Shafaq News / Military officials, including US Defense Secretary Mark Esper, endorsed the decision of a military strike against Qasim Soleimani on January 3, during a congressional session.
Esper described the order of US President Donald Trump regarding the killing of Iran's Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani as a "right response", as part of the questions he had gathered with the US Senate Armed Forces Committee.
Esper explained that Soleimani had additional plans to kill Americans, and plans to carry out a "coup in Iraq," according to his statements reported by the Washington Times.
"I think it is clear that the evacuation of the battlefield from him has hindered the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian government, with regard to the deployment of their malicious activity throughout the region," Esper added.
"With this operation, we have recovered deterrence to some extent, and I still think it was a correct response from the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces," the US Defense Secretary added.
It is noteworthy that both the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed a law aimed at restricting Trump's capabilities in conducting military actions against Iran after the American strike that killed Soleimani.
Although some lawmakers were skeptical of the military strike against Soleimani, General Mark Millie, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the committee that he "quite" believed that Trump had done his duty, describing the process as supporting the idea of restoring deterrence.
Soleimani was killed on the third of last January, by an American drone strike targeting his motorcade near Baghdad airport, which he arrived from Syria.
The deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Committee, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was killed along with Soleimani, a group of protocol officials and Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers.
The strike raised the level of tension in the region for fear of the Iranian response to the killing of its most important officers and responsible for managing its factions in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.
Iran responded to the killing of Soleimani by launching ballistic missiles targeting the Iraqi base of al-Assad, which includes American soldiers, and those strikes wounded dozens of American soldiers, but no one was killed.