Pompeo recounts Trump administration’s mission to kill Soleimani
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joined Breitbart News Saturday and recounted the preparation for the Trump administration’s decision to kill Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in January 2020, including meeting with then-President Donald Trump to approve the successful drone strike.
At the top of the interview, host Matthew Boyle asked Pompeo to detail the preparation for the decision detailed in his new book, Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love and covered in an exclusive by Breitbart News ahead of the publication of the book. released last week.
“It’s the classic example of how I worked every day to put America first and what happens when you start to give an inch. We were starting to lose our deterrence against the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, the Iranians,” Pompeo said. “They were firing artillery at the American embassy in Baghdad, they had shot down two American drones in international airspace, so we were losing the thesis central to our foreign policy, which was to keep America safe, you have to deter the bad guys. And, so, we finally, through some work that I did when I was director of the CIA with our partners in Israel, the Mossad, and then some subsequent efforts, we had that opportunity. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of what was called the Al-Quds Force of the IRGC, Iran’s external terrorist wing, had killed 500 Americans and was plotting to kill more, and it all came together. And he was traveling from Beirut to Damascus to Baghdad, and we were so lucky, and we finally took a strike to make sure he never killed another American or an Israeli or anybody else.
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Pompeo went on to point out that the Trump administration’s foreign policy team “deterred the plot,” “convinced the Iranians to back down,” and that the mission was carried out “against an establishment foreign policy that would have said that you can’t do it”.
“Everyone has known for decades that Soleimani was a bad guy, that General Soleimani killed over 500 of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, but they were too timid and they didn’t want to stand up for the things that mattered,” Pompeo told me. “And President Trump, combined with the work that we have done, we have pushed back against the foreign policy of the establishment in Washington and kept the country safe. ”
President Donald Trump delivers a statement on Iran at the Mar-a-Lago Estate in Palm Beach, Florida on January 3, 2020. He said America does not seek war or regime change with Iran. Iran less than a day after the United States launched an airstrike in Baghdad that killed Iran’s top general, Qasem Soleimani. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Boyle then asked Pompeo to describe the meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, where the 45th president was vacationing, on December 29, 2019. The meeting included Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, and National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, who were all behind the plan after Pompeo shared with them before the meeting.
“Oh my God, that was really something,” Pompeo said.
“Think about this: It’s a handful of days before Covid starts to become something the American people think about, and we knew we had this black op we were telling the president about,” he added. “We had spoken to him about it before, it was nothing new to him, so he had been told about different alternatives, but, for the first time, we actually had the setup – the actual model that could deliver the result. So we informed him. We informed him of the risks. There were those who said, “The Iranians are going to attack us all over America and Europe. They will attack American interests all over the world”, but we were convinced for laying the groundwork to prevent this.
“And that was really something, when we got up to go out, I reminded the president that the strike was going to take place at Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) and that we hadn’t gone on strike like this one on a commercial airfield before, where there was commercial traffic. [Trump] Basically, he turned to me and was like, ‘Don’t screw it up, don’t screw it up,’ Pompeo laughed. “And the good news is that we didn’t. We understood, we eliminated Soleimani, there was no collateral damage. We had convinced not only the Iranians, but also the Chinese and the North Koreans that we were serious about protecting the things that mattered and did a really – it was quite a briefing. We came back here. It took us another three and a half days to line everything up, and the mission was executed in early January 20.”
While recounting some of the backdoor diplomacy that preceded and followed the fatal strike on Soleimani, Pompeo noted that on January 7, 2020, Iran retaliated with strikes on Al-Assad air base in Iraq. , which hosted American troops, which led to the death of some servicemen. injured, but no fatalities.
A photo taken on January 13, 2020, during a press tour organized by the US-led coalition fighting the remnants of the Islamic State group, shows US soldiers clearing the rubble of the military airbase in Ain al-Asad in the western Iraqi province of Anbar. Iran last week launched a wave of missiles at the sprawling Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq and a base in Arbil, capital of the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq, which host both US and foreign troops, in retaliation for the US assassination of Iranian General Qasem. Soleimani during a drone strike in Baghdad on January 3. (AYMAN HENNA/AFP via Getty Images)
“In the book, I write about a letter we previously sent to Soleimani, clearly stating, ‘You have to stop this. “And if we hadn’t backed that up with action, we would have been in a really bad place the moment it happened. We made it clear to the Iranians that it was our strike. They responded after the strike. at al-Assad where there were a handful of injured Americans, it breaks my heart, serious stuff, but it wasn’t WWIII, and we didn’t end up in conflict – in fact, right across the street,” Pompeo said. “That strike enabled what became the Abraham Accords because the Arab Gulf states came in and said, ‘Hey Pompeo, Trump – these guys are serious about the things they promised, and they’re going to keep their promises.'”
Iranian mourners hold up a photo of slain military commander Qasem Soleimani during a funeral procession in the capital Tehran on January 6, 2020, for him and Iraqi paramilitary leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and other victims of a American attack. (ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)
“I was really confused. Nancy Pelosi was not happy,” he added. “By the way, you can see Joe Biden’s comments, he thought that was stupid too. They misunderstand American power. They think American power comes from deploying 40,000 somewhere around the world. Power American comes from clarity and action, following through on what you’re going to do, and when we did that, they knew we were serious, and we didn’t get the backlash they feared. were fundamentally right, and we created more strength and prosperity for the United States of America as a result of the strike we took.
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
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