be costly.

QUESTION: You’re getting a lot of pushback, you know, on the left this morning. Nancy Pelosi is saying that the President carried out a strike on an Iranian commander without authorization. She wants details. You’ve got everybody from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling it a war crime, threatening to target and kill innocent families, she writes, “which is what you’re doing by targeting cultural sites, does not make you a tough guy, it does not make you strategic, it makes you a monster.” Even Colin Kaepernick is weighing in here. What is your response to these criticisms coming out of the left?

SECRETARY POMPEO: I’m pretty focused on making sure we’re doing all the things that President Trump wants us to do to keep our forces safe and to build out on our strategy, our diplomatic, economic, and security strategy.

Look, as for these critiques, President Trump didn’t say he’d go after a cultural site. Read what he said very closely. We’ve made clear that the cost – if they use proxy forces in the region – will not be borne just by those proxies. They’ll be borne by Iran and its leadership itself. Those are important things that the Iranian leadership needs to put into its calculuses – calculus as it makes its next decision. President Trump has been unambiguous. We will defend America. We will protect America. We will preserve America.

As for Speaker Pelosi, she’ll have the information she needs. In fact, she’s welcome to come to Washington and receive it. We hope that she’ll take it on. I don’t think any reasonable person can read both the history of Soleimani and the intelligence that we had in our possession and conclude anything other than what President Trump concluded, and as General Milley, I think, characterized it, we would have been culpably negligent had we not taken that strike when the opportunity presented itself.

QUESTION: Right. And in fact, Soleimani was deemed a terrorist by the Bush administration, by the UN, by the EU, by the Obama administration. So the question comes up: Why now? Nothing was done in any of those prior administrations. I want to look at this map of Iran’s partners and proxies, because the U.S. military bases in these countries apparently should be concerned about the people stationed there. Should we be concerned that this is where the focus is in terms of a retaliation on any bases we have in our proxies, the proxies and partnerships of Iran?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Yes, Maria. We think there is a real likelihood that Iran will make a mistake and make a decision to go after some of our forces, whether they’re the military forces there in Iraq or our soldiers that are in northeast Syria. We have many troops in the region. It would be a big mistake for Iran to go after them, but we are preparing. You’ve seen the Department of Defense take their actions. You’ve seen the State Department do its work to build out our coalition partners. I’ve been on the phone for weeks, and intensely over the past few days.

Our partners in the region know what America did was a good thing. It reduced risk in the region. It reduced the threat from – of instability that the theocrats in Iran have imposed on the Middle East for so many years. And as for what previous administrations chose to do with Mr. Soleimani, I can’t speak to what their calculus was. Our intelligence made very clear that the risk was much greater if we did nothing than if we took the action that we took last week.

QUESTION: Secretary, Iran has a relationship with China. Iran has a relationship with Russia. Even with the sanctions in place, apparently China is still among the larger customers of Iranian oil and gas. Do you think Iran has become even more emboldened by its relationship with Russia and China, and do you see a durable Russia-China-Iran axis forming as all three powers continue to challenge the United States in different ways?

SECRETARY POMPEO: It’s absolutely the case that each of them presents some challenge to the United States but in very different ways. The efforts we’re making to push back to counter the Iranian efforts are very different than what we’re doing with respect to Russia and China today. That’s appropriate given the National Security Strategy.

But with respect to crude oil, the Iranians were delivering under the nuclear deal some 3 million barrels a day and getting rich. The very Shia militias, the bullets they’re using, the pay that the soldiers are getting that are putting Americans at risk, are a direct result of that bad nuclear deal. The fact that the Europeans were permitted to trade, the fact that America provided billions in cash to the ayatollah, that’s precisely what President Trump came into office having to face. We’re pushing back against it, and it is the case today that fewer than half a million barrels a day are being delivered out of Iran. We’ve crippled their economy.

They’ve never been in this position, Maria. Iran has never been in a place where they’ve been challenged not only economically but diplomatically with a global coalition that in May of last year put out a united statement against Iran. This is a challenge and a strategy that President Trump has laid out that we’re executing with great vigor, and it will protect and preserve and defend the American people.

QUESTION: So when the President says 52 targets, among those targets then would be Iran’s oil facilities, their bread and butter?

