“I just wanted to read to you from an inner-circle source familiar with Pompeo and the situation,” said Gangel. “The source said that he is the one leading the way, and it is the president’s policy, but Pompeo has been the leading voice.”

“I was also told by the same source that, quote, taking out Soleimani has been Pompeo’s mission for a decade, and that he has told friends and colleagues that he really did not want to retire from public service before Soleimani was taken off of the battlefield. Finally, that Pompeo really got everyone on board. He had Esper, Milley, Gina Haspel of the CIA, Robert O’Brien, National Security, that there really was not much dissent about it.”

Pompeo didn’t directly answer when pressed to define how much of an imminent threat General Soleimani was to American targets and Americans living in the Middle East during a press conference on Tuesday.

“There’s been much made about this question of intelligence and imminence,” he said. “You need to look no further than the days that led up to the strike that was taken against us.”

The conflict between Iran and the United States has been intensifying since a rocket attack allegedly launched by members of the Kataib Hezbollah militia on an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk on December 27. That assault killed one American, a civil contractor, and wounded several U.S. soldiers. A spokesperson for Kataib Hezbollah denied involvement in the attack.

On December 29, the U.S. launched airstrikes which killed 24 Kataib Hezbollah combatants.

In response, a large group of Iraqi protesters forced its way past security forces and into the U.S.’s embassy in Baghdad on December 31. Armed with rocks and chanting “Death to America,” they marked the interior walls of the embassy with graffiti, set fires, destroyed property, broke windows and announced their demands for a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

According to a statement from the Pentagon, the resultant strike against Soleimani on January 3 was “aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”

On Wednesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard fired upon Iraq’s Ayn al-Asad Air Base in retaliation for the the air strike against Soleimani. No Americans or Iraqis were hurt during the missile attack.