The story below that one is worth noting also; Trump is threatening to levy sanctions against IRAQ if they ask us to leave.
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Only Trump would think that “be-our-friends-or-else” could be an effective foreign policy.
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@Keaton_James
And he still fails to understand that sanctions levied by us and only us don’t scare countries. Other nations are not going to back us up in this insanity, and it takes a united front for sanctions to really work.
Iraqi prime minister says Qassem Soleimani was in Iraq to ‘discuss de-escalating tensions between Iran and Saudis’ when he was killed - and claims Trump had asked for help mediating talks after embassy attack
- Iraq’s caretaker prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, told his parliament in Baghdad on Sunday that US strike on Soleimani was a 'political assassination’
- Abdul Mahdi claimed that Soleimani was due to meet with him on the same day that he was killed by a US drone near the Baghdad airport early on Friday
- The outgoing Iraqi leader says that Soleimani was supposed to bring him Iran’s response to a Saudi proposal for de-escalating regional tensions
- Saudi Arabia, a regional rival, blames Iran for an attack on the kingdom’s oil facilities in September
- Abdul Mahdi also claims that President Trump called him and asked him to mediate talks with Iran after the US embassy in Baghdad was nearly overrun
- Supporters of the Shiite group Kataib Hezbollah scaled the walls and barreled through security at the US embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday
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Abdul Mahdi said he personally intervened to defuse the embassy crisis and that the American president thanked him for doing so
Soleimani was in Iraq to 'discuss de-escalating tensions with Saudis' when he was killed, PM says | Daily Mail Online
Saudi Arabia says it was not consulted on Soleimani strike, urges calm
Kingdom, vulnerable to possible reprisal attacks after American drone strike targeting top Iranian general, reportedly sending prince to US, UK to plead for restraint
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This thread offers a window into the utter chaos Trump has unleashed through his incompetent, blundering, and illegal move in Iran.
It is very much worth reading:
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Remember how they said killing Soleimani would put an end to everything?
Yeah, that was never true.
Iran’s general replacing Soleimani vows revenge for US killing
http://a.msn.com/01/en-us/BBYEmOv?ocid=st
This is escalating in a very bad way. Hassan Rouhani is the current president of Iran. This post references Iran Air Flight 655: An A300 shot down by the US, in thePersianGulf, on July 3, 1988. All 290 people on board died.
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CNN
Top general says letter suggesting US would withdraw troops from Iraq was a ‘mistake’
By Zachary Cohen, Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne, CNN
Updated 4:58 PM ET, Mon January 6, 2020
The top US general said Monday a letter suggesting the US would withdraw troops from Iraq was released by mistake and poorly worded, telling reporters “that’s not what’s happening.”
Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley sought to address the confusion that began after the leak of a letter to the Iraqi government from US Command in Baghdad suggesting US troops would be withdrawn from the country.
“That letter is a draft. It was a mistake, it was unsigned, it should not have been released … (it was) poorly worded, implies withdrawal, that is not what’s happening,” Milley said.
“It’s an honest mistake … it should not have been sent,” he added.
OMG. The level of incompetence is just staggering. This is what happens when you have a President who couldn’t care less about doing a professional job of anything. Just blast it out there. Typos? Reviews? Approvals? Doesn’t matter. BUT it does matter. We’re talking about a world on the brink of war. Every word, every punctuation mark is crucial. I’m so weary of having a buffoon for a President and Commander in Chief. 
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I needed that! – a little comic relief in the midst of all this stress. And so spot on!
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"We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base [in Iraq]. It cost billions of dollars to build… We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it." – Donald J. Trump, Air Force One, January 6, 2020
“Mexico is going to pay – they know it – Mexico is going to pay for the wall, and that’s an easy one.” – Donald J. Trump, Portland, Maine, Aug. 4, 2016
“Mexico will pay for the wall, OK, believe me, they will pay for the wall.” – Donald J. Trump, Jacksonville, Florida, Nov. 3, 2016
"[Mexico is] going to pay for the wall, and they’re going to enjoy it.” – Donald J. Trump, Nashville, Tennessee, May 29, 2018
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Iran state TV: Tehran fires at Iraqi base housing US troops
Iran state TV says Tehran has launched “tens” of surface-to-surface missiles at Iraq’s Ain Assad air base housing U.S. troops over America’s killing of a top Iranian general.
State TV described it early Wednesday as Tehran’s revenge operation over the killing of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
U.S. forces could not be immediately reached for comment.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE.
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LA TIMES
January 7, 4:40pm PT
Iran fires missiles at two U.S. bases in Iraq
Irbil base hit as well according to LA Times.
Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles that targeted at least two military bases used by U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq, the Pentagon said Tuesday night after Iranian state television said the barrage was the opening of Tehran’s “revenge” for the U.S. killing last week of a top Iranian general.
