US passed on chance to kill Soleimani 13 years ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — In 2007, United States (US) Army commandos watched as a convoy carrying a powerful Iranian military leader made its way to northern Iraq.

It was a prime opportunity to take out General Qassem Soleimani, who had been accused of aiding Shiite forces that killed thousands of American troops in Iraq.

Ultimately, however, American military leaders passed on a strike, deferring to deep concerns about the potential fallout from such an attack.

“To avoid a firefight, and the contentious politics that would follow, I decided that we should monitor the caravan, not strike immediately,” retired US army chief General Stanley McChrystal wrote last year in Foreign Policy documents.

Fears about the repercussions of a targeted killing of Soleimani persisted throughout the administrations of President George W Bush, a Republican, and President Barack Obama, a Democrat, according to officials who served under both.

Soleimani, they calculated, was just as dangerous dead and martyred as he was alive and plotting against Americans.

That approach came to an end this week when President Donald Trump gave authorisation for an airstrike against Soleimani.

He was killed after his plane landed at the Baghdad airport.

Today, thousands of mourners -- chanting “America is the Great Satan” -- marched through the streets of Iraq’s capital city, Baghdad, in a funeral procession for the slain Iranian military leader.

US President Donald Trump heralded the airstrike on Twitter, declaring that Soleimani “should have been taken out many years ago.”

But some former administration officials argued that despite Soleimani’s role in orchestrating deadly attacks on US troops, Trump’s decision may ultimately put Americans in the region at heightened risk.

“Previous presidents have had the opportunity to take measures like what we saw last night but have held back because of the risks entailed and the questions that were there about where this would all lead,” said Derek Chollet, an assistant secretary of defense during the Obama administration.

“Unfortunately, those questions are not any clearer today.”

Indeed, the strike against Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, thrusts Washington and Tehran into uncharted territory after months of rising tensions.

It’s unclear how or when Iran will respond, or whether that response will pull the US deeper into a military conflict abroad.

However, head of the US military General Mark Milley says officials were well aware of the prospect of retaliation, but believed “the risk of inaction exceeded the risk of action.”

He cited “compelling, clear, unambiguous intelligence indicating that Soleimani was planning a significant campaign of violence against the US in the coming days, weeks, months.”

He provide no specifics on the intelligence.

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