WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Long before U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went on television and Twitter on Friday to make the case for the U.S. decision to kill top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, he had the powerful military commander squarely in his sights.
Back in 2015, when Pompeo was a congressman for Kansas advocating regime charge in Iran while the Obama administration pursued engagement, he accused Soleimani, considered the second most powerful person in Iran, of having "the blood of hundreds of American service members on his hands," a refrain he repeated on Friday after the U.S. air strike in Baghdad.