Pentagon Chief Kept Tight Circle on Suleimani Strike

Sources say senior officials who would normally be consulted were left out of the loop.

“The usual approval process, the decision-making process, did not occur,” said one defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
Even among the small group of officials who were in the loop, there was dissent about whether killing Suleimani was a wise decision, said a former senior administration official with knowledge of the discussions. “The DoD was not all in agreement that killing the second most popular person in Iran at an international airport in Iraq was a good idea,” the former official said.

The death of Suleimani, a widely popular figure in Iran and mastermind of Tehran’s regional security strategy, in a strike that also killed the Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, has caused tensions in the Middle East to soar, raising fears of an all-out war. On Saturday, tens of thousands of pro-Iranian fighters marched through Baghdad calling for revenge on the United States, and two rocket attacks occurred near Iraqi bases that host American troops, although no one was injured.