Plugged In-Flashpoint Iran-TRANSCRIPT

On Plugged in...

Iran strikong back..

Firing more than a dozen...

Ballistic missiles

at Iraqi bases housing

American troops...

Iran calling it revenge...

For what it calls an act of war...

The killing of a top general..

responsible for the deaths

of hundreds of Americans...

What is the United States’ next move?

De-escalation..

Or an all out war?

Or something in between?

That's next

On this episode of Plugged in...

Flashpoint: Iran.

((WELCOME))

Hello and welcome to Plugged in. I'm Greta Van Susteren.

On Tuesday night, Tehran fired more than a dozen short range missiles at Iraqi and US bases. This, as thousands in Iran mourned the death of Iran's top general Qassem Soleimani. He was killed January 3^rd by a US drone strike near Baghdad International airport..

The Iranian missile attack happened just two hours before the crash of a Ukrainian international jet carrying 176 passengers.The flight was bound for Kyiv, crashed shortly after take-off from Tehran's international airport.

Iranian reports say there were no survivors.

For the latest on the Iranian missile attacks at the Iraqi bases - VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb - at the Pentagon...

GVS: Carla Nice to see you. And what is the latest after the Tuesday night attack, Iranian attack on the two bases in Iraq?

CB: Greta it has been a very busy morning, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is at the White House right now talking with the President about the situation. We can confirm that there were two attacks. I am being told by my sources, although the numbers have been fluctuating, but I've been told that about 10 missiles, hit the base at Al Assad. I've been told that one or two hit Erbil, and most importantly I am being told that there are no American casualties.

GVS: What is, are there any plans or do you hear anything leaking out of the Defense Department or your sources that suggests that there will be more action by either the United States or Iran or is everyone sort of thinking that we're at a de-escalation point?

CB: Well right now it’s still too early to tell. Like I said, Secretary Esper is still meeting with the President and they are discussing that very topic. But I know this is a planning organization and I know and I've heard from sources that there have been several plans mapped out. I've been discussing over the last few days that there have been targets that were presented to General Mackenzie, he’s the head of US Central Command. They were formed by some people in Central Command, intelligence analysts there. They were also using intelligence from other agencies like the CIA, for example. And then they presented potential targets to Secretary Esper who would then present them to the President. But as of now I have not heard of any potential attack.

GVS: Carla, What are the assets United States has in the region? I mean- troops ships, other equipment?

CB: well Greta, we've talked about this a lot on your show. There are plenty of assets in the Middle East. The United States has about 70,000 US troops. They have an aircraft carrier there, the Harry S Truman is ready. There's also been some additional forces sent in rather recently. We know that when the embassy was being attacked and after there were about 4,000 troops sent from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a brigade to go to Kuwait to help with further needs for security. We also know there were about six B-52 bombers that went to a British territory an island called Diego Garcia, to be on the ready also. So, and the situation is fluid. I'm hearing that there may be some marines that are in the European areas of responsibility that could be migrating over to the Middle East area of responsibility too. so lots of power there at the ready, should they be needed. But because there weren't any American casualties, we kind of have to wait and see if there's going to be a response.

GVS: Carla you’ve been covering the Pentagon and defense been for a long time. Tell, give me some sort of the behind the scenes you know what it's like when this all of a sudden, you know the news -the news of the drone strike by the United States killing Solemani, and now this, the attack by Iran. What's, what's it like at the Pentagon?

CB: Well, everybody is definitely flying by the seat of their pants when they're trying to get the story, because as a reporter you know we don't always get the entire story when it comes out. but I do know that when Solemani was hit, there were many at the Pentagon ready to respond and ready to say that ‘yes, it was the United States that conducted this. This was in response to the nearly dozen attacks on American, bases housing, American and coalition troops that had been carried out over the last couple of months. As you saw with this recent attack, I was getting word from the start -VOA was actually the first to come out and say that al Assad was under attack. We didn't know the exact numbers, the numbers kept changing, was it rockets, were there missiles being launched? but now we're we've been able to sort that out. but here's the Pentagon, This is just an everyday occurrence they're always ready for something new and there's a lot of late hours and a lot of hard workers here trying to piece together everything and trying to present the options to the diplomats to move forward.

GVS: One of the things that we heard is that one of the reasons for taking out Solemani was not just the past terrorism and the past deaths, but that there was some sort of imminent attack plan. It's been very difficult to find out exactly what the details are. Do you have anything more to report on what that imminent attack might be or have been?

