President Donald Trump said late Tuesday he does not see the United States going to war with Iran, after pro-Iranian protesters tried to storm the U.S. Embassy in Iraq’s capital.
“I don’t think Iran would want that to happen. It would go very quickly,” Trump told reporters.
He tweeted earlier in the day that he is holding Iran responsible for any damage or injuries at U.S. facilities.
“They will pay a very big price. This is not a warning. It is a threat,” Trump wrote.
The U.S. leader spoke Tuesday with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi about the need to protect U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq, and in his late-night comments to reporters he thanked the Iraqi government.
“They stepped up very nicely,” Trump said.
U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopters from 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 34th Combat Aviation Brigade, launch flares as they conduct overflights of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Dec. 31, 2019.
More US troops to Mideast
The U.S. Defense Department is responding to Tuesday’s incident by sending an additional 750 troops to the Middle East.
“This deployment is an appropriate and precautionary action taken in response to increased threat levels against U.S. personnel and facilities,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said late Tuesday.
Esper said other troops from the rapid response unit of the 82nd Airborne Division are also ready to be deployed over the next several days.
“We rely on host nation forces to assist in the protection of our personnel in country, and we call on the government of Iraq to fulfill its international responsibilities to do so,” he said.
A commander of Iraq's Hashed al-Shaabi Jawad al-Talaibawi, center, takes a selfie at a gate of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Dec. 31, 2019, after supporters and members of the military network breached the outer wall of the compound.
Embassy safe
Trump said the U.S. embassy was safe after pro-Iranian protesters breached the outer edge of the compound, using battering rams to smash through a steel door at a visitor’s center.
Protesters chanting “Death to America” set fires and burned a security post before Iraqi security forces drove them back with tear gas and stun grenades. The embassy building itself was not entered or damaged.
The State Department says all U.S. personnel are safe and there are no plans to evacuate anyone.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that “terrorists” orchestrated the attack. He named Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, Qays al-Khazali, Hadi al-Amari, and Faleh al-Fayyad and posted a picture of all four outside the embassy.
Pompeo stressed that the attack “should not be confused with the legitimate efforts of Iraqi protesters who have been in the streets since October, working for the people of Iraq to end the corruption exported there by the Iranian regime.”
US airstrikes anger Iraq
The incident Tuesday came in response to U.S. airstrikes Sunday targeting weapons storage facilities and command centers of the Iranian-backed Kataeb Hezbollah militia in Iraq and eastern Syria. Those strikes killed at least 25 people and wounded dozens.
U.S. officials say the airstrikes were in response to a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base last week that killed a U.S. defense contractor, and that evidence left no doubt Kataeb Hezbollah was responsible.
Kataeb Hezbollah, part of the state-sanctioned militias operating in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), has denied responsibility for the Friday attack.
Iraq says the U.S. airstrikes were a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty, as well as of the rules governing the “goals and principles” of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq to fight and defeat the Islamic State terror group.
US blames Iraq
U.S. officials brushed aside such criticism and instead placed blame on Iraq for allowing Iranian proxies to operate at will inside their country despite 11 such attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in the past two months.
“We have warned the Iraqi government many times, and we’ve shared information with them to try to work with them to try to carry out their responsibility to protect us as their invited guests,” a senior U.S. official said. “They have not taken the appropriate steps.”
Since May, the United States has sent an additional 14,000 forces to the Middle East, along with air and missile defense systems and additional reconnaissance capabilities, in response to what officials see as a growing threat from Iran and its proxies.