Former President Donald Trump appeared to downplay the hundreds of injuries suffered by U.S. service members at Ain al Asad Air Base in January 2020.
The attacks, launched by Iranian proxies, came in response to Trump’s killing of former Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, but the former president questioned the severity of those injuries during a press conference on Tuesday.
“First of all, injured?” Trump posed back to reporters when asked about why he didn’t respond with force to Iran’s attack. “What does injured mean? Injured means because they had a headache? Because the bombs never hit the fort.”
More than 30 U.S. service members suffered traumatic brain injuries when Iran launched at least 10 ballistic missiles at Ain al Asad Air Base in Iraq. The United States had received advance warning that strikes from Iran, responding to the drone strike killing of Soleimani, could occur on five U.S. military sites.
Personnel were able to seek shelter, and no U.S. service members were killed.
The questioning of Trump’s handling of the situation was spurred by Iran’s launching of more than 100 ballistic missiles at targets in Israel, retaliation to the Jewish state’s recent campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
Trump responded to the strikes Tuesday by suggesting the world is moving toward World War III.
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“They are very close to global catastrophe,” Trump said in Wisconsin. “We have a nonexistent president and a nonexistent vice president who should be in charge, but nobody knows what’s going on.”
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris convened the National Security Council on Tuesday afternoon and leveraged U.S. assets in the Middle East to assist Israel in shooting down Iran’s missiles.