Still skeptical? Anyone could have been in that hanger and be dead now.
Posted on 01/09/2020 3:38:54 AM PST by Zhang Fei
Pentagon officials believe that the more than a dozen missiles launched at two bases in Iraq housing U.S. forces Tuesday night were designed to kill Americans, but the Iranian efforts were thwarted by the military's Early Warning Systems, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley told reporters on Wednesday.
“I believe based on what I saw and what I know is that they were intended to cause structural damage, destroy vehicles and equipment and aircraft and to kill personnel," Milley said.
U.S. military officials were warned about Iran's pending ballistic missile strike "when the air defense systems went active," he said.
Milley added that “a little bit of early warning” and “normal defensive procedures” at Al-Assad Air Base prevented American troops from being killed in the missile strike.
“In my estimation from what I know now, I think it has more to do with the defensive techniques that our forces used as opposed to intent,” Milley said, adding that U.S. forces "took sufficient defensive measures.”
Speaking to reporters after a returning from a briefing with Congress, Esper said that the 16 short-range ballistic missiles (originally estimated to be 15), were fired from three locations inside Iran during the attack early Wednesday local time, and were intended to avenge the death of Iranian Quds Force Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S.-led drone strike at Baghdad International Airport last week.
Milley said that between 1,000- to 2,000-pound warheads were sitting on top of the Iranian missiles fired into Iraq.
Esper confirmed that the missiles hit two military bases -- the Al-Assad Air Base and a separate military base in Erbil, which house U.S. forces in Iraq. Eleven of those missiles hit Al-Assad and one hit Erbil. Four of the missiles malfunctioned and failed to hit their target.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The Israeli solution is to pound the enemy's assets until he's leery about even looking in their direction. Trump has eschewed this option. We'll see what the Iranians get up to in the weeks ahead.
Sincerely, Fei’s commentary is more well considered and written. That alone makes his post worthwhile. The news also deserves some exposure after the wild speculation from other publications.
Trump has made it clear, to anyone watching, his red line is death of an American.
If Iran crosses that line, then unlike the coward that sat in the white house before him, I have no doubt the US will respond.
Iran has been at war with the US since 1979, it’s good to have a President that understands this.
Posting this vid I saw on Twitter. Supposedly Puerto Rican soldier at the US base some English, some Spanish. It will probably get taken down. Twitter is censoring vids.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1215198458182762497
MAybe he is holding it in reserve.
Iran’s missiles intended to ‘kill personnel’ in Iraq, Pentagon says
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...and in other breaking news, Iran is designing bullets and IEDs designed to “kill personnel” as well.
Good commentary. However, I am skeptical that Iran will lob a missile with a 2,000 pound warhead at one of the bases in Iraq.
“Iran’s missiles intended to ‘kill personnel’ in Iraq, Pentagon says”
I think they were countering the BS MSM stories that Iran intended to miss and Americans were in no real danger.
[However, I am skeptical that Iran will lob a missile with a 2,000 pound warhead at one of the bases in Iraq.]
[Good commentary. However, I am skeptical that Iran will lob a missile with a 2,000 pound warhead at one of the bases in Iraq.]
Still skeptical? Anyone could have been in that hanger and be dead now.
All of this BS regarding analysis of how the Iranians really didn’t mean to kill our personnel is ridiculous on its face. One does not fire numerous500-1200kg war head missiles targeted at specific facilities or structures without intent to kill. The blast radius of a 500 lb bomb is 200m, lethal over pressure out to around 40 m, these diameters increase exponentially with size.....
While they may have indeed alerted IRQ as to their imminent actions, and we had some early warning, the act of launching ballistics missile at a specific place is an act of harm.
I believe President trump showed restraint in the aftermath due to political pressure from his advisors, civil and military, and that as LtCol North stated, this was the ideal opportunity to eliminate several key attribute of the Iranians- oil production ( they’ll bootleg oil still) Nuke or suspected/contributory facilities , key infrastructure and all known BM site/facilities.
Since the Iranians claimed to have killed 80, they certainly wanted to. Lucky for them.
The can has been kicked once more. They will continue towards nuclear armaments.
