Washington: The US "got it right" by killing top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday, defending US President Donald Trump's decision as "entirely legal" and in tune with America's strategy to counter the threat of Tehran's "maligned activity".
Maj Gen Soleimani, 62, the head of Iran's elite al-Quds force and architect of its regional security apparatus, was killed in a US drone attack while leaving Baghdad International Airport early on Friday. The strike also killed the deputy chief of Iraq's powerful Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Soleimani's killing was the most dramatic escalation yet in spiralling tensions between Iran and the US, already hit by serious differences over Tehran's ambitious nuclear programme.
Pompeo, speaking to reporters at the State Department, said the US will comply with the international laws of war in its retaliatory measures, if needed, against Iran. His remarks came after President Trump suggested he might target Iran's cultural sites if Tehran retaliated in response to his order to kill Soleimani.
"I said on Sunday, I will reiterate it again, every target that's being reviewed, every effort that's being made will always be conducted inside the international laws of war. I've seen it, I've worked on this and I'm very confident of that," Pompeo said in his maiden New Year News Conference.
Pompeo reiterated that the decision to kill Soleimani was taken based on intelligence information according to which there was an imminent attack. "If you're looking for imminence, you need not to look further than the days that led up to the strike that was taken against Soleimani and then you in addition to that have what we clearly can see were continuing efforts on behalf of this terrorist to build out a network of campaign activities that were going to lead potentially to the death of many more Americans," he said.
"It was the right decision. We got it right; the Department of Defense did excellent work and the president had an entirely legal, appropriate and a basis as well as a decision that fit perfectly with our strategy on how to counter the threat of maligned activity from Iran more broadly," said the top American diplomat.
Pompeo said that any time a president makes a decision of this magnitude, there are multiple pieces of information that are brought to his notice. "We presented that to him in all its broad detail. We gave him all of the best information that came not only from the intelligence community but from those of us that have teams in the field," he said.
"We evaluated the relevant risks and the opportunity that we thought might present itself at some point and we could see clearly that Soleimani had done all of the things that we had recounted, hundreds of thousands of massacre in Syria, enormous destruction of countries like Lebanon and Iraq where they've denied them sovereignty and the Iranians have really denied people in those two countries what it is that they want?" he said.
Pompeo said Solemani was continuing the "terror campaign" in the region. "We know what happened at the end of last year in December, ultimately leading to the death of an American," he said.
Pompeo claimed that it is the authoritarian regime in Iran which is destroying the culture there. "Let me tell you who's done damage to the Persian culture. It's not the United States of America, it's the Ayatollah," he said.
They denied the religious freedom and capacity for the Persian culture to continue, he said. "If you go back and you look at the holidays around Cyrus and Newroz, they've not permitted people to celebrate," he alleged.
"They have not allowed the people that they've killed, that Soleimani killed, to mourn their family members. The real risk to Persian culture does not come from the United States of America. That - there is no mistake about that," Pompeo said.
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