SECRETARY POMPEO: I don’t want to get into what President Trump may choose to target. I’ll leave his statement to stand. The Iranian leadership needs to understand that we are hopeful they will make a good decision and not pose threats to the American people or American interests. But if they do choose to go down that path, we will respond decisively.

 

Secretary Michael R. Pompeo With Jake Tapper of CNN State of the Union

QUESTION: Let’s start about this new threat from President Trump. Is the tweet accurate? Is the U.S. really preparing to hit non-military, cultural targets in Iran, which would obviously possibly result in civilian threats and almost certainly violate a UN resolution that the U.S. voted for in 2017?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Jake, thanks for having me on this morning. President Trump has been resolute. We will continue to be. We will defend America. The strikes we took over this past week, including killing the terrorist Soleimani, we will continue to take if we need to. If we need to defend American interests, we will do so.

What President Trump said last night is consistent with what we have said all along. Iranian proxy forces in Iraq have thought that they could act with impunity and that if they acted we wouldn’t take strikes against Iran proper. We’ve made clear. We’ve made clear for months to the Iranian regime that that wouldn’t be the case, that we were going to hold responsible the actors, the leaders who took these actions and who orchestrated these actions. President Trump’s tweet last night made clear we will continue to do that, and the American people should know we will always defend them and will do so in a way that is consistent with the international rule of law and the American Constitution. We’ve done it before. We will do it again.

QUESTION: Well, you’re saying two different things here, sir, with all due respect, because President Trump’s threat on Iranian cultural centers or centers of interest to the Iranian culture would not be in accordance with international law. So which is it?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Jake, they’re not two different things. I’ve been with President Trump through the entire strategic planning process related to our entire campaign – diplomatic, economic, and military. We’ve built out an enormous coalition to push back against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its kleptocrat – Iran and its kleptocratic regime. The American people should know that we will not waiver. We will be bold in protecting American interests, and we’ll do so in a way that’s consistent with the rule of law. We’ve always done that, Jake, and President Trump’s tweet doesn’t deviate from that one iota.

QUESTION: So cultural centers are theoretically fair targets, in your view?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Jake, we’re going to do the things that are right and the things that are consistent with American law. I’ve been part of the discussion and planning process. Everything I’ve seen about how we will respond with great force and great vigor if the Iranian leadership makes a bad decision. We hope that they won’t, but when they do, America will respond.

QUESTION: You’ve said you hope that this strike de-escalates the situation. President Trump is obviously now threatening, in capital letters, to hit Iran very fast and very hard. That does not seem like de-escalation.

SECRETARY POMPEO: Jake, we’re trying to restore deterrence that, frankly, is a need that results directly from the fact that the previous administration left us in a terrible place with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Team Obama appeased Iran, and it led to Shia militias with money, Hamas, the PIJ, hundreds of thousands of Syrians killed by Soleimani himself. This was the place we found ourselves when we came in, and we have developed a strategy to attempt to convince the Iranian regime to behave like a normal nation. That’s what our strategy is about. We have been executing it. We will continue to do so. We have every expectation that we’ll ultimately achieve that goal.

QUESTION: Do you think President Trump threatening to attack 52 sites in Iran, one for each one of the Iranian hostage – I mean the American hostages taken by Iran in 1979 is de-escalating, is providing an off-ramp for the Iranians?

SECRETARY POMPEO: We have provided them clear guidance about what it is we have as an expectation. We have worked with them. We’ve tried to have conversations with them. It is important that they understand that America will no longer behave the way that it did during the Obama-Biden administration. We will no longer appease. We’ll no longer tolerate.

Frankly, this war kicked off – people talk about the war. This war kicked off when the JCPOA was entered into. It told the Iranians that they had free rein to develop a Shia crescent that extended from Yemen to Iraq to Syria and into Lebanon, surrounding our ally, Israel, and threatening American lives as well. We’ve taken a very different approach. That approach has been successful. There’s obviously more work to do, Jake.