CB: Yes Greta, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper did say that an attack was imminent within days, they expected. I had been told, when Solemani was struck, by a US official, that it was an expansive attack that he was working on, on multiple targets. Other than that though, we haven't gotten a lot of information because people don't like to reveal intelligence because then that leads to revealing sourcing. and they want to keep their sources safe and they want to keep their sources working so they can use it in the future. It's unclear at this time if they will release intelligence. They have released parts of intelligence in the past when there was a Olympic mine on a ship we got to see pictures of that. But we're just gonna have to wait and see what they're deciding to declassify. And that's really leaving reporters in limbo because as you know we like to see the facts before we report. so I always have to say that no evidence has been presented to me that an attack was imminent.

GVS: alright well we have several branches of government in the United States, Secretary of Defense Esper no doubt working with Secretary of State Pompeo & President Trump, but is he informing the leadership in Congress, do you have any, any information whether he's telling them what the so called imminent attack was?

CB: Yes, I've been told that a Pentagon source did brief, the Gang of Eight, those are the top leaders that deal with foreign policy and military foreign policy and intelligence. they have been briefed on this matter. And Esper is supposed to be heading to the Hill today and tomorrow to inform members of Congress about what is going on, concerning Iran.

GVS: VOA’s senior correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the latest developments and reaction from the White House. Patsy, nice to see you. Patsy, what's the latest at the White House? At least tell me what happened last night when you learned about the attacks, the Iranian attacks on the two places in Iraq.

PW: Well Greta, right here everybody, all the correspondents here are just sitting on the edge of our seats, waiting for President Trump's speech that’s scheduled in about 25 minutes that's at 11am, Wednesday morning in Washington, DC time. During that speech the president we presume will tell us what will he do next in response to these attacks on those two US bases. So, last night we did not hear anything from President Trump until at 9:45pm he tweeted, his now famous tweet saying that “All is well. So far so good. The US has the most powerful military in the world” and basically saying that he's going to speak this morning. Now we don't know what he will say, but we can note a couple of things: That number one, the US is saying that there are no casualties on their side, the Iraqis are also saying that there are no casualties on their side. The Iraqis are saying that they had forewarning about this, and the US was also saying that they knew this attack was coming. So…

GVS: So Patsy, let me ask you this because you’re in a unique position on reporting because when the General Soleimani was killed by the drone strike, the order came from President Trump while he was at Mar-a-Lago, you were traveling with the president there. Can you give me a little sort of background, you know, what at Mar-a-Lago how you learned about it, whether you could tell that something was about to happen, the reporting from the White House to the press corps?

PW: Yes, that's been a really bizarre three days that I did while I was following the president between January 3rd to January 5th in Mar-a-Lago at the end of his winter break, as he gave the decision to strike against Qassem Soleimani. The next day after the strike we had not heard anything from the White House, the only thing that we heard from the President was that ominous tweet of the American flag, right after the Pentagon announced that they had hit Qassem Soleimani. In the morning we were gathered as norma, you know, it was another normal business of the President, covering the President's vacation. We were bused, loaded onto vans and bussed to Mar-a-Lago thinking that it will be another day of golfing for the president. Before we were sent back and basically just waiting in our hotel lobby feeling very nervous, until in the afternoon, we were sent back to the airport thinking that we were going to go to Miami for his “Evangelicals for Trump” event, before we were rushed back to Mar-a-Lago where the President gave his four minute defense of the killing of Qassem Soleimani. Now, on the way back from Mar-a-Lago, suddenly, about 40 minutes before landing, we were called into the front of the plane for this quite rare, off the record briefing by the President. And we did negotiate for some of those quotes to be made public, and one of them was about his threat on Iranian cultural sites, which he has since backed away from.

During his conversation with us reporters on Air Force One, President Trump said that he, it doesn't feel fair to him to hold back or not touch Iranian cultural sites when in fact they are torturing or maiming our people. That's what he said. But he has since walked back from that threat. Now we will see from his upcoming speech on whether or not he is still making good on that threat or he's walking back as he has said, as well as his national advisors including Pompeo and Esper has said.

GVS: Do you know who he met with, President Trump that is, who President Trump met with in Mar-a-Lago in anticipation of making that order to take out Soleimani.