The U.S. has not confirmed any casualties from the attack on bases in northern and western Iraq, according to Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman.
“It is clear that these missiles were launched from Iran,” Hoffman said in a statement.
The missiles hit the Asad Air Base, one of the largest U.S. facilities in Iraq, which houses both Iraqi and U.S. forces, in western Iraq. They also struck a base in Irbil, in the Kurdish-governed north of the country.
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Fake news spreads fast. This fact check thread is legit and helpful. 
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All is well
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The worst part about this for me is that Trump is refusing to say what sort of casualties we have, meaning military families here are waiting in the dark to find out if their loved ones are safe.
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All indications are the crash of a Ukranian airliner bound from Iran to Ukraine is unrelated to recent tensions and due to mechanical failure.
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Following Trump’s speech today. He opened with Iran never having nukes and stated that no Americans were harmed and we should all be grateful.
All indications are that this was according to Iranian plan, though he seems to be taking credit for it.
Now he’s talking about sanctions and telling lies about the Iran Nuclear Deal. He’s blaming Obama for the missiles last night, for giving Iran money. He still hasn’t spoken of their course of action.
Note that Trump in the middle of this propaganda just had to bring up Iran’s “untapped potential”, because it always comes down to money.
Trump states he is going to ask NATO to get more involved in peace in the Middle East, but then immediately goes on to brag about the economy, energy independence, our military, and our “big, powerful, and fast” missiles.
He said he wants peace… and now he’s leaving without taking questions or actually outlining any sort of real plan besides “asking NATO to step in.” And that’s it.
All told it was kind of underwhelming and low-energy. There wasn’t much there, but it at least wasn’t the worst case scenario we expected. The only notable thing here is his plan to ask NATO to step in (though NATO does play a more major role there now) and blaming Obama for them having these missiles (which is not at all the case).
There’s a winner from the US-Iran crisis, and it’s ISIS
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Top US general says Iran tried to kill US troops as some administration officials believe they purposely missed
The top US general made clear Wednesday night that he believes Iran meant to kill US troops in the ballistic missile attack on US forces in Iraq, rebutting a belief among some Trump administration officials that Iran intentionally missed areas populated by Americans.
"I believe based on what I saw and what I know that they were intended to cause structural damage destroy vehicles and equipment and aircraft, and to kill personnel. That’s my own personal assessment," said Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when speaking to reporters on Wednesday,
Milley argued that the reason there were no casualties had "more to do with the defensive techniques that our forces used as opposed to intent."
He added, “We took sufficient defensive measures that there were no casualties to US personnel, coalition personnel, contractors or Iraqis.”
The message runs counter to what some administration officials have suggested to CNN, which is that Iran could have directed their missiles to hit areas that are populated by Americans but intentionally did not. And those officials said Iran may have chosen to send a message rather than take significant enough action to provoke a substantial US military response, a possible signal the administration was looking for rationale to calm the tensions.
Iran fired a number of missiles aimed at the bases in retaliation for the American strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani last week, further escalating tensions between the two countries. Officials have said there were no US casualties as a result of the attacks, though a full assessment is underway.
This Administration just can’t get its story straight. Trump’s State Department is delivering a narrative that directly contradicts his top General. The State Department is saying Iran deliberately did not target soldiers on the bases they struck. However, General Milley is saying they did target soldiers, but only failed to kill any due to the defensive measures we took.
Based on what we know so far I’d have to agree with Milley.
- There’s the photographic evidence. CNN has published “before and after” satellite photos from Planet Labs, Inc. that show three areas of the al-Asad air base. I’m assuming that CNN has trust in the source of these images – also, I’ve vetted these against the disinformation monitoring Twitter thread that @anon95374541 posted above.
In two of the areas shown, entire buildings have been severely damaged or obliterated. In the third area, a bomb has created a crater in an open area on what appears to be a road or a runway. If Iran had intended to not target soldiers, I would think that all of the damage would be similar to that shown in the third area, occurring in unpopulated areas of the base.
- There’s the fact that we had ample advance warning of the attacks as @matt posted in today’s summary:
The U.S. military had advance warning of Iran’s attack on the two American locations in Iraq . “We had intelligence reports several hours in advance that the Iranians were seeking to strike the bases,” a senior administration official said, giving military commanders time to move U.S. troops into safe, fortified positions.
So the fact that U.S. or Iraqi soldiers were not killed seems more likely to be the result of evasive measures we were able to take, rather than due to any Iranian intentions. If Iran had managed to have the element of surprise on their side, there may well have been soldiers in those buildings.
- This is just my personal opinion: I’ll take the word of our top general over Mike Pompeo’s State Department any day.
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