Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that people should ask dead Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani if America’s enemies think President Donald Trump is “more vulnerable” because of impeachment.
Soleimani was killed during airstrikes near the Baghdad, Iraq airport ordered by Trump on Jan. 2. He was “actively developing plans” to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.
Fox News’ Chris Wallace spoke to Pompeo on “Fox News Sunday” and said that some believe Trump’s impeachment “has emboldened enemies like Iran and North Korea to think that they can confront him.”
“You should ask Mr. Soleimani,” Pompeo replied.
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The Secretary of State added that this will not be another endless war, despite the decision to deploy more troops amid an attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad Dec. 31. (RELATED: FLASHBACK: Obama Hosted Baghdad Embassy Protest Organizer At The White House In 2011)
“Endless wars are the direct result of weakness, and President Trump will never let that happen,” Pompeo said. “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.”
Pompeo suggested that they “are confident that the Iraqi people want the United States to continue to be there to fight the counterterrorism campaign.” He dismissed the Iraqi parliament’s decision to force all U.S. troops to leave the country, saying that “President Trump will never shy away from protecting and defending America.”
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“We’ve been supporting Iraqi sovereignty,” Pompeo told Wallace Sunday. “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.”
The Secretary of State also dismissed the Iraqi prime minister’s comments that Soleimani’s killing, along with others who died in the airstrikes, were political assassinations. He defended the decision to kill Soleimani, reiterating that intelligence showed the possibility of imminent attacks.
“I think any reasonable person who saw the intelligence that the senior American leaders had in their possession would’ve 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 that we took,” Pompeo said.