PW: Well, so what we found out now is that there's been a number of rotating advisors coming to Mar-a-Lago including Robert O'Brian, National Security Advisor. At some point we heard that Mike Pompeo was there too. So, we don't, at this point, we're still trying to piece together what happened in the hours and minutes that happened before he made the order, and we're still also asking from the administration - what is this proof of intelligence? Where is the evidence that indeed Iran was planning, Qassem Soleimani was planning an imminent attack on the US. So far the administration hasn't given us any clear indication as to whether or not they're going to give out that intelligence. We did ask the president whether he would give up this intelligence during his briefing at Air Force One and all he said was that we may discuss it.

GVS: in all fairness is that that intelligence isn't usually revealed to the press. But we push very hard to try to get the facts. Sometimes we do get the information, find out exactly what it is but certainly that push and pull between the White House press corps and of course, the White House, and intelligence in every administration. All right. In terms of last night, everybody gets sent home in the press crew. Before the attacks or did you get, or was there some indication the White House knew something was about to happen?

PW: Well the White House did know that something was about to happen. We saw that some advisors, including Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, as well as Vice President Mike Pence were all here at the White House in the afternoon. And they stayed here for about an hour. So we're hearing from administration sources that they do have advanced knowledge that indeed Iran was planning something in retaliation. But here's the interesting thing now Greta, we hear now that Pentagon officials as well as some administration's official floating this idea that Iran had intentionally, deliberately missed in order not to cause US casualties, not to cause too much damage. So this, if indeed it is true, this could be the potential off ramp for de-escalation because this is a way for Iran to show that we have the capacity, we have the capability to strike, but we're not doing it to start an all out war. Now of course we'll have to see whether this is the case. We may hear some more about the intelligence behind this from the president’s speech.

So who was Qassem Soleimani? And why is his death such a lightning rod for Iran and its enemies abroad? More from Plugged In's Mil Arcega...

((Soleimani: US Nemesis))

Qassem Soleimani was among the most powerful men in the Middle East.

((MEHDI PARPANCHI, DIRECTOR OF RADIO FARDA, RFE/RL'S PERSIAN SERVICE))

“No military commander, no politician had the power that he had. He was, as I said, the second-most powerful after [Iran's] supreme leader.”

((NARRATOR))

Born in 1957 to a poor family in Southern Iran, Soleimani was a protégé of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, joining Irans’s Revolutionary Guard in 1979.

He became a field commander in the 1980’s during the Iran-Iraq war, rising to fame in the 1990’s when he was given command of the elite al-Quds force, a shadowy unit which undertakes missions outside Iranian borders.

He travelled extensively in the region, building an alliance of militias that stretched from Iran, through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon.

((MEHDI PARPANCHI, DIRECTOR OF RADIO FARDA, RFE/RL'S PERSIAN SERVICE))

“He was in Lebanon when there was a war between Hizballah and Israeli forces, he was in Iraq when Iran was at war with ISIS, and he traveled to most of these countries freely at any time that he wanted.”

((NARRATOR))

Soleimani was a key strategist in a number of military operations, assassinations and terror attacks, including those against Western soldiers in 2003 following the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Soleimani is considered one of the masterminds behind the comeback of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – and often traveled to Moscow to help coordinate airstrikes with Russian generals.

Before his death in an American drone attack January 3r, Soleimani helped engineer the recent attack at the American Embassy in Baghdad, and the rocket attack December 27th at a US military base that killed an American contractor.

Britain has condemned Iran’s missile strikes and urged de-escalation. And with so much uncertainty, NATO is suspending training missions in Iraq. Some allies have pulled their troops out of the country.

What is reaction by American allies in Europe? VOA's Henry Ridgwell reports from London.

((Europe’s Call for Restraint))

Hours after the Iranian missile strikes, Britain said all its four-hundred service personnel in Iraq were accounted for. The military has put several helicopters on standby in case of urgent redeployment.

The Iranian attack was retaliation for the U.S. targeted killing of Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike Friday.

Speaking Tuesday before the Iranian missile strike, Britain’s Defense Secretary said the U.S. had the right to defend itself.

((Ben Wallace, British Defense Secretary))

“Iran had stepped up its destabilizing activities in the region, whether it was targeting dissidents in Europe or hijacking civilian ships, this aggressive behavior was never going to go unchallenged.”

((NARRATOR))

As hundreds of thousands mourned Soleimani’s death in Iran in recent days, Britain, France and Germany issued a joint statement calling on all parties to ‘exercise utmost restraint.’ British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing his first big foreign policy test.

