WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox News Friday night that the Iranians were planning to target four US embassies before the killing of Qasem Soleimani.
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) January 11, 2020
“I can reveal that I believe it would have been four embassies,” Trump said in an interview with Laura Ingraham. He said that one of those embassies was the US embassy in Baghdad. “[It] could have been military bases, could have been a lot of other things too. But it was imminent, and then all of a sudden, he [Soleomani] was gone.”
“I’m not somebody that wants to attack,” the president clarified when discussed his Iran policy. “I probably could have attacked five times, ten times having to do with Iran. I’ve been very guarded because I don’t want to do that, but we may have to do something. We have to be in a position where we can do it even from a negotiating standpoint, but hopefully, it won’t be necessary. We have tremendous sanctions. They’re doing very poorly, that riots all over their country.”
Asked about the remarks of Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a BDS supporter who said that economic sanction against Iran are “economic warfare,” the president said: “She hates Israel. She hates Jewish People. You just have to take a look at her rhetoric. It’s incredible what’s happened to the Democrats in Congress. They used to be supportive of Israel. Today they’re supportive of her and Tlaib; that’s another real “winner,” and AOC who knows nothing.”
He also addressed his policy in Syria and said he made the right decision to reorganize the US troops there. “I moved our troops on the border between Turkey and Syria. That turned out to be such a successful move. Look what happened. They’ve been fighting over that border for a thousand years. Why should we do it? And then they say ‘he left troops in Syria.’ Do you know what I did? I left troops to take the oil. I took the oil -the only [US] troops [there] are protecting the oil.”
He added that the core of his Middle East policy is not allowing Iran to have nuclear capabilities. “I don’t want people having nuclear weapons because they’ll use them. I don’t want people having nuclear weapons. That’s my biggest thing […] You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
Asked about the Iraqi prime minister’s discussion with Secretary of State Mike Pompei about potential plans of withdrawing US troops from Iraq, the president responded: “I’m okay with it. By the way, that’s what they say publicly. They don’t say it privately.”
He was also asked whether he thinks that Iraq should repay the American taxpayer for these bases. “Sure,” Trump responded. “We built one of the world’s most expensive airport facilities anywhere in the world. I wish we had it in New York. I wish we had it in Washington. We build runways that are 15,000 feet long – at LaGuardia, they’re 7,000 feet and deep, thick concrete and steel, nobody ever built runaways like this,” he continued. But we have billions of dollars into that. I said, if we leave, you going to pay us. If we leave, you have to pay us for embassies. You have to pay us for the money we put in […] think they agree to pay. Otherwise, we’ll stay there.”
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