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From The Grayzone
The Trump administration claimed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was planning "imminent attacks" on US interests when it assassinated him. That lie was just destroyed, but not before countless corporate media outlets transmitted it to the public.
Desperate to justify the US drone assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted that Washington had made an "intelligence-based assessment" that Soleimani was "actively planning in the region" to attack American interests before he was killed.
President Donald Trump justified his fateful decision to kill the Iranian general in even more explicit language, declaring that Soleimani was planning "imminent attacks" on US diplomatic facilities and personnel across the Middle East.
"We took action last night to stop a war," Trump claimed. "We did not take action to start a war."
Trump's dubious rationale for an indisputably criminal assassination has been repeated widely across corporate media networks, and often without any skepticism or debate.
At a January 3 State Department briefing, where reporters finally got the chance to demand evidence for the claim of an "imminent" threat, one US official erupted in anger.
"Jesus, do we have to explain why we do these things?" he barked at the press.
Two days later, when Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi addressed his country's parliament, Trump's justification for killing Soleimani was exposed as a cynical lie.
According to Abdul-Mahdi, he had planned to meet Soleimani on the morning the general was killed to discuss a diplomatic rapproachment that Iraq was brokering between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Abdul-Mahdi said that Trump personally thanked him for the efforts, even as he was planning the hit on Soleimani, thus creating the impression that the Iranian general was safe to travel to Baghdad.
"But at the same time American helicopters and drones were flying without the approval of Iraq, and we refused the request of bringing more soldiers to US embassy and bases" iraqi PM said.
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