IN THE DARK

U.S. Embassies Were Never Told of Supposed Soleimani Threat Because It Didn’t Exist: Officials

President Trump has claimed there was an imminent threat against U.S. embassies—so why weren’t they warned?

President Donald Trump has repeatedly attempted to justify his strike on Qassem Soleimani by claiming the Iranian general was planning imminent attacks on several U.S. embassies across the Middle East. But The Washington Post reports there’s widespread skepticism at the Pentagon and elsewhere in the administration because embassy officials were never warned of the purported threat. Despite Trump’s claim that the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was a supposed target, embassy officials there told the newspaper they never received an alert about it, as would typically be expected when a credible threat is received. U.S. personnel in the region were reportedly angered and confused when they learned of the supposed threat when Trump spoke about it following the strike. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has rejected the notion that embassy staff weren’t warned, and a State Department spokesman said Washington sent out a “worldwide security warning to every embassy,” but didn’t say when. The newspaper stated that, based on the evidence produced so far, “Trump’s statement was at best an unfounded theory and at worst a falsehood.”