In early Dec. 2019, in response to Iranian-backed forces attacking Americans on Iraqi and Syrian military air bases, Secretary Pompeo warned that “they will be answered with a decisive U.S. response”. “We will not ignore it when they put Americans in danger.” Iran did not heed that warning. Friday, Dec. 27, it launched a rocket attack on a military compound near Kirkuk in Northern Iraq, killing an American defense contractor and wounding four U.S troops and two members of the Iraqi Security forces.
On Sunday, the U.S. military carried-out precision defensive strikes against five sites of Kataeb-Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia, in Iraq and Syria.
Right before the attack, DoD Esper called Iraq’s Mahdi (recently resigned as Iraq’s PM), now deputy head of PMF, to tell him of U.S. intentions to hit those PMF bases, which were suspected of being behind Friday’s attack. Mahdi didn’t care much for the idea; but, American patriots did! Gen. Keane (ret), and other generals applauded Pres. Trump for being “spot on” in that decision.
