White House Asked Pentagon for Plans to Hit Iran – By Polly Davis Doig (newser.com) / Jan 13 2019
Bolton’s reaction to failed attack ‘definitely rattled people’
(Newser) – The attack—three mortar shells launched into Baghdad’s diplomatic sector by Iranian militants—injured no one, but the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-sought-options-to-strike-iran-11547375404) is now reporting that it “triggered unusual alarm” inside the Trump administration. National Security Adviser John Bolton responded by asking the Pentagon to draw up plans to attack Iran, a request so unusual and a response considered so outsize by many senior administration officials that it “definitely rattled people,” one such official tells the Journal. “People were shocked. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about hitting Iran.” An NSC rep says it simply “coordinates policy and provides the president with options to anticipate and respond to a variety of threats.” Bolton has long advocated regime change in Tehran, notes the Journal, and penned a 2015 New York Times op-ed with the headline, “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” (Read more Iran stories.)
http://www.newser.com/story/269873/white-house-asked-pentagon-for-plans-to-hit-iran.html