And, I am not a warhawk ( I’m not like that anymore) but I certainly know self defense when I see it.
Trump said attack us and we respond, kill any of US and we go for 52...
He showed weakness, The Iranian govt will take that further, just wait. Probably not conventional, but terror related and thusly harder to pin the tail on the Ayatollah.
Agree. See my post 12. I had a similar response to yours waiting to go:
While I live with Trumps decision not to counterstrike, I will say I do not agree with it. Two reasons:
1) Awful lot of crap about needing to kill an America before we should respond. Sorry, I dont buy that. You shoot at me, I am going to shoot back with intent to stop you from doing it ever again. Why wait until another American is killed?
2) I do not believe the Mullahs will change. And I do not believe the people of Iran are capable of overthrowing the present evil government without a catastrophic intervention, anymore than the North Korean people are capable of ousting evil Kim. Trump said while he is President Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. Thats only 4 more years at the most. We have 4 years to undo the last 40 years in Iran.
So we have just kicked the can down the road, again.
I also don’t believe Iran can restrain themselves. They will, again, be emboldened by US ‘restraint’. Lets hope we are as lucky next time with respect to no lives lost.
I said six months ago after the drone shoot down and the shipping attacks that inaction (strategic patience) then, was fine, but that we would be back in the same situation six months later. So here we are six months later. So I will make the same prediction again. Six months. The president has shown again that he wants to end our endless wars, but before the election, he will again be tested. Thats my prediction. Question is, will he be able to kick the can again?
I don’t mean to imply that Trump is driven by election politics, but once the next election is done, if it Iran attacks again, will the restraint be the same?
In the end, if we don’t want a nuclear Iran in 2025, we have to deal with them before then.
[Still skeptical? Anyone could have been in that hanger and be dead now.]
Note that it took many years to locate Saddam, and the Iraqi state wasn’t working against us. Today, big chunks of the Iraqi state are working against us and the country is just crawling with Iranians and Iranian proxies. And we’re not getting the kind of intel we did when we had 100,000 soldiers in-country.
I suspect the Iranian missile attacks were just the beginning of a long series of counter-attacks. It ain’t over yet, and the Iranians will push as hard as they can, with everything they have. They won’t give up their nuclear program because they see these weapons as their ultimate trump card, not just defensively, but offensively. They view the US as muscle-bound but unwilling or unable to act (in part because of domestic political constraints).
The U.S. intelligence efforts should identify the missile bases in Iran from which the missiles came.
Then those bases should be totally destroyed by any means necessary.
[The U.S. intelligence efforts should identify the missile bases in Iran from which the missiles came.
Then those bases should be totally destroyed by any means necessary.]
With ms Nancy’s proposed changes to the war powers act, the changes to the ROE for the President would not even allow to return fire after being hit. That is even worse than the Military ROE to not fire unless fired upon, but becomes, don’t fire until you notify both houses of congress and wait for a vote by the folks that are cheerleaders of the enemy. Our enemies would jump with joy if the administration ever adhered to that crazy a strategy.
It may to us be a “pin prick”, but I am sure the Mullah’s think they sort of failed - no matter what they say publicly - and believing they can escape harm from those actions they will do it again, hoping to be more successful next time. THEY would not go on to actually succeed if we did what we need to do, saw the attack for its intent, and took out the missile bases. We will save American lives, that might otherwise be lost as long as the Mullahs think they can escape harm from such attacks - “successful” or not.
Meanwhile, 5000 US personnel operating in IRQ, several thousands more in KUT, KSA UAE, QTR etc and Israel are at risk from now known capable and willing, just unsuccessful IRN Missiles....
Kinda like the illogical ad potentially lethal mindset of someone who has a firearm, has been shot at and hesitates to respond to stop the threat. Just in this case, it isn’t the POTUS who is in the (active) beaten zone.
Maybe I am reverting to my warhawk mentality. It worked when I was in harms way many times...
Strategic-preserve life, defend my interests.
Operational-have the means, training and ability accomplish the above.
Tactical- implement and execute with aggressive violent action the above, until the threat is neutralized or destroyed.
(Neutralized- rendered combat ineffective, Destroyed- well, dead)
Just enlarge this paradigm to the national level.
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