WASHINGTON - At a meeting of President Donald Trump's top national security aides last Thursday , Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack US forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said.
It is also unclear whether the president has been briefed on the number of troops or other details in the plans. On Monday , asked about if he was seeking regime change in Iran, Trump said:"We'll see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it would be a very bad mistake." More than a half-dozen US national security officials who have been briefed on details of the updated plans agreed to discuss them with The New York Times on the condition of anonymity. Spokesmen for Shanahan and General Joseph F. Dunford Jr, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to comment.
Several oil tankers were attacked or sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates over the weekend, raising fears that shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf could become flashpoints."It's going to be a bad problem for Iran if something happens," Trump said on Monday, asked about the episode. The Iranian government has not threatened violence recently, but last week, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran would walk away from parts of the 2015 nuclear deal it reached with world powers. Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement a year ago, but European nations have urged Iran to stick with the deal and ignore Trump's provocations.
Among those attending Thursday's meeting were Shanahan; Bolton; Dunford; Gina Haspel, the CIA director; and Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence. The new intelligence reports surfaced on the afternoon of May 3, Shanahan told Congress last week. On May 5, Bolton announced the first of new deployments to the Persian Gulf, including bombers and an aircraft carrier.
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