QUESTION: The Trump administration is privately warning members of Congress that Iran is expected to retaliate within weeks. Here’s just some of what’s happened in the last 72 hours. The U.S. has told all Americans to immediately leave Iraq. The U.S. is sending thousands of additional U.S. service members from the 82nd Airborne to Kuwait. Soleimani’s deputy has been appointed to replace him. The German Government has raised its threat level. The British Navy is now accompanying UK ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. is bracing for possible Iranian cyber attacks. Yet you’ve said that “The world is a much safer place today.” Now, I can see you making the argument that the world will be safer in the long term, but how can you say we are safer today, given the increased and heightened threat level?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Jake, my reference was very clear to the strategy that the Trump administration had laid out. The Middle East was unstable. We are creating a place and an opportunity for that stability. We’ve done so by building out coalitions. We’ve done so working alongside our friends and partners. We’ve done so by making it very clear to the Islamic Republic of Iran that we weren’t going to accept their rogue behavior in the way the previous administration did, and we’re going to protect and defend the American people.

I am convinced, and I think General Milley had it right. He said we would have been culpably negligent had we not taken that strike against terrorist Soleimani. We’ll continue to do those things that reduce risk to America. I know that the risk to America over the long run is much reduced as a result of the actions President Trump and our administration has taken in these last three years.

QUESTION: Okay. That’s in the long run, but I’m talking about the short term. Let me ask you just a question. Do you know for a fact that the mission that Soleimani was working on, you say, the attacks that you say he was planning, have they been called off – those attacks?

SECRETARY POMPEO: We’re prepared for anything the Islamic Republic of Iran may do, Jake. There are clearly actors that go beyond Soleimani. It’s why we’re still doing the work we’re doing and it’s why we’re still preparing. It’s why we’re still flowing forces to the region. It’s why we’re doing all the things we’re doing – building out our coalition, making sure our partners are defending our embassies and diplomatic facilities and military installations all throughout the region. It’s why you saw the statement that was put out by DHS. We’re getting prepared in the event that the Islamic Republic of Iran leadership makes a bad decision.

QUESTION: Let’s talk about why you carried out the strike, the intelligence behind it all. Some members of Congress and others who have been briefed on the intelligence say they have not seen sufficient evidence to conclude that the attack you referred to, the attack on Americans, was actually imminent, as you have claimed. When do you plan to share evidence with Congress, with the American people, to clear up any questions here?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Well, the intelligence has been shared with leaders in Congress already, and we’ll continue to share that. We’ll go up to Capitol Hill and brief them yet again this week, I expect. But the American people have the evidence right in front of their eyes. We don’t have to guess about what Soleimani was up to. We know what he did on December 27th. He killed an American. And we know what he’s done for years and years and years – killed hundreds of Americans.

There’s no need to guess about what Soleimani would have been up to the day after, and the day after, and the day after. This was a bad guy. We took him from the battlefield. We saw that he was plotting further plans to take down Americans, in some cases many Americans. We took the right action to defend and protect America. President Trump will never shy away from that.

QUESTION: When you say the attacks were imminent, how imminent were they? Are we talking about days? Are we talking about weeks?

SECRETARY POMPEO: If you’re an American in the region, days and weeks – this is not something that’s relevant. We have to prepare. We have to be ready. And we took a bad guy off the battlefield. We made the right decision. There is less risk today to American forces in the region as a result of that attack. I’m proud of the effort that President Trump undertook. And the execution by our military was phenomenal, and the work that’s been done by our diplomats in the region to prepare and to work diplomatically in the region has been powerful, important, and effective.

QUESTION: I keep coming back to the fact that you keep saying it’s safer now, even at the same time that the U.S. Government is telling all Americans to leave Iraq. I mean, again, I understand the idea that in the long term the region could be stable.

SECRETARY POMPEO: You don’t seem to, Jake. You don’t seem to understand that. Oftentimes I’ve heard you say, Jake, America thinks just about the moment and doesn’t think about the long-term strategic implications. This administration —

QUESTION: I don’t know that I’ve ever said that about America.

SECRETARY POMPEO: This administration —

QUESTION: I’ve certainly said that about leaders of this country.

SECRETARY POMPEO: Yes, sir. This administration is thinking about exactly that. We are setting the conditions for a successful and safe America, a prosperous America at home, a secure America abroad. This is our Middle East strategy. It’s what we’ve done over these last three years in Iraq and in pushing back against the Islamic Republic of Iran. We will not stray from that course, Jake.

QUESTION: I do want to ask you, because there does seem to be a disconnect here, but President Trump, according to polling, a majority of American people have never considered him honest, have never considered him trustworthy. This is the American people, not me, okay? And there is this credibility gap.

