U.S. officials admit Trump’s evidence Iran was plotting attack is “razor thin”
The legality of Donald Trump’s ordering of the assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guards leader Qassim Suleimani on Thursday evening has been called into question on multiple grounds by members of Congress and the media.
Firstly, there’s the matter of whether the president has the constitutional authority to order an act of war without congressional authorization.
Then there’s the question of whether Suleimani’s killing violated Executive Order 12,333 which prohibits any government agency or employee from participating in or planning any assassination. The ban on government-sanctioned murders was originally issued by then-President Gerald Ford in 1976 and reaffirmed and amended by subsequent presidents.
As early as 1998, terrorism-related exceptions were beginning to creep into the interpretation of the prohibition, but, for the most part, required an imminent threat to the life and security of American citizens to overcome the legal hurdles banning a unilateral decision to kill any individual.
When President Obama ordered the raid that resulted in the death of Osama Bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader had already claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, so his targeted killing garnered less controversy than that of the Iranian general.
Donald Trump has tried to justify his decision — a decision made without consulting any of the members of Congress— by claiming that Suleimani was in the process of planning attacks on American interests and was an evil man worthy of eliminating fro the face of the earth.
….of PROTESTERS killed in Iran itself. While Iran will never be able to properly admit it, Soleimani was both hated and feared within the country. They are not nearly as saddened as the leaders will let the outside world believe. He should have been taken out many years ago!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2020
Now, Rukmini Callimachi, the New York Times correspondent covering ISIS & al-Qaeda, is reporting in a lengthy Twitter thread — after checking with sources that included “two US officials who had intelligence briefings after the strike on Suleimani — that “the evidence of any imminent Iranian attack on U.S. targets is ‘razor thin’”.
2. In fact the evidence pointing to that came as three discrete facts: a) A pattern of travel showing Suleimani was in Syria, Lebanon & Iraq to meet with Shia proxies known to have an offensive position to the US. (As one source said that’s just “business as usual” for Suleimani)
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020
4. And finally, a) and b) were read in the context of c) Iran’s increasingly bellicose position towards American interests in Iraq, including the attack that killed a U.S. contractor and the recent protest outside the American embassy.
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020
6. One official described the planning for the strike as chaotic. The official says that following the attack on an Iraqi base which killed an American contractor circa Dec. 27, Trump was presented a menu of options for how to retaliate. Killing Suleimani was the “far out option”
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020
Despite what one may think of Trump, the “far out option” was not his first choice.
8. It was after the embassy protests that the president, according to one US official, chose the Suleimani option, but the problem at that point in time is that American intelligence did not know his precise whereabouts. They scrambled to locate him, says the official.
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020
10. Since the strike, Iran has convened its national security chiefs. Chatter intercepted by American intelligence indicates they’re considering a range of options. Cyberattacks, attacks on oil facilities and American personnel and diplomatic outposts have all been cited so far.
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020
Callimachi, however, notes that Iranian leaders are now considering an option that was not previously considered on the table before Suleimani’s assassination.
12. Another is attacks on American diplomatic and military outposts not just in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, but as far afield as UAE and Bahrain. The official I spoke to was particularly concerned for American troops stationed in Iraq, some of whom are co-located with Shia militias
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020
After devoting part of her thread to the impact of the assassination on the fight against ISIS, Callimachi asks an obvious question: why was Suleimani targeted at this particular point in time.
17. Before I go back to the pool let me just say the obvious: No one’s trying to downplay Suleimani’s crimes. The question is why now? His whereabouts have been known before. His resume of killing-by-proxy is not a secret. Hard to decouple his killing from the impeachment saga.
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) January 4, 2020
Callimachi’s conclusion that the real reason for the Suleimani murder was most likely related to Trump’s impeachment dilemma because no imminent threat truly existed would mean that the president committed yet another crime by violating Executive Order 12,333.
Of course, since it was an executive order, Trump could have issued a new executive order that would have rescinded the prohibitions on assassinations, but the fact that he failed to do so means that his actions were clearly illegal unless some secret intelligence report can prove a specific Iranian plan to attack a U.S. target was in motion.
All the more reason to remove this unstable and lawless president from office before he takes more desperate moves to try to turn the impeachment tide.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
