CIA director reveals details about US strike on Shayrat air base

CIA director Mike Pompeo has provided a dramatic account of the events that led up to the US missile attack on the Syrian regime’s Shayrat air base on 7 April. Speaking at a dinner organized by the Intelligence National Security Alliance (INSA), Pompeo recalled the events that followed the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in the town of Khan Shaykhoun on 4 April.

[I] got a call from the President one afternoon back in April. He wanted to talk about some disturbing images that were coming in from Syria. I’m sure you saw many of them yourselves—scenes of innocent civilians writhing in agony, the apparent victims of a chemical weapons attack.

He went on to explain:

The President had a very direct message for me: Find out what happened. So we immediately assembled a crack team of Agency experts. They began piecing together the evidence, working closely with some outstanding partners from across the Intelligence Community.

Read: US says it saw preparations for possible Syria chemical attack

Pompeo said that Trump held a cabinet meeting regarding the intelligence the next day. According to the CIA director’s account, the president asked:

Pompeo, are you sure? I’ll admit that the question took my breath away. But I knew how solid the evidence was, and I was able to look him in the eye and say, Mr. President, we have high confidence in our assessment.

He explained:

I told him that the [intelligence community] had concluded that a chemical weapon had indeed been used in the attack, and that it had been launched by the Syrian regime.

https://twitter.com/swilsonhouck/status/884933172747808769

Pompeo confirmed that Trump:

never looked back. Based on the Intelligence Community’s judgment, he made one of the most consequential decisions of his young administration, launching a strike against the very airfield where the attack originated.