In addition, obviously, this nation has heard leaders – whether it’s blaming a YouTube video for the attacks on the embassy in Benghazi or WMD in Iraq, people have heard this government, the Government of the United States, say things to them that were not true when it comes to the war. Do you understand that there might be a special responsibility to provide proof and evidence to the American people of the imminence of the attack, of the need to carry out the mission that you carried out?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Jake, I do understand the power that we have and the need that we have to try and share with the American people everything we possibly can about why it is we’re taking the actions that we take, and we’ll do that. We’ll continue to do everything we can, consistent with protecting our sources and our methods and our – importantly, our capacity to continue to see and to understand what’s going on in presenting threats. We don’t want to risk that intelligence. I spent a little bit of time as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. We never want to put that at risk.

But as the Secretary of State, I also know my solemn obligation to make sure we share with the American people everything we can about why it is we’re taking the actions and how it is we expect that we will deliver to protect and defend America each and every day, Jake.

QUESTION: Well, we look forward to learning more about that evidence. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, thanks so much for joining us today.

 

Secretary Michael R. Pompeo With George Stephanopoulos of ABC This Week

QUESTION: We just heard Ian Pannell say that there were rocket attacks against military bases last night in Iraq. You said on Friday that the world’s a much safer place after the killing of General Soleimani, but more American troops now headed to the Middle East. Your own State Department has urged Americans to depart Iraq and other countries, including Pakistan, Bahrain, the UAE. And the Department of Homeland Security put out a bulletin last night saying an attack, quote, “may come with little or no warning.” If the world’s a safer place today, why are all those actions necessary.

SECRETARY POMPEO: Well, George, good morning. Thanks for having me on the show this morning.

It’s very clear the world’s a safer place today. Qasem Soleimani no longer walks the planet. You know the history: hundreds of thousands of people in Syria, millions of refugees; Lebanon, Beirut, Syria, Iraq, Yemen; deaths to Americans in Iraq in the earlier war. This was a bad guy. We took him off the playing field.

And that’s important, because this was the fellow who was the glue, who was conducting active plotting against the United States of America and putting American lives at risk. President Trump made the right decision to stop Qasem Soleimani from the terror campaign that he’d been engaged in against America not only five years ago and ten years ago, but on December 27th, when an American was killed by Kata’ib Hizballah at the orchestrated direction of Qasem Soleimani, and to prevent the future plans that the terrorist Soleimani had in front of him.

The world is a safer place. We’re taking the actions that we need to take to protect American interests not only in Baghdad and in Iraq but throughout the region.

QUESTION: You said that he was planning an imminent attack against Americans. What evidence can you share about that? Because The New York Times is reporting this morning that there was skepticism inside the government about that rationale saying a U.S. official described the intelligence as thin, indicting a normal Monday in the Middle East.

SECRETARY POMPEO: George, the senior leaders who had access to all of the intelligence – there was no skepticism. I think General Milley used the term we would have been culpably negligent had we not taken this strike. The intelligence assessment made clear that no action – allowing Soleimani to continue his plotting and his planning his terror campaign created more risk than taking the action that we took last week. We reduced risk. President Trump is committed at every step to protect and defend American lives here in the homeland, and we’ll continue to do that.

QUESTION: Most analysts have said that it’s not a question of whether Iran will respond but how and when. Should Americans be braced for a counter attack?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Well, George, remember, Iran’s been at war with us for 40 years. In the previous administration, they had Navy sailors on their knees. They launched missile attacks throughout the region. This is a regime that has been acting against America for an awfully long time. And we are suffering from eight years of neglect and we’re trying to push it back. We’re trying to contain them. We developed a strategy, as a diplomatic strategy, as an economic strategy. You’ve now seen some of the military components of that strategy. We’re trying to correct for what was the Obama administration’s appeasement of Iran. And we have to do that. We have to continue to do that, or Americans will be less safe.

QUESTION: But before this strategy was put in place, the Iranians were abiding by the nuclear agreement. We’ve seen a spate of attacks in recent days and weeks in response to the maximum pressure. Can you say your strategy’s actually working?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Absolutely, George. Remember what happened during this terrible nuclear deal: hundreds of thousands killed in Syria; Shia militias, the ones that we’re fighting today, underwritten, resource growing, taking control in places like Iraq; missiles fired from Yemen that could easily have killed Americans when they attacked on September 14th. All of these things – these things were ongoing activities resourced and funded by the trade and the money that was provided under the JCPOA.

