…by PressTV, Tehran
[ Editor’s Note: The Trump regime is hunkering down on releasing the Soleimani assassination file, as it does not want to risk blowback from exposure that the imminent threat justification was hyped.
VT has historically seen that with total secrecy assured, justification can be invented, including the kind with faked Intel fed into the system “believed” to be reliable, something that is mere child’s play to arrange. Israelis are always on call for that, the Brits, too.
The other sleeping monster in his assassination is that it was assumed signals intelligence was part of it, meaning the US knew Soleimani was on a diplomatic mission to discuss with the Iraqi PM how to advance talks with Saudi Arabia and deescalate Persian Gulf tensions.
Inquiring minds at VT would like to know whether the reason he was really killed was to torpedo those talks advancing? VT learned about those talks via a reporter taking notes at the Iraqi parliament meeting when they were disclosed, but magically mass media seems to have missed the scoop when it was right on Twitter, an affordable source to all.
Peeling away the layers on this would bring up the hard fact that US troops in Iraq were left exposed to the expected Iranian retaliation after such an offensive assassination event, where our Iraqi bases had no air defense against Iranian missiles, which according to VT’s current Intel, killed 80 Americans. The ‘dead’ giveaway was the medical evacuation flight that had ‘refrigeration’ capacity.
With Trump swimming in political alligators, his numbers sinking, the last thing he is going to do is give the Democrats new ammo to use on him… Jim W. Dean ]
– First published … July 23, 2020 –
Pressure is growing in the United States on President Donald Trump to declassify the legal justification for a US drone attack, which killed top Iranian anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in January.
For months, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), among others, has been working to unearth the national security secret and find out the legal justification for Trump’s order of the assassination of General Soleimani.
The Trump administration sent Congress a formal notification of the assassination under the War Powers Act just after it happened, but kept it classified.
Murphy appealed to an agency called the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), which is tasked with reviewing declassification requests.
“We’ve seen the Trump administration repeatedly classify information just because it is politically damaging to President Trump, and it’s up to Congress to stop it,” Murphy said in a statement.
“The American people deserve to know why the Trump administration chose to kill Qassem Soleimani back in January, since this event had far-reaching consequences for US security. By hiding the legal rationale for this action, there can be no meaningful public debate about the wisdom of the strike.”
Democrats denounced the Trump-authorized assassination as “highly unusual,” with observers saying it raised grave questions about the scope of Trump’s contempt for oversight, the presidential warmaking power and the ever-waning authority of Congress over those matters, Washington Post said.
Back in February, Murphy sent a letter to the White House demanding the declassification, as did other Democratic senators, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Bob Menendez and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. The White House never answered, Murphy’s office says.
The Democratic senators called for the Trump administration to immediately declassify the White House notification to Congress of the initiation of hostilities against Iran, pursuant to the War Powers Act of 1973, saying there was no legitimate justification for such extensive classification.
They said it is critical for the Trump administration to share additional information with the American people about the US military operation targeting General Soleimani, who commanded the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
Murphy said that the Trump administration offered shifting and weak public rationales for the killing of General Soleimani.
The classified War Powers notification should contain the official reasoning and be backed up with real intelligence. It would allow us to properly evaluate that reasoning, he noted.
The Trump administration claimed at the time that the Soleimani strike was legal as an act of imminent self-defense under Article II of the US Constitution as well as the 2002 military authorization to invade Iraq.
Democrats maintained that General Soleimani was not planning any imminent attacks on US interests, raising the prospect that the strike was illegal.
The US assassination of General Soleimani and his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of PMU counter-terrorism force, triggered a wave of anger and protests in Iran and beyond, with the people calling for an immediate revenge.
‘Harsher revenge awaits perpetrators’
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that Iran will never forget Washington’s assassination of General Soleimani and will definitely deliver a “counterblow” to the United States.
Ayatollah Khamenei told visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Tehran that, “They (Americans) killed your guest at your own home and unequivocally admitted the atrocity. This is no small matter.”
The Leader had warned about a pending “harsh revenge.” Also, Iran’s top security official said harsher revenge awaits the perpetrators of the attack that killed General Soleimani and his companions.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said on Wednesday that, “The two Iranian and Iraqi nations are avengers of blood of these martyrs and will not rest until they punish the perpetrators.”
In retaliation for the US January attack, the IRGC fired volleys of ballistic missiles a US base in Iraq on January 8. According to the US Defense Department, more than 100 American forces suffered “traumatic brain injuries” during the counterstrike. The IRGC, however, says Washington uses the term to mask the number of the Americans, who perished during the retaliation.
Iran has also issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol for help in detaining Trump, who ordered the assassination, and several other US military and political leaders behind the strike.
Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus. He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. He now writes and posts periodically for VT.
ATTENTION READERS
We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully InformedIn fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion.
About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy
It was an assasination not the least bit covert as they usually are done, blamed on lone gunman, or rival Muslim terrorist organization,, poisoned bowl of Russian soup, Ghaddafi, Hussein or Ghaddafi….you name it, they make it up to cover for a CIA hit.
This time however it was in the open WE DID IT (the USA) a dumb excuse created yes, he killed Americans in Iraq war, but usually they would of cast who performed the assasination as maybe in-fighting within Iraq or Iranian government, but this is time it was 100% the USA did it and the USA is chest-beating proud ud of it too…(Trump Pompeo the “USA” in this case, not me or you)
So this leads to the missle attacks,
Iran now FORCD to retaliate, this leads to biological attack in Fenruary, on Iran by USA in retaliation ( this one covert!! Blamed on China)
Now we have huge world biological weapon pandemic from the bioweaon attack on city of Qom and their government targeted as well.
Qom city where huge undergrpund nuke base is.
Yeah, Chris Murphy is a quantum improvement over Joe Lieberman, and his other “zionists uber alles” buddies Graham and McCain!
It would also be nice to know what happened to the 120+ US Soldiers that had traumatic head injuries from Irans retaliatory strikes …..Where is the Benghazi crowd on this one?
They should be fine, more or less. If they were dead, they would be PNAC “new Pearl Harbor” bait by now.
the psychology of US power (in general, not just Trump) is that of drunken wife-beater.
It would have been nice to some outrage from international diplomatic corps, given that Soleimani’s travel status to Iraq was as a diplomat at the invitation of the Iraqi PM.
Chris Murphy is a quantum improvement over Joe Lieberman for the residents of Connecticut.
That was murder! It wasn’t done in the interest, or safety of Americans, in the Region or around the World! It was more like a successful, ‘False Flag’ attack to promote the further involvement of the US Military in the Middle East that WE and the Zionist Terror State have turned into, HELL on EARTH! ‘False Flag’ attacks are demonic Tools in the ‘Bloody Hands’ of the perpetrators! The ‘USS LIBERTY”, http://www.holocaustonthehighseas.com False Flag attack by the Zionist TERROR State on a Friend, FAILED! But their ‘False Flag’ attack on “9/11/2001″ in New York City, on the WTC. Towers #1,#2,#7, became a roaring success, for them, that dragged the US into the UNENDING Wars in the MIDDLE EAST, that WE, have turned into ‘HELL on EARTH’, by using OUR MILITARY as the, ‘SACRIFICIAL OFFERINGS”, on the Barbaric-Bloody ALTAR of ZIONISM, on the WORLD Stage! DOWN with ZIONISM! Zionism is the CURSE of MANKIND!!
Comments are closed.