Iran retaliates for general's death

Iran fired rockets at two air bases in Iraq that host American troops early Wednesday, hours after the funeral for an Iranian commander killed in a US drone strike.

"The brave soldiers of IRGC's aerospace unit have launched a successful attack with tens of ballistic missiles on Al-Assad military base in the name of martyr General Qassem Soleimani," the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement.

The Pentagon released a statement Tuesday evening confirming the attacks on the Al-Assad air base in Anbar province and also on the Erbil base in northern Iraq.

"At approximately 5:30 pm (EST) on Jan 7, Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles against US military and coalition forces in Iraq. It is clear that these missiles were launched from Iran and targeted at least two Iraqi military bases hosting US military and coalition personnel at Al-Assad and Erbil," the Pentagon statement said.

"We are working on initial battle damage assessments. … As we evaluate the situation and our response, we will take all necessary measures to protect and defend US personnel, partners, and allies in the region. Due to the dynamic nature of the situation, we will continue to provide updates as they become available."

White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said in a statement that the president "has been briefed and is monitoring the situation closely and consulting with his national security team".

"Closely monitoring the situation following bombings targeting US troops in Iraq. We must ensure the safety of our servicemembers, including ending needless provocations from the Administration and demanding that Iran cease its violence. America & world cannot afford war," tweeted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California.

US Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a longtime opponent of US military intervention, tweeted that "the Administration needs to bring any discussion of war with Iran to the American people and their representatives in Congress, as the Constitution requires".

US President Donald Trump and aides on Tuesday defended the attack on Soleimani, and the Pentagon said it would send B-52 bombers and more troops to the Middle East.

Soleimani's burial was postponed Tuesday when at least 50 people were killed and more than 200 injured in a stampede during massive mourning marches through his hometown of Kerman, Iranian state television reported.

In a speech there on Tuesday, the leader of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps vowed to "set ablaze" places where Americans and their allies live.

Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper separately defended the killing of Soleimani to reporters, with each saying it was done because of attacks the general was planning.

Following a bipartisan and international uproar, Trump said he would avoid targeting cultural sites in military attacks, walking back a threat he made against Iran days earlier.

In an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday afternoon ahead of a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Trump said "He was traveling with the head of Hezbollah. ... They weren't there to discuss a vacation. They weren't there to go to a nice resort in Baghdad. They were there to discuss their business. And we saved a lot of lives by terminating his life."

He said the intelligence he relied on to order the strike is classified for now, but details would be shared with members of Congress on Wednesday.

On his previous threat to attack cultural sites in Iran, Trump said, "They're allowed to blow up everything that we have and there's nothing that stops them. And we are, according to various laws, supposed to be very careful with their cultural heritage. And you know what, if that's what the law is, I like to obey the law."

His remarks came a day after Esper ruled out striking Iranian cultural sites with no military value, which is considered a war crime under international law.

Asked about the future of US troops in Iraq, Trump said, "At some point, we want to get out, but this isn't the right point," adding that the United States would want to be reimbursed for costs related to fighting the Islamic State militant group.

In a morning news conference at the State Department, Pompeo also refused to give details of the "imminent" attacks that he and Trump said the general was planning before he was killed in a drone strike at a Baghdad airport on Jan 3.

"There's been much made about this question of intelligence and imminence," Pompeo said. "Any time a president makes a decision of this magnitude, there are multitude pieces of information that come before him."

General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the news conference that there was no reason to doubt Soleimani's intent.

"I've seen words like, 'Oh, the intelligence is razor thin,'" Miller told reporters. "I will stand by the intelligence I saw, that it was compelling, it was imminent, and it was very, very clear in scale, scope."

Esper said at a news conference that attacks planned by Soleimani had been expected within days and that he was in Baghdad "to coordinate additional attacks".

Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut, who said he viewed the classified notification the administration sent to Congress under the 1973 War Powers Act, said the document contains no information that hasn't been publicly reported.

"There is no intelligence inside that document about this supposedly imminent attack," Murphy said Tuesday on the podcast Pod Save America. "So I remain open to being convinced that there was an imminent attack. But the fact that they haven't delivered that information suggests that the information might not be as strong as Secretary Pompeo was suggesting."

Esper also said that despite a unanimous vote by the Iraqi Parliament, the United States does not currently plan to pull troops out of Iraq.

The Pentagon said Monday that it plans to send B-52 bombers and more troops to the Middle East. About 200 members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, based in Vicenza, Italy, will be moved. Some of those troops would be assigned to provide additional security to the US embassy in Beirut, a defense official said.

They will join more than 10,000 US troops who have been moved toward the Middle East or placed on alert since Soleimani was killed. The new deployments will put the total number of US troops, airmen and sailors in the Middle East at more than 80,000.

The Iranian parliament approved a bill on Tuesday that designates the Pentagon and US military forces as terrorists. The bill is similar to the action the US took last year when the Trump administration designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.

Under the bill, the Iranian government will provide $220 million to the IRGC to "reinforce its defense power in vengeance for General Soleimani's assassination", the Iranian state news agency reported.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, said Tuesday that the US had rejected his request for a visa to attend a Security Council meeting on Thursday at UN headquarters in New York. He was expected to speak about the killing of Soleimani.

Zarif said that his office had requested a visa weeks ago, rejecting claims by US officials that they hadn't had time to process the application.

"The Americans are trying to create the impression that our request to attend the meeting was put forth following the assassination of General Soleimani," Zarif said, according to an interview with the Iranian news outlet Press TV. "The question everyone needs to be asking this lawbreaking administration is: What are they so scared of?"

Under a 1947 agreement, the US is required as the host country of the UN headquarters to allow entry to foreign diplomats traveling on UN business. The US maintains that it can make exceptions to the agreement for reasons of "security, terrorism and foreign policy''.

As host, the US has a due international obligation to issue visas and provide other kinds of convenience for foreign representatives attending UN meetings, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Tuesday.

"We urge the US to earnestly fulfill this obligation and offer convenience to member states representatives to attend UN meetings," Geng said.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday found that 53 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of Iran, an increase of about 9 percentage points from a similar poll in the middle of December.