Political Quotes

“as we go back through the calendar just a few months and get some context of what has been building for a while, in May of 2019, four different vessels that were traveling just outside of the Gulf of Oman were hit by mines laid by Iranian leadership. In June, just a month later, two different vessels hit Iranian mines. Those mines weren't just placed in the water flippantly; they were actually placed on the ship. In June of 2019, a U.S. Navy surveillance drone was flying through the Strait of Hormuz in international airspace and was downed by an Iranian missile attack. As we continue to move forward, we tracked an increase in Iranian activity in cyber attacks across the United States, but at the same time, individuals within our military bases in Iraq were facing more and more of a push against them in not just an external conversation, an actual kinetic attack. Our supply lines in the fall of last year, as trucks that were leaving from Baghdad and driving down to Kuwait for our supply lines there, were increasingly facing improvised explosive devices, something we had not seen in a long time. Those explosive devices were created and placed by Shia militias with materials provided by Iran. Then, in October, there were multiple attacks on our facility in Baghdad. In November, there were multiple attacks again on our facility in Baghdad. In December, there were multiple attacks again, each time increasing with more and more attacks.…”