((Richard Dannatt, Former UK Chief of General Staff))

“Trying to be a bit of a bridge between the United States policy of confrontation and trying to keep the European three - France, Germany and ourselves - on side with a continued policy of engagement. That's quite a difficult act to balance.”

((NARRATOR))

Europe hopes the 2015 Iran nuclear deal can be saved - despite Tehran’s announcement it will now disregard all restrictions on its nuclear enrichment activities.

((Holly Dagres, Atlantic Council Fellow))

“In my view, I don’t think the (2015 nuclear) deal is dead until there is an escalation that leads to war.”

((NARRATOR))

NATO has suspended its training mission in Iraq, part of the Western coalition to defeat Islamic State.

((Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary-General))

"A new conflict would be in no-one’s interest."

((NARRATOR))

Russia and China both condemned the killing of Soleimani. Russia’s President Putin met in Damascus Tuesday with his Syrian counterpart, who is a key ally of Iran.

In the Middle East, anti-U.S. protests have spread from Iran and Iraq to Turkey, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. Protests also broke out in Pakistan and India.

Meanwhile Iran’s long-time foe Israel praised what it called the decisive and swift U.S. action.

Most U.S. allies are hoping the Iranian response will draw a line under the standoff between Washington and Tehran – and a new war in the Middle East can be avoided.

GVS: Britain has had its share of terror attacks in the recent past and that is where our London correspondent Henry Ridgwell is standing by. Nice to see you Henry. And Henry, we hear the very public statements and we see that in your piece of what different leaders are saying in Europe. But when they see you sort of on the streets or in the halls or when you call them and talk to them, is there some, you know, are they very concerned about this or do they think it's going to de-escalate?

HR: They are very concerned about it. And I think there are two strands to that concern. The first is an escalation of any conflicts. Of course we have spoken of all the American assets and the tens of thousands of American troops in the region. Several European and NATO partners also have troops. 400 British troops in Iraq alone. so the first priority for many European allies is to protect and secure their troops and their civilians in the region. The second concern as we've heard in that report is the Iran nuclear deal. That's seen as a triumph of European diplomacy and the Europeans are scrambling now to try to keep that deal alive.

GVS: If the Europeans see the uranium deal as a triumph but the United States has pulled out of that deal. Do they still think it is a triumph in light of the fact that we now are in a situation where Iran says it'll permit inspectors, but it says that it's going to enrich uranium?

HR: they do and they still believe there is a window of opportunity to keep that nuclear deal alive. The Europeans believe that keeping talking to the Iranians and keeping them part of the deal is far greater preference to having them going rogue and developing nuclear weapons and going back to nuclear enrichment, which the Iranians are now threatening to do.

GVS: do they not do they not believe what the United States is saying, which is that Soleimani, for instance was, was a terrorist, that he was planning an imminent attack, that he had been the reason for many deaths of Americans and I presume other people the US will tell you. Do they not sort of see the significance in their eyes that President Trump has?

HR: They do absolutely and you've seen a hardening of language today from Prime Minister Boris Johnson. At Prime Minister's questions today he said that Qassem Soleimani had the blood of British troops on his hands and was behind many of the attacks that we've seen over the past years and decades across the region. And we've seen those words echoed as well from Paris and Berlin of condemnation of the Iranian escalation of attacks, not only in recent weeks against the United States bases and assets in Iraq, of course, but over the years in several of those countries in the region, most notably, of course, in Syria, as well where we've seen several attacks, not only on Western forces but on other coalition forces there too. So there is a general agreement with the US position on Iran's activities, the nefarious activities in the region. But I think where Europe differs from its transatlantic ally is on the way forward. And at the moment you're seeing the Europeans trying to create this bridge between the United States on one hand, who has taken this confrontational path, this threatening path towards Iran and trying to force it to back down and Iran, on the other hand, those channels are still open between the Europeans and the Iranians. But it has to be said that nuclear deal is --must now be hanging by a thread.

So, what is the fallout from the killing of Qassem Soleimani? And what happens now...

to US troops in the Middle East and to America's relationship with Iraq?

For a look at the big picture, we are joined by Meghan O'Sullivan.

She joins us from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she is professor of International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School.

She also served as deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan under President George W. Bush.

And she was on the team that helped negotiate the interim constitution of Iraq.

Ms. O'Sullivan is also the author of "Windfall: How the New Energy Abundance Upends Global Politics and Strengthens America's Power."

GVS: Welcome to Plugged In!

MOS: Good morning Greta, thanks for having me.

