Pentagon says US will defer to Saudis on whether to blame Iran for attack
By: Jamie McIntyre - Washington Examiner - September 19, 2019 01:52 PM
RE:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/p...ran-for-attack
The United States will allow Saudi Arabia to decide if there is enough evidence to accuse Iran of conducting last week’s drone and missile strike that crippled two Saudi oil production facilities, the Pentagon says.
“We'll wait until the final assessments completed with the Saudis and that they've made the declaration,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told reporters Thursday.
“This was an attack on Saudi Arabia. We're supporting their investigation. We have teams on the ground working with them, but we're not going to get ahead of their conclusions.”
The Pentagon caution was in stark contrast to statements Thursday from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who upon leaving Saudi Arabia continued to unambiguously accuse Iran of launching the attack.
“I think it’s abundantly clear and there is an enormous consensus in the region that we know precisely who conducted these attacks. It was Iran,” Pompeo told reporters traveling with him. “I didn’t hear anybody in the region who doubted that for a single moment.”
Pressed by reporters about Pompeo’s comments, Hoffman said, “We have indications that in some way the Iranians are responsible for this. But we are going to allow the Saudis to make their own conclusion and to present that to the public and the international community."
Saudi Arabia on Wednesday displayed drone and missile parts recovered from the attack sites that it said were Iranian-made, but it stopped short of saying Tehran conducted the strike itself. Instead a Saudi spokesman said the attack on the country's oil facilities was "unquestionably sponsored" by Iran.
Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said the assertion of responsibility by Yemen’s Houthi rebels is “not a credible claim,” but the reluctance to point the finger of blame directly at Iran could stem from fear of provoking a dangerous escalation.
“I don't think any of these countries doubt who it was, I just think they feel like the minute they say it was Iran, they'd have to do something about it,” Rubio told the Washington Examiner.
The Pentagon said it has no plans to bolster U.S. forces in the region, despite a threat by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif that Iran would respond with "all-out war" if attacked.
“I'm not going to respond to speculative or bellicose threats,” said Air Force Col. Pat Ryder, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “other than to say that we certainly believe that we have the forces in the region that we need to protect our forces and to deter potential future threats from Iran.”
“We do not want conflict,” Hoffman said. “As we've always said with regard to Iran, our goal is to deter conflict and to put this back on the diplomatic path.”
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Personal note: Someone must have read my note on the earlier thread. They gotta be nuts to start another desert war. We are getting spread so thin now all over the world the last thing we need is another Iraq type of desert fighting around oil wells. They got to handle their own issues - Boats