For 10 days, President Trump and his team
have struggled to describe the reasoning behind the decision to launch a
drone strike against Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of
Iran’s elite security forces, propelling the two nations to the brink of war.
Officials agree they had intelligence indicating danger, but the public
explanations have shifted by the day and sometimes by the hour.On
Sunday came the latest twist. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said he
was never shown any specific piece of evidence that Iran was planning an
attack on four American embassies, as Mr. Trump had claimed just two days earlier.
Publisher: NYTimes | Author: Peter Baker