Iran tensions: Donald Trump claims Qassem Soleimani planned to ‘blow up’ US embassy
- ‘We caught a total monster and we took him out and that should have happened a long time ago,’ Trump tells reporters
- Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution on Thursday to stop Trump from further military action against Iran
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani shortly after he landed in Iraq last week in part because “they were looking to blow up our embassy”.
The remarks could shed more light on what so far has been largely vague descriptions of the intelligence that drove Trump’s administration to conclude that killing Soleimani and disrupting his plots would justify any fallout Washington may face.
The US saw some of the repercussions from its strike on Wednesday, when Iran fired 16 missiles at bases in Iraq that host US forces – an attack the Pentagon believes was designed to inflict casualties but which killed and injured no one.
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“We caught a total monster and we took him out and that should have happened a long time ago. We did it because they were looking to blow up our embassy,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Trump said the US also carried out the strike because of a rocket attack on a US military base in Iraq by an Iran-backed militia in December that killed a US contractor, which US officials believe Soleimani had a role in orchestrating.
That was followed by violent protests by supporters of Iran-backed militia outside the US embassy in Baghdad. Trump said Soleimani had wanted those protests to become more violent.
“That was a totally organised plot. And you know who organised it. That man right now is not around any longer. Okay? And he had more than that particular embassy in mind,” he said.
Asked about Trump’s remarks on the plot to blow up the Baghdad embassy, a senior US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted Soleimani had orchestrated protests at the embassy and acknowledged there had been such plotting to blow up the embassy.
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Later, at a rally in Toledo Ohio, Trump referred to Soleimani’s assassination as “American justice” and described the decision to strike.
“We got a call. We heard where he was. He knew the way he was getting there,“ Trump told cheering supporters. “We didn’t have time to call up Nancy [Pelosi], who isn’t operating with a full deck ... They want us to tell them so they can leak it to their friends in the corrupt media.”
Trump also told reporters he supported expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) to include Middle Eastern nations.
“I actually had a name: Nato, right, and then you have ME – Middle East. Natome. I said, what a beautiful name,” Trump said.
He said he proposed the acronym when he called the alliance’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday to demand that other Nato members do more on Middle Eastern security.
“I think he was actually excited by it,” Trump said. “I’m good at names, right?”
We caught a total monster … We did it because they were looking to blow up our embassy
Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution on Thursday to stop Trump from further military action against Iran.
The Democratic-controlled House voted 224 to 194, mostly along party queues, sending the war powers resolution to the Senate. The partisan vote reflected the deep divide in Congress over Trump’s Iran policy and how much of a say lawmakers should have over the use of the military.
Democrats accused Trump of acting recklessly and backed the resolution, while Trump’s fellow Republicans, who rarely vote against the president, opposed it.
“The president has to make the case first, first, not after he launches an ill-advised attack and then comes up with a reason why it was necessary and why it was legal,” said congressman Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
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Republicans said Democrats endangered the country by trying to pass a resolution they characterised as an empty political gesture, at the start of a US general election year.
“Instead of supporting the president, my Democrat colleagues are dividing Americans at a critical time,” said congressman Mike McCaul, senior Republican on the foreign affairs panel. He said the resolution would “tie the president’s hands”.
The fate of the resolution is uncertain in the Senate. Republicans hold 53 of the chamber’s 100 seats and rarely vote against the president. But at least two Republican senators – Rand Paul and Mike Lee – have expressed support for the measure.
If passed by the House and Senate, the measure does not need Trump’s signature to go into effect, although Democrats and Republicans disagreed over whether it was binding.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi faulted the White House for failing to consult Congress before the drone strike that killed Soleimani in Baghdad last week.
“Last week, in our view, the president – the administration – conducted a provocative, disproportionate attack against Iran, which endangered Americans,” Pelosi told a news conference.
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US officials said on Thursday the government believes Iran accidentally shot down a Ukrainian airliner soon after Iran fired missiles at two US military bases in Iraq, while Iran was on high alert.
Trump called Pelosi “Crazy” on Twitter, and told reporters he did not need Congress’ approval for military action against Iran.
“I don’t have to and you shouldn’t have to, because you have to be able to make split-second decisions sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes you have to move very, very quickly.”
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse, Associated Press
