Mike Pompeo Falsely Claims Trump Didn’t Threaten to Strike Iranian Cultural Sites
Either Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was misinformed on Sunday or he engaged in deliberate misinformation by claiming President Donald Trump did not issue a threat to attack Iranian cultural sites.
In his interview for Sunday Morning Futures, Maria Bartiromo asked Pompeo for his reaction to criticisms of Trump’s decision to authorize the fatal strike against Iran’s Qasem Soleimani without giving notice to Congress. One of the critics Bartiromo brought up was Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who accused Trump of engaging in a “war crime” by threatening civilians with his announcement that the U.S. has targeted cultural sites.
This is a war crime.
Threatening to target and kill innocent families, women and children – 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. https://t.co/IjkNO8BD07— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 5, 2020
Here’s Pompeo’s response (emphasis ours):
“President Trump did not say he would go after a cultural site, read what he said very closely. We’ve made clear that the cost [of] using proxy forces in the region will not be just borne by those proxies. It will be borne by Iran and its leadership itself. Those are important thinks the Iranian leadership needs to put into its calculus as it makes its next decision.”
If Pompeo wishes for us to read what Trump said “very closely,” let’s look at the string of tweets the president sent out about what the U.S. will do if Iran continues to threaten retaliation against Americans:
Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge for our ridding the world of their terrorist leader who had just killed an American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he had killed over his lifetime, including recently….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2020
….targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2020
“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 & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”
So… yeah.
Watch above, via Fox News.
