WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration on Thursday accused Iranian security forces of killing more than 1,000 people in crackdowns against recent protests that have swept the country. The allegation came as U.S. officials said the Pentagon is considering sending thousands of additional troops to the Middle East to help deter Iranian aggression.
The estimated death toll is significantly higher than previous estimates from human-rights groups and others, and the administration did not present documentary evidence to back up the claim. But Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, told reporters that the tally was based on a variety of reports coming out of Iran as well as intelligence analyses.
Meanwhile, John Rood, the defense undersecretary for policy, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Defense Secretary Mark Esper "intends to make changes" to the number of troops deployed in the region. Other officials said options under consideration could send between 5,000 and 7,000 troops to the Middle East, but they all stressed that there have been no final decisions.
Rood was asked several times about reports that 14,000 more troops could be sent to the region. He repeatedly said Esper hasn't made a decision on troop deployments yet, but didn't specifically confirm or deny the number. Shortly after the hearing, Pentagon press secretary Alyssa Farah sent out a statement flatly denouncing the 14,000 number.
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Asked about a possible troop increase, President Donald Trump told reporters Thursday: "We'll announce whether we will or not. Certainly there might be a threat. And if there is a threat, it will be met very strongly. But we will be announcing what we may be doing -- may or may not be doing."
Later Thursday, Trump's national security adviser Robert O'Brien said the president was open to sending more troops to the Middle East. "If the troops are needed to deter Iran, we have the capacity to move them into the region -- although I don't think that's happening right now," O'Brien told Bret Bair on Fox News Channel's Special Report.
Speaking at the State Department, Hook said the U.S. had received and reviewed video of one specific incident of repression in the city of Mahshahr in which the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps had mowed down at least 100 protesters with machine-gun fire.
He said the video was one of tens of thousands of submissions the U.S. has gotten since Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appealed last month for Iranians to submit evidence of atrocities by the authorities in putting down the protests. In it, he said Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces can be seen opening fire on protesters blocking a road and then surrounding those who fled to nearby marshlands where they were sprayed with bullets.
"In this one incident alone the regime murdered as many as 100 Iranians and possibly more," Hook told reporters at the State Department.
"We have seen reports of many hundreds more killed in and around Tehran," he said. "And, as the truth is trickling out of Iran, it appears the regime could have murdered over 1,000 Iranian citizens since the protests began." The dead include 13- and 14-year-old children, he said.
Speaking at the White House, Trump said Iran had "killed hundreds and hundreds of people in a very short period of time" and called for international pressure to be applied. "They are killing protesters. They turned off their internet system. People aren't hearing what's going on," he told reporters while hosting a lunch for the ambassadors of U.N. Security Council members.
Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and there was no immediate comment on state media in Iran.
Amnesty International believes at least 208 people have been killed and that the number could be higher. Iran has disputed that figure, but has refused to offer any nationwide statistics of the number of injuries, arrests or deaths from the unrest.
Information for this article was contributed by Lolita C. Baldor, Robert Burns, Deb Riechmann