Blinken Visits Iraq in Hopes of Containing Israel-Hamas War

There have been a collection of assaults performed by militia directed at our personnel, each in Iraq in addition to in Syria. Job primary for me is to make sure the safety of our folks. And so I obtained an replace on every part we’re doing to guarantee that our personnel are protected and safe. I had a superb, productive, candid assembly with Prime Minister al-Sudani. And there have been actually two areas of focus for me in that assembly. The first was to reaffirm our dedication to our partnership with Iraq. The threats coming from militia which might be aligned with Iran are completely unacceptable, and we are going to take each needed step to guard our folks. We’re not in search of battle with Iran; we’ve made that very clear. But we’ll do what’s needed to guard our personnel, be they army or civilian. To anybody who would possibly search to take benefit of the battle in Gaza to threaten our personnel right here or anyplace else in the area: Don’t do it.