The death of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani was part of a deliberately 'disproportional response' because he crossed a 'red line' in killing an American and ordering an attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, according to a new insider account of the Trump White House.
In his new book, Gen. Keith Kellogg makes no mention of evidence that Soleimani was planning an imminent attack on Americans - the official justification for the strike.
His account will be seized on by experts in international law who have questioned the legality of a drone strike that killed Iran's most powerful military figure.
Kellogg was national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence in January 2020, as the Trump administration responded to a series of provocations.
In December 2019, a U.S. civilian contractor had been killed when an Iranian-backed proxy militia in Iraq launched a missile attack on an allied air base.
The U.S. responded with strikes of its own, followed in turn by Shia militiamen marching on the American embassy in Baghdad and smashing their way through a checkpoint.
The unrest was quelled only when reinforcements, in the form of Iraqi troops, U.S. Marines and Apache helicopters arrived .
'But our response had barely begun. We had highly reliable intelligence reports affirming that our chief enemy here was Soleimani,' writes Kellogg in 'War by Other Means: A General in the Trump White House.' published today.
'We had always considered him a legitimate target because he was a sponsor for terrorism and was directly responsible for the deaths and maiming of hundreds of Americans.
'The Iranians had crossed our “red line” by killing an American and reinforced their folly by attacking our embassy in Baghdad.
'We would respond. And this time our response would be disproportional.
'We jumped up the escalation ladder. Our answer would be unambiguous. Our target would be Soleimani.'
Gen. Qassem Soleimani was head Iran's Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and believed to be responsible for Tehran's backing for Shia proxies, before his death last year
10 people died when a drone strike hit the convoy carrying Soleimani as he left Baghdad airport on Jan. 3, in an attack that triggered anti-U.S. protests in Iran
Gen. Keith Kellogg was national security adviser to Mike Pence in Jan. 2020 when the strike on Soleimani was ordered. He serveed in a range of security positions in the Trump White House
