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 @Pet_Proletariat 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.