Jim Garamone at the DOD News
offers the below piece:
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16, 2017 —
“Everywhere you find turmoil [in the Middle East], you find Iran’s hand in it,”
Defense Secretary James N. Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday.
During an impromptu news
conference, Mattis addressed questions about Iran and U.S. efforts to expose
Iran’s malicious behavior.
He praised U.S. Ambassador to
the United Nations Nikki Haley’s Dec. 14 presentation at Joint Base
Anacostia-Bolling here that highlighted Iran’s illegal arms program. Haley
stood in front of an Iranian missile that Iran’s proxy – the Houthis – fired at
Riyadh International Airport, a civilian target in Saudi Arabia. The missile
didn’t hit the airport, but if it had, it potentially could have killed
hundreds of innocent civilians.
Haley’s briefing included
physical evidence that Iran is providing ballistic missiles to the Houthis,
Mattis said. “What we are doing in that region,” he added, “is standing by
allies and partners, and we're on one hand exposing, on the other hand helping
them build their own capability to reject Iranian influence.”
Other Iranian Activities
In addition to its support on
the Arabian Peninsula to the Houthis – a Shia group seeking to take control of
Yemen -- the secretary cited some of Iran’s activities elsewhere in the region.
“We find Iran actively
engaged in keeping [Syrian President Bashar] Assad in power, despite the murder
of his own people on the industrial scale, including the use of chemical weapons,”
Mattis said. “We see what [Iran has] done with Lebanese Hezbollah in Lebanon
and the threat to peace and the support they've given to Assad and the threat
to Israel, for example.”
There is no military role for
the United States in exposing Iran’s activities, Mattis said. “The reason
Ambassador Haley was there, and not one of our generals, is this is a
diplomatically led effort to expose to the world what Iran is up to,” he said.
Note: The above DoD photo of
Secretary Mattis was taken by Jim Garamone.
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