Although he did not mention “imminent” attacks in his remarks at the Hoover Institution today, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did reference such attacks during the Q&A portion of the event. Responding to a question about why the American people should trust the intelligence about the reported “imminent” threats from Qasem Soleimani, Pompeo said, “There was in fact a set of imminent attacks that were being plotted by Qasem Soleimani.” “It was unmistakable,” he said. Pompeo said the intelligence community’s view was “that the risks were real and growing and that the actions that we took that day reduced that risk. It never eliminates it. But it reduced that risk.” However, Pompeo, a former CIA director, told the audience that “the intelligence community makes mistakes, all the time.”
“Right? It happens. But the depth and breadth and intellect, the capacity and reach of America’s intelligence capability is enormous. And they do their level best to present this accurately,” he said. “I can say to the American people, you should have enormous confidence in the intelligence community, that their efforts are genuine, they are real, they are authentic, they are trying to provide good data sets to, now I’m on the other side, as the policy adviser for the president, receiving this intelligence, informing our decision-making.”
Iraqi Prime Minister’s office says there is “no agreement with the US” to keep troops in Iraq
Iraq has no agreement to keep US troops in Iraq to continue the fight against ISIS, the Iraqi Prime Minister’s office spokesman William Warda said today. Warda told CNN the Iraqi government would back the Iraqi Parliament’s Jan. 5 vote to expel American troops from the country, in response to a Turkish official saying otherwise in an interview with CNN on Monday. Earlier today, İbrahim Kalın, a spokesman for the Turkish president, said, “Although the Iraqi parliament passed an recommendary resolution, I think they [the US and Iraq] have or they are about to reach an agreement to continue the fight against ISIS.” Warda said, “Until this moment, the Iraqi government is committed to implement the Iraqi Parliament decision, which states that all foreign troops should withdraw from Iraq. Foreign troops does not mean only American troops but all other foreign troops presence in Iraq.” He added, “There is no agreement with the US administration on keeping the troops and the government is on the track to implement the decision of the Iraqi parliament.”