{UAH} IRANIANS HAVE HIT AN AMERICAN BASE AGAIN

Suspected Iranian-backed militias answer US 'proportionate' response with another rocket attack on US troops

by Jamie McIntyre, Senior Writer | 

 

 | March 03, 2021 07:17 AM

 

SHOOT AND SCOOT: The group behind the attack has not been confirmed, but this morning’s (7:20 a.m. Baghdad time) rocket assault on an Iraqi base hosting U.S. troops has all the earmarks of the same Iranian-backed militias responsible for previous attacks in recent weeks.

The initial report, tweeted by U.S. military spokesman Col. Wayne Marotto, said 10 “indirect fire” rockets hit the al Asad air base in Anbar, where many of the remaining 2,500 U.S. forces in Iraq are based, and that Iraqi Security Forces are investigating. In a later statement, the Iraqi military said there were no significant losses and that the abandoned launch pad used to fire the volley of rockets had been found.

The attack comes five days after the U.S. bombed a series of buildings at a border crossing in Syria that suspected militant groups used to cross into Iraq, and less than 24 hours after the Pentagon expressed the hope that its “proportionate military response” last week would deter more attacks.

“I don't think we've seen any demonstrable effect yet,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters at an off-camera briefing yesterday. “One of the things we were certainly hoping to achieve as a result of that strike was to deter future attacks by militia groups on our people, our facilities, and our Iraqi partners.”

CAN THAT BE RIGHT? This latest rocket attack targeted the same base that was hit on Jan. 8, 2020, by 11 ballistic missiles with powerful 1,000-pound warheads that were launched by Iran in response to the U.S. assassination of top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. New details of the attack and how close it came to killing U.S. troops and destroying U.S. aircraft on the ground were revealed in a report that aired on CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday night.

But a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, a noted arms control expert, is taking issue with one part of the report: the assertion by U.S. Central Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie that he outmaneuvered the Iranians by waiting to evacuate planes and U.S. troops until after Iran had downloaded its last commercially acquired overhead imagery that would have shown “airplanes on the ground and people working.”

That just doesn’t add up, argues Prof. Jeffrey Lewis, who teaches courses on arms control issues at the Middlebury Institute. “The story could not have occurred on the timeline that McKenzie describes. There is a big time gap between when a picture is taken (‘collection time’) and when the image is available to customers (‘delivery time’),” Lewis tweeted. “He could have moved his forces after the satellite collected the image. If McKenzie wasted several hours after collection waiting for the image to be *delivered*, he should be relieved of command for incompetence.”

In his Twitter thread, Lewis disputes McKenzie’s assertion that the pre-strike satellite images would have shown airplanes on the ground and people working. “It's uncommon to see piloted aircraft at Ain Al Asad out in the open and the resolution isn't good enough to see ‘people working.’”

Furthermore, Lewis asserts, “I can't find any evidence that any commercial satellite firm offered for sale a picture from the days before the strike. The most recent pre-strike images from @planetlabs and @airbus were taken December 30, more than a week prior.”

“I don't know whether McKenzie made up his tall tale himself or just embellished one that was going around,” Lewis said.

Daily on Defense has reached out to the U.S. Central Command for a response.

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