US was ‘cocked and loaded’ to hit Iran, then Donald Trump changed his mind

US President Donald Trump on Friday confirmed he had ordered strikes on Iranian targets in retaliation for the downing of the America drone — “we were cocked and loaded” — but he called them off because he was told just minutes before the launch that around 150 people may be killed in the attack.

“We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it,” the American president wrote on Twitter.

The casualties, he said, were “not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone”.

He went on to say: “I am in no hurry, our Military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting & more added last night. Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against the WORLD!”

In the strikes cleared by Trump, the United States had planned to hit Iranians radars and missile batteries — still not clear what were the three targets mentioned by the president in his tweet — in a pre-dawn raid Friday and operations were under way, with planes in the air and ships moved into position when word went down the chain of command to stand down, the New York Times had reported.

The operation was on till as late as 7 pm US eastern time, which would have been 3:30 am in Iran (and 4;30 am in India), according to the NYT.

Earlier reports were unclear about President Trump reasons for abruptly calling off the strikes just minutes before they were to take place. He wanted to avoid casualties, as he tweeted, which would have been disproportionate to the downing of the unmanned drone, a point he made in remarks to reporters Thursday.

Calling the shooting of the drone — an RQ-4A Global Hawk High-Altitude Long Endurance unmanned aircraft system — “a big mistake”, Trump had pointed out it was unmanned and that ‘it would have made a big, big difference” had it been otherwise. But he had also seemed to indicate he believed it was not intentional and that it was someone “loose and stupid who did it”. Trump either wasn’t sure at the time or changed his mind later and ordered the retaliatory strikes, or he did not want to preview his plans, which he has said he doesn’t like.

Iran has said it had shot down the drone after it crossed into Iranian airspace and officials have said it was warned to change its trajectory, but it didn’t. The United States has insisted that the aircraft was in international airspace and it was at least 34 miles from the nearest point on Iran’s coastline when it was hit.

Warnings about the impending retaliatory strike was conveyed to by the United States to Iran through Oman, Reuters reported citing Iranian officials.

“Trump said he was against any war with Iran and wanted to talk to Tehran about various issues,” one official said to the wire agency. “He gave a short period of time to get our response.” It did not yield anything clearly as Trump went ahead and cleared the strikes. There was no word on this talk offer from the United States.

First Published:
Jun 21, 2019 19:51 IST

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