Sen. Ed Markey told Boston Public Radio Thursday that he has no idea why slain Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani posed an imminent threat to the United States despite receiving a 75 minute briefing on the killing on Wednesday.
“It didn’t give us the information which we were looking for,” Markey said. “We needed to know what were the specific imminent threats that were being posed to the security of the United States, and while the briefing lasted for 75 minutes we never heard those specific threats.”
The Trump administration defended their previous claims that Soleimani posed such a grave threat to the United States they did not have the time to notify Congress about the strike until after it happened during the briefing which included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
Markey, said that not only was he not shown any evidence of an imminent threat but he suspected that those present at the briefing did not have evidence of a threat.
“There was without question some unease with...myself and others in the room who did not feel that we were receiving satisfactory answers, because it would otherwise just leave it up to the president acting upon less than concrete information to make a decision that could potentially pull the United States into a war with Iran.”