In October of this year, George, the JCPOA, that nuclear deal, will permit arms trade with Iran. That’s crazy. That’s crazy – have missiles and systems – high-end systems, from China and Russia in Iran lawfully in October. That was the deal we inherited. It’s the place we found ourselves, and we’re working diligently to execute our strategy to convince the Iranian regime to act like a normal nation. The Iranian people are demanding it. We’re supporting it, and we will be successful.

QUESTION: In the face of this, we are seeing new threats from Iran and a strong counter threat overnight from President Trump. I want to show a tweet he put out overnight. He said, “Let this serve as a warning that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago) some at a very high level and important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, will be hit very fast and very hard.”

As you know, the Geneva Conventions outlaw attacks on cultural objects and places of worship. Our own DOD War Manual discusses protection of cultural property. So why is the President threatening Iranian with war crimes?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Yeah, we’ll behave lawfully. We’ll behave inside the system. We always have and we always will, George. You know that.

The President was getting to this point. In the past, previous administrations had allowed Shia militias to take shots at us, and at best, we responded in theater, trying to challenge and attack everybody who was running around with an AK-47 or a piece of indirect artillery. We’ve made a very different approach. 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. We’re going to take this seriously, and we’re going to defend the American people at every turn, George.

QUESTION: So just to be clear, when the President said he had 52 Iranian sites, including sites important to the Iranian culture, that wasn’t accurate?

SECRETARY POMPEO: George, I’ve seen what we are planning in terms of the target set. I’m sure the Department of Defense is continuing to develop options. The American people should know that every target that we strike will be a lawful target, and it will be a target designed at the singular mission of protecting and defending America. President Trump has been diligent about that. He doesn’t want war. He’s talked about this repeatedly. He is a reluctant participant in this, but he will never shy away from protecting America.

QUESTION: Have you had any direct communication with Iranian officials – phone calls, a letter – and how have they responded?

SECRETARY POMPEO: I don’t talk about private conversations, but make no mistake about it, I’ve been working on our allies in the region. We have built out an enormous coalition that shares our fundamental view that the primary threat to regional stability is the Islamic Republic of Iran. That regime is the terror threat that undermines so much that’s taking place in the Middle East today. And so we’re working it. I have no doubt in my mind that the Iranian leadership understands President Trump’s view and America’s view and gets clearly the message from the American leadership.

QUESTION: Before Congress – Democrats in Congress were given no advance notice of this strike. And the President retweeted about that as well, a tweet from Dinesh D’Souza saying, “Neither were the Iranians, and for pretty much the same reason.” Was the President suggesting that Senator Schumer and other Democrats shouldn’t be given advance notice because they can’t be trusted.

SECRETARY POMPEO: Well, I hope we’ll get support from every leader all across America, from members of Congress. I am confident that they share the Trump administration’s desire to keep America safe. I’m confident, too, that they understand the threat and risk that Qasem Soleimani presented. We’ll keep them informed; we’ll do all that’s required. We’ve provided notice to them under the War Powers Resolution. We’ll continue to do that. We’ll brief them. We began our briefings on Friday of last week; we’ll brief them some more this week. We’ll keep them fully surprised. We need a united American front to push back and keep Americans safe. President Trump will lead it. We ask that they support it as well.

QUESTION: There’s also the question going forward: If you take any new action against Iran is Congressional authorization needed? Former Vice President Biden spoke out about that yesterday. Let’s listen:

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Let me make it clear. President Trump has no authority to take us to a military conflict with Iran, period. The bottom line is any further action against Iran requires Congressional authorization.

QUESTION: Will the President go to Congress before taking new military action against Iran?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Boy, it’s really something to hear the vice president from the previous administration be critical of this administration’s policy of Iran. We’re having to clean up their mess, George. We’ll do everything required under the law to bring us into compliance with all the relevant constitutional and legal provisions with respect to our duties to the legislative branch.

QUESTION: Does that mean you’ll seek new authorization or no?

SECRETARY POMPEO: We have all the authority we need to do what we’ve done to date, and we will continue to do things appropriately, lawfully, and constitutionally, George. We’ve been consistent about that. There’s no reason to expect we’d do anything different going forward.

