Pentagon urges restraint after strikes on Saudi oil facilities

[Fan of Da Bearse]

Source: WaPo

By Missy Ryan and Dan Lamothe
September 16, 2019 at 8:48 p.m. GMT-2:30

Pentagon officials on Monday recommended a restrained response to the recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities, arguing against a potentially costly conflict with Iran, which the administration has blamed for the strike on a key American ally, according to officials familiar with Defense Department deliberations.

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper met with President Trump and key national security officials at the White House on Monday, two days after a series of explosions crippled two oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, disrupting more than half the Sunni kingdom’s oil supply and dramatically escalating tensions with its chief rival, Shiite power Iran.

While Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for the attacks, Trump administration officials have said they believe that at least the bulk of the strikes, which targeted two facilities belonging to state-run Saudi oil firm Aramco, were launched from within Iran — an allegation that, if true, would represent a major escalation between the Middle East’s leading regional powers.

Read more: https://beta.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-urges-restraint-as-administration-blames-iran-for-saudi-strikes/2019/09/16/58743ae4-d8a5-11e9-adff-79254db7f766_story.html

---

These are professional military people at the Pentagon, who know where the shit is and where the shit is NOT! The people with the biggest hard-ons for war are the people who've never worn a uniform higher than the Boy Scouts!

[Tactical Peek]

1. "if true"

And if it is, then let the Saudis take it to the U.N.

[pbmus]

3. While the Con declares national emergency over oil prices...

And bomb bomb Iran...

[NanceGreggs]

2. I absolutely LOVE your user name!

Welcome to DU.

[Fan of Da Bearse]

5. Thank you

I shall assume you have read The Gospel of Sweetness.

[Lulu KC]

8. ?

Please share?

[Fan of Da Bearse]

12. The Legendary Walter Payton

Sweetness was his nickname.

[YOHABLO]

4. Fact is we don't know who attacked the Saudi Oil fields. We should not start a war over it.

Trump and his administration are liars, let Saudi Arabia and Iran work it out. We need to stay the hell out of this.

[Scarsdale]

6. Remember how Saudi Arabia rushed

help to the US after 9/11? Me neither. The Saudis came FIRST, before the attack, remember?

[Bayard]

7. Absolutely

But there's money to be made here, and debts to repay.

[IronLionZion]

9. Saudi Arabia was quick to get Bin Laden's family out of the US

while wounded Americans were still dying in the hospitals. I remember the US going to war with a completely unrelated country, Iraq, for some reason. And the US is still in military conflict in Afghanistan with 18 year old soldiers who were not yet born when 9/11 happened.

[Scarsdale]

10. Yet, nobody has been

held responsible for those wars. Many like Bush and Cheney are STILL profiting off the wars.

[DeminPennswoods]

11. DoD loves the budget for military spending, but really

isn't interested in war. That's the dirty little secret.