ASPEN, Colo. — James Mattis, who retired last month
as a Marine four-star general and head of U.S. Central Command, on Saturday
bluntly criticized the Obama administration’s response to what U.S. officials
say was a plot by the Iranian government in 2011 to assassinate the Saudi
ambassador at a Washington restaurant.
Answering questions by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer before an
audience at the Aspen Security Forum, Mattis said he found it inexplicable that
the plot was dealt with as a law enforcement matter with no clear diplomatic or
military response.
Iran was under Mattis’ purview at Central Command.
Asked afterward whether he presented military options to the White House that
were rejected, he said his advice would remain confidential.
In May, Manssor Arbabsiar, an Iranian American
used-car salesman from Texas, was sentenced to 25 years in prison after
pleading guilty to plotting to hire assassins from a Mexican drug cartel to
murder Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. at the behest of a cousin in Iran.
The cousin, Gholam Shakuri, was a high-ranking member of the Quds Force, which
is part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Mattis said the plot was orchestrated “at the
highest levels” of the Iranian government.
He criticized the fact that the U.S. announced the
plot to the public by having Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. detail criminal
charges. “Why wasn’t the secretary of State, secretary of Defense up at the
microphone, not making any threats, just saying, we’ll be back?” he said.
The response was not adequate, he said. “I don’t
know why [it] wasn’t dealt with more strongly.”
An Obama administration spokesman could not
immediately be reached for comment.
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