Fmr CIA Chief Panetta: I Think We’re ‘Closer to War With Iran Than We’ve Been in the Last 40 Years’

Former CIA chief Leon Panetta today expressed concern about the strike taking out Qasem Soleimani potentially leading to war with Iran.

Wolf Blitzer asked Panetta, who served as CIA director and Defense Secretary in the Obama administration, if Soleimani was “ever on your direct target list.”

“We had the names of terrorists like bin Laden and obviously al-Baghdadi and other terrorist leaders but Soleimani was never on the list,” Panetta responded.

“Why wasn’t he on the list if he had been responsible for the killing of so many U.S. troops in Iraq?” Blitzer asked.

“I think the reason was that he was a general in Iran who along with the leadership of Iran and other generals that were involved in Iran all were involved in planning what Iran was doing. And it was difficult to say that we ought to pick one general to go after and try to execute in some way when you’re dealing with the entire country as a threat to the United States. That’s what the United States needed to focus on, was the threat from Iran, not just one particular individual,” Panetta responded.

Asked whether Trump made the right call, he said no one should mourn Soleimani’s death because “he was a bad actor and he did kill thousands of innocent people and U.S. forces as well.”

Panetta went on to say, “The real question is

whether or not this action has given us less of a chance of going to war or increases the chances of war. And I think right now we are closer to war with Iran than we’ve been in the last 40 years. And that is a danger that we have to pay attention to that was not dealt with with one act.”

You can watch above, via CNN.