 

Secretary Michael R. Pompeo With Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday

QUESTION: You know that the Iraqi parliament is holding an emergency session today to discuss the question as to whether U.S. troops, the 5,000 troops we have there, should remain in country. It has just come across the wires: The Iraqi prime minister says it is in the interest of both Iraq and the U.S. to end foreign troop presence in Iraq, and he also says that the killing of General Soleimani and also a top militia leader who was backed by Iran, Muhandis, were political assassinations.

Your reaction, sir?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Well, Chris, the American people should know that President Trump will never shy away from protecting and defending America. It’s what we’ve done over these past weeks and days. It’s what we’ve done over our entire three years with our Middle East strategy. The activity that you’re seeing today is fully consistent with that, and the American people should know we will continue. The President tweeted it again last night. We will take the actions necessary to keep Americans safe.

As for the activity today with respect to Iraq, we’ve been in their country, we’ve been supporting Iraqi sovereignty, we’ve been continuing to take down the terrorist threat against the Iraqi people. The prime minister is the resigned prime minister; he’s the acting prime minister. He’s under enormous threats from the very Iranian leadership that it is that we are pushing back against. We are confident that the Iraqi people want the United States to continue to be there to fight the counterterror campaign, and we’ll continue to do all the things we need to do to keep America safe.

QUESTION: But if Iraq – it is a sovereign country – if they demand that we leave, one, will we leave? And if we do, won’t that dramatically hurt the fight against ISIS and stability in the region?

SECRETARY POMPEO: So we’ll have to take a look at what we do when the Iraqi leadership and government makes a decision, but the American people should know we’ll make the right decision, and we will take actions that, frankly, the previous administration refused to take to do just that.

QUESTION: President Trump says that General Soleimani was planning a, quote, “imminent” attack against Americans. You have said it was a, quote, “big action” that could potentially kill hundreds of American diplomats and soldiers. What was the plan, who were the targets, and how soon?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Yes, President Trump was right in what he said. So was I. We’ll share all the intelligence that we can. I was the CIA director for a little while, Chris. There’s things we simply cannot make public about what it is we knew at the time, and what, in fact, we know today about the continuing activity. I think General Milley got it right when he said we would have been culpably negligent had we not gone after Soleimani when we had the opportunity. He was actively engaged in plotting against American interests. We need look no further than what he had personally done over the days before that, when an American was killed on December 27th. There’s no surprise. There’s plenty of public evidence about the bad behavior of Qasem Soleimani. He was a designated terrorist, and we did the right thing.

QUESTION: I just want to press to this degree: The – he had been targeting Americans and other people around the region for decades, and the blood of 600 Americans was on his hands for – during the Iraq War. The question is that there are some intelligence agents who are talking to media outlets who are saying, yes, he was doing bad things but it was another day in the Middle East, and some congressional leaders who have been briefed now say that the intelligence was not of an imminent attack that was bigger, more worrisome. Don’t the American people have the right to some understanding of what it was, why it was so urgent to take out Soleimani now?

SECRETARY POMPEO: I haven’t heard any of the congressional leaders who have seen the full set of intelligence make the comments that you just described. I think any reasonable person who saw the intelligence that the senior American leaders had in their possession would have come to the same conclusion that President Trump and our leadership team did about the fact that there would have been more risk to America – more risk through inaction than there was through the action we took. I think it – I think it’s very clear. I think it’s very plain. We’ll do everything we can to share this information with the American people, but I think the American people understand, too, there’s certain things you just can’t – you can’t put out in public. You’ve got to protect Americans who are out collecting the intelligence – the intelligence we will need in the days and weeks ahead to continue to defend and protect them.

QUESTION: Iran’s leaders are vowing a crushing response, using words like a “hard revenge.” What do we do if they strike back, if they retaliate? Is there a plan? And is there – because of the fact that we went after Soleimani, has there been a change in U.S. response where we’re no longer going to go after the enemy in the field, we’re now going to go after Iran’s command and control?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Well, Chris, the American people know that there’s a strategy. It’s a strategy that has been several years in the making now that we’ve been working on. It’s been a diplomatic strategy; it’s been an economic strategy. You’re now seeing elements of the military strategy. And with respect to targets, President Trump talked about 52 targets last night. That’s not new in the following sense: We’ve made clear to the theocrats and kleptocrats that are running Iran today, running it into the ground against the will of their own people – we made clear to them that we would not respond just against these proxy forces that they run in Yemen and in Syria and in Iraq and in Lebanon. We made clear that this cost would be brought home to them, to the leadership regime in Iran, and that we would raise costs. We wouldn’t just attack their asymmetric efforts, we would respond in a way that imposed costs on the decision-makers who are putting American lives at risk.

