US Military Confirms 'Recent and Clear' Iranian Threat
By Carla Babb, Steve Herman May 07, 2019
The U.S. military has "recent and clear indications" of an Iranian threat against American forces in the Middle East, defense officials said Tuesday.
It appeared that "Iranian and Iranian proxy forces were making preparations to possibly attack U.S. forces in the region. This includes threats on land and [at sea]," U.S. Central Command spokesman Navy Capt. William Urban said.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday canceled a scheduled trip to Germany and made an unannounced visit to Baghdad to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi to share concerns about the increasing Iranian activity.
"I wanted to go to Baghdad to speak with the leadership there, to assure them that we stood ready to continue to ensure that Iraq is a sovereign, independent nation," Pompeo told reporters en route to Baghdad to meet with Abdul-Mahdi.
U.S. officials also are speeding the arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier, and its strike group from European waters to the Arabian Sea, and deploying a B-52 bomber task force in response to the potential Iranian threat.
"What you see is us getting in the right posture for that dynamic environment," Acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan told reporters at the Pentagon Tuesday.
On Monday, Pompeo said, "We have continued to see activity that leads us to believe that there's escalation that may be taking place, and so we're taking all the appropriate actions, both from a security perspective as well as our ability to make sure the president has a wide range of options in the event that something should actually take place."
The concerns expressed by Pompeo and U.S. defense officials contrast with U.S. Central Command's (CENTCOM) assessment just over a month ago.
Despite Iran's "significant capability" in Syria and the region, CENTCOM officials said there were no indications Tehran was setting its sights on U.S. forces.
"Iran's priority is to defeat ISIS, which it sees as an existential threat," the Defense Department's Lead Inspector General for Operation Inherent Resolve said, summarizing CENTCOM's March 26 assessment in a report issued Tuesday.
"They are not displaying the intent to attack U.S. forces," the report added, warning, "this calculus could change if Iran perceives a U.S. desire to ramp up anti-Iranian activities in a post-ISIS environment," using an acronym for the militant group.
Some former U.S. intelligence and security officials worry, however, that recent rhetoric from the White House combined with its ongoing "maximum pressure" campaign, has done just that.
New America Foundation Fellow Ned Price told VOA an unusual and aggressive Sunday evening statement issued in the name of the U.S. national security adviser John Bolton – in which he warned the U.S. is "fully prepared to respond to any attack" – makes it seem like the U.S. is "intent on driving the Iranians into a corner."
"The concern with Bolton's threat – coming in the midst of a series of escalations from the Trump administration – underscores the concern that the administration is trying to goad the Iranians into an unwise and ill-considered reaction," Price, a former spokesman for the Obama-era National Security Council, said.
Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz echoed that sentiment on Capitol Hill Tuesday, telling VOA, "John Bolton's history lends itself to the most worrisome analysis of this situation."
However, Schatz, a Democrat, remained confident the United States and Iran were "a long way from anything kinetic (violent), and hopefully we will remain a long way from anything kinetic."
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group includes fighter jets, helicopters, destroyers and more than 6,000 sailors. The group left a U.S. port in (the state of) Virginia in early April.
The Trump administration has been working to apply what it calls a "maximum pressure campaign" against Iran to try to get the country to change its behavior, including its sponsorship of terror groups and what the White House alleges is a ballistic missile program that threatens the United States.
In response to last month's U.S. designation of a key part of Iran's military (IRGC) as a terrorist group, Iran called the United States a state sponsor of terrorism and said U.S. forces in the Middle East are terror groups.
Jeff Seldin and Michael Bowman contributed to this report.
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