Current Events > Military leaders offered Trump the strike to make other options seem better

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/04/us/politics/trump-suleimani.html

In the chaotic days leading to the death of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Irans most powerful commander, top American military officials put the option of killing him which they viewed as the most extreme response to recent Iranian-led violence in Iraq on the menu they presented to President Trump.

They didnt think he would take it. In the wars waged since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pentagon officials have often offered improbable options to presidents to make other possibilities appear more palatable.

After initially rejecting the Suleimani option on Dec. 28 and authorizing airstrikes on an Iranian-backed Shia militia group instead, a few days later Mr. Trump watched, fuming, as television reports showed Iranian-backed attacks on the American Embassy in Baghdad, according to Defense Department and administration officials.

By late Thursday, the president had gone for the extreme option. Top Pentagon officials were stunned.

Mr. Trump made the decision, senior officials said on Saturday, despite disputes in the administration about the significance of what some officials said was a new stream of intelligence that warned of threats to American embassies, consulates and military personnel in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. General Suleimani had just completed a tour of his forces in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and was planning an imminent attack that could claim hundreds of lives, those officials said.

Days, weeks, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Friday, when asked how imminent any attacks could be, without offering more detail other than to say that new information about unspecified plotting was clear and unambiguous.

But some officials voiced private skepticism about the rationale for a strike on General Suleimani, who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American troops over the years. According to one United States official, the new intelligence indicated a normal Monday in the Middle East Dec. 30 and General Suleimanis travels amounted to business as usual.

That official described the intelligence as thin and said that General Suleimanis attack was not imminent because of communications the United States had between Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and General Suleimani showing that the ayatollah had not yet approved any plans by the general for an attack. The ayatollah, according to the communications, had asked General Suleimani to come to Tehran for further discussions at least a week before his death.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence were two of the most hawkish voices arguing for a response to Iranian aggression, according to administration officials. Mr. Pences office helped run herd on meetings and conference calls held by officials in the run-up to the strike.

Mr. Esper and General Milley declined to comment for this article, but General Milleys spokeswoman, Col. DeDe Halfhill, said, without elaborating, that some of the characterizations being asserted by other sources are false and that she would not discuss conversations between General Milley and the president.

The fallout from Mr. Trumps targeted killing is now underway. On Saturday in Iraq, the American military was on alert as tens of thousands of pro-Iranian fighters marched through the streets of Baghdad and calls accelerated to eject the United States from the country. United States Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said there were two rocket attacks near Iraqi bases that host American troops, but no one was injured.

In Iran, the ayatollah vowed forceful revenge as the country mourned the death of General Suleimani.

In Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump lashed back, promising to strike 52 sites across Iran representing the number of American hostages taken by Iran in 1979 if Iran attacked Americans or American interests. On Saturday night, Mr. Trump warned on Twitter that some sites were 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.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats voiced growing suspicions about the intelligence that led to the killing. At the White House, officials formally notified Congress of a war powers resolution with what the administration said was a legal justification for the strike.

At Fort Bragg, N.C., some 3,500 soldiers, one of the largest rapid deployments in decades, are bound for the Middle East.

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Think by now the Pentagon would know just offer him a bunch of baby options

PrideOfLion posted...

I'm sure this works for normal presidents, but it seems insane to offer Trump something like this

It sure does!
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That was fucking stupid.

If it wasn't meant to be an option, don't present it as one.

These are the fucking people in charge of our military? WTF?

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You know the pentagon hogher ups who authorized the choices clearly wanted that man. No way they don't kniw Trumps personality.

They are just trying to make sure it seems like it is all Trumps fault.

Either way if guy is responsible for deaths of 100s of Americans. It's about time our country stopped walking on egg shells when our people get murdered.

KillerSlaw posted...

That was fucking stupid.

If it wasn't meant to be an option, don't present it as one.

These are the fucking people in charge of our military? WTF?

They're very stupid.
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Antifar posted...

That official described the intelligence as thin

Interesting double entendre.

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Imagine believing anything that propaganda machine puts out. Nobody but people that already have a hate on for the president read this garbage just so they can further stroke their hate on

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Trump is unfathomably stupid and so is anyone who forgot he was when they offered him these options

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If this leads to war Trump needs to be held personally responsible for it.

OctilIery posted...

If this leads to war Trump needs to be held personally responsible for it.

If things really spiral out of control, a competent military in another country would use it as justification for a coup

or this could be the end goal, let things spiral out of control and pin the blame on him since they know half the country already want him gone.

MachineJaipur posted...

If things really spiral out of control, a competent military in another country would use it as justification for a coup

or this could be the end goal, let things spiral out of control and pin the blame on him since they know half the country already want him gone.

Are you suggesting the military supplant the civilian leadership?

Esrac posted...

Are you suggesting the military supplant the civilian leadership?

No.

I'm just saying this sounds like something a military in a different country might do to justify the forceful removal of said leader. "well he was clearly stupid and dangerous, so we got rid of him"