QUESTION: So you’re saying to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, you’re saying to President Rouhani, you’re saying to leaders of the Revolutionary Guard, don’t think that you’re off limits?

SECRETARY POMPEO: What I’m saying is exactly what President Trump has said. We will take responses that are appropriate and commensurate with actions that threaten American lives. It’s what we’ve done so far, Chris. There’s no reason that the American people or the Iranian regime should ever expect we’ll do anything different.

QUESTION: You talk about the strategy. The President has been pushing what he calls the maximum pressure strategy since he took office. He pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in May of 2018. He imposed tough economic sanctions. And this summer, he suggested that the strategy was working. Take a look:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Iran is a much different country than two and a half years ago. When I took over, Iran was all over. They had 14 to 18 different sites of confliction. They were all over. And now they just want to – oh, they want to negotiate a deal so badly.

QUESTION: But in 2019 alone, Iran hit six ships, shot down a U.S. drone, launched an attack against Saudi oil facilities – a damaging attack – and for all the talk of isolating Iran, they just conducted joint exercises with China and Russia. So the question is: Has the President’s maximum pressure strategy made Iran less aggressive or more?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Panicked aggression on the part of the Iranian leadership because they know that the Iranian people are demanding enormous change, and they know that the Iranian people are supported by America in that demand for change. Yeah, we’ve built out a huge coalition, Chris – Gulf states, Israel, countries all across the world who are joining us. They’re joining us not only in the efforts in the Straits of Hormuz but in air defense efforts all across the region. The malign actor of Iran has been identified.

Remember where we came in, Chris. Remember where we came in. In 2015, the Obama-Biden administration essentially handed power to the Iranian leadership and acted as a quasi-ally of theirs by underwriting them, underwriting the very militias that killed Americans. Those resources, the money that they had to build out those forces throughout the Shia crescent, was provided to them by the nuclear deal. We allowed Europeans to go do business there. We provided them $150 billion, pallets of cash. All of these things are the very challenge that the Trump administration has had to correct. The strategy is working, we’re going to stay the course, and we will protect and defend the American people at every step, Chris.

QUESTION: Just so you know, I will be asking Senator Van Hollen about that in the next segment. President Trump also says that he is keeping his campaign promise to pull U.S. troops out of the Middle East. Here’s what he had to say in October:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: The plan is to get out of endless wars, to bring our soldiers back home, to not be policing agents all over the world.

It was a quick hit, except they stayed for almost 10 years. Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand.

QUESTION: But just this week – this week – the U.S. deployed 100 Marines to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, plus 750 to the region, and now, another 3,500. Is the President pulling us out of endless wars in the Middle East or, with his action this week, did he take a big step back in?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Endless wars are the direct result of weakness, and President Trump will never let that happen. We’re going to get it right. We’re going to get the force posture right. We’re going to get our facilities as hardened as we can possibly get them to defend against what Iran may potentially do. But make no mistake: America’s mission is to have our footprint in the Middle East reduced while still keeping America safe – safe from rogue regimes like the Islamic Republic of Iran and from terrorist activity broadly throughout the region.

QUESTION: So is it fair to say that while the big strategy is to pull the U.S. out of endless wars, at least in the short term, there could be more of a commitment?

SECRETARY POMPEO: The Obama administration created enormous risk to the American people in Iran. This administration is working to reduce that risk.

QUESTION: Finally, some analysts suggest that the impeachment of President Trump has emboldened enemies like Iran and North Korea to think that they can confront him. Do you think that, as misguided as it may be, that some of our enemies think that this President is more vulnerable because of the impeachment effort?

SECRETARY POMPEO: You should ask Mr. Soleimani.

QUESTION: I understand that, but he was going ahead before you killed him, and the question is: Do you think that impeachment is emboldening our enemies?

SECRETARY POMPEO: I don’t. I think that our adversaries understand that President Trump and our administration will do the right thing to protect American people every place that we find risk.