GVS: Can you compare and contrast the significance of the death of the killing of Osama bin Laden, head of al Qaeda, al-Baghdadi head of ISIS. And now, General Solemani, who was general in the elite Quds force?

MOS: Sure. There's a very big difference, as your question suggests. So the first Baghdadi, and then Osama bin Laden- these are very powerful figures. They are heads, or they were heads of non-state actors, non-state organizations, terrorist groups by virtually every description of any ally, including the Iraqi government and others. And so, when they were taken out by drones, there was a lot of celebration, but not a lot of condemnation outside of their circles of terrorist organizations. Qassem Soleimani was a different kind of character. We in the United States, I think rightly see him or saw him as a terrorist leader. But we also have to keep in mind he was not a non-state actor. He was a very senior official of a government that is recognized at the UN. And more than that, he was someone who had the respect of many people in the region. Certainly not all people in the region because many people felt that they also suffered under his policies and his strategies. But in Iran, and in large parts of Iraq, he was a revered figure. So, two big differences—one: this is a state official, a high-level official, of a government recognized by the United Nations. And secondly, somebody whose reputation is, varies considerably across the Middle East, very much different from how the United States sees this person.

GVS: In Iran we've seen protests of late. For instance, in 2012 we saw those protests and we saw the this protest that started, I think over the bread, a year or two ago. Among the opponents of the administration in Iran, how is he perceived? So is this killing of Soleimani going to galvanize everybody together, or is it going to draw a bigger wedge internally?

MOS: Well your question really underscores one of the dramatic and I think extremely unfortunate results of the killing of Soleimani, is literally a week ago, a little bit more than a week ago, we had protests in Iran that were against the government there. And we had protests in Iraq, that were against Iranian influence in Iraq. So two Nationalist Forces that were very much in line with US interests. We've turned both of those movements, at least for the moment, into, as your show mentioned, anti-American protests which are not just in those two countries, but they range from Turkey to Pakistan today. Now, the question about what this killing of Soleimani does for people who were against the Iranian government or at least its policies its inability to extricate itself from this situation of confrontation that brought so much economic duress to the Iranian people, I think it's a little bit hard to say. Many of those people may have regarded Soleimani as, as someone who was trying to fight Iran's battles overseas. On the other hand, many of them may have seen him as somebody who was squandering Iran's money when it could have been better used inside of Iran, in the interest of the Iranian people. I think, for right now what we're seeing is his killing has consolidated power at the top, and has brought the country together, rather than fracturing it further which might have been the hope of some of the people who made this decision.

GVS: Do you think that -- we just reported minutes ago, “some people think.” And I underline “think” because it's so hard to find out what's fact, that it is such a fluid story and it's happening so quickly, but that the Iranians deliberately, when they fired those missiles, fired them in such a way that they minimized the risk that anyone would be killed, in an effort to sort of save face internally, you know that ‘we're taking action against the big United States, and that the United States could say, well, they didn't get us and sort of sort of de-escalate it?’ or is that just hopeful thinking by a lot of people?

MOS: well certainly those of us who are trying to game out what the Iranians might do thought that they would be looking for a scenario where they could claim a big and robust action. and this is very different than other actions Iran has taken through proxies or in a state of denial by the state. so it is very different. But that Iran would want at the same time in taking that big action to also find something that did not kill Americans. which quite clearly was, and perhaps is the main thing that President Trump would respond to. So it does kind of fit, where Iran wanted to come out in this retaliation. But I would also say, at the same time, the really useful question isn't, to what extent was this calibrated not to kill Americans? the real question is where do we go from here? Can we take this as a moment for diplomacy, for taking a deep breath, for de-escalating as your colleagues have reported. Many of our European allies want certainly the Iraqis want. and I think many people in both the United States and Iran would like us to take this moment, and say okay, Iran has said it has retaliated proportionately. We can argue about whether that is proportionate. But the real point is, they're able to say that to their constituencies. and let's see if we can actually change the nature of the game right now.

GVS: we only have 30 seconds left. But, you know, this very serious issue there's something sort of, you know, it's so unusual this moment in time where we have the President of the United States tweeting, and we have the foreign minister of Iran sort of tweeting back, is that we watch this through Twitter.

MOS: Yes, it is remarkable and it's remarkable how normal it seems. but a lot of important exchanges and parsing of the tea leaves about what the Iranians are thinking about what comes next.

GVS: Indeed, thank you very much Meghan O'Sullivan, professor at Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

That's all the time we have for today.

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