Top Trump Administration officials struggled to defend an airstrike that killed a senior Iranian general, acknowledging that they could not confirm US President Donald Trump's assertion that Iranians planned to attack four embassies.
On CBS, Defence Secretary Mark Esper said he "didn't see" evidence of an Iranian plan to attack four US embassies. But he said he "share(s) the President's view that probably - my expectation was they were going to go after our embassies. The embassies are the most prominent display of American presence in a country."
At the weekend Trump said that senior Iranian general Qassem Soleimani killed by a US drone strike had been planning attacks on four US embassies, a claim made to justify the decision.
That assertion was at odds with intelligence assessments from senior officials in Trump's Administration. On Saturday, a senior Administration official and a senior defence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified information, told the Washington Post they were only aware of vague intelligence about a plot against the embassy in Baghdad and that the information did not suggest a fully formed plot. Neither official said there were threats against multiple embassies.
On CNN, Esper defended the strike on Soleimani, saying it "disrupted attacks" and "reset terms with Iran."