Retired Army Major General James Marks shut down arguments being made against the Iran airstrike by Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy.
The CNN military analyst and former Commanding General, U.S. Army Intelligence Center spoke on “New Day” Friday about President Trump’s ordered airstrike in Iraq that killed an Iranian military leader.
(Video: CNN)
Marks, who was the senior intelligence officer in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, was asked about his take on the airstrike that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad just days after New Year’s attacks on the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad.
Democrats have been in a tailspin over Trump’s decision to “assassinate” the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force who was reportedly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S troops and was, according to the Pentagon, “actively developing plans to attack” Americans.
Trump strike kills Iran’s terrorist general prompting leftist apologies, and kudos from the right https://t.co/Jwpe7MoXCh
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) January 3, 2020
Sen Chris Murphy slammed the president for “knowingly setting off a potential massive regional war” in a tweet on Thursday.
Dem Sen warns of war, blasts Trump for going rogue with Iran days after ripping him for rendering America ‘impotent’ https://t.co/GxF3V1XOQJ
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) January 3, 2020
Marks schooled the Connecticut Democrat on his ill-informed outrage.
“What I would say to Senator Murphy is, why don’t you just be quiet?” Marks said, drawing laughs off-camera from the CNN panel Friday.
“Look, when has Iran ever demonstrated self-restraint? I mean, that’s the question I have,” he continued, responding to the question of whether “America safer without Soleimani this morning or a more dangerous world because of his assassination in this way.”
“So is the world more dangerous today?” Marks continued. “Maybe it’s more dangerous. But when has it not been dangerous? When have we not been a target of a regime like exists in Tehran? I mean, it happens as a matter of routine.”
He added that he found it “amazingly brazen” that Soleimani would just visit Baghdad during the attack on the U.S. embassy.
“He shows up and says, ‘Hey, guys, how’s it going? How’s this attack on the U.S. embassy going?’ Absolutely brazen,” Marks said. “And in that moment, in advance, we had built up intelligence, which was pattern of life, different forms of intelligence, so we had this target folder on Soleimani and this opportunity presented itself.”
He noted that, although the airstrike may have been determined rather quickly due to the opportunity, the process of targeting Soleimani or others is part of a more lengthy intelligence operation.
“That’s one of the questions we’ll ask Secretary Pompeo. Is this something that was months in the making? Weeks in the making? Days in the making?” CNN’s John Berman asked.
“Well, intelligence certainly was,” Marks replied. “That’s how target folders are produced. Over the course of incredible amounts of diligence and time, intelligence experts and special ops guys and intelligence community writ large, everybody contributes and you build up this evidence and you go, ‘Here it is, pattern of life.’”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned Trump’s decision to order the strike, saying in a statement that “this action was taken without the consultation of the Congress.”
But the administration contends he was planning attacks on American personnel.
“Gen. Suleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in a statement. “This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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