The U.S. will hold Iran and its military responsible for any supported attacks on U.S. forces stationed in Iraq, CIA Director Mike Pompeo warned in a recent letter to nefarious Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
Soleimani reportedly bragged to the Iranian press about not even opening the letter. “It didn’t break my heart, to be honest with you,” Pompeo said of Soleimani’s decision, explaining “I sent it because he had indicated that forces under his control might, in fact, threaten U.S. forces in Iraq.” Soleimani is the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds force, tasked with managing the Islamic republic’s support for terrorist organizations.
“What we were communicating to him in that letter is that we would hold he and Iran accountable for any attacks on American interests in Iraq by forces under his control,” the CIA director elaborated. We wanted to make sure he and Iranian leadership understood that in a way that was crystal clear,” he added.
Pompeo’s letter was likely in reaction to the death of a U.S. soldier from a particularly deadly type of improvised explosive device Iran has provided to Iraqi militias in the past. The CIA Director said after the death that the “design of [the] weapon system points to a singular agent.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford told Congress in 2015, “I know the total number of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that were killed by Iranian activities, and the number has been recently quoted as about 500,” in a reference to specialized IED use in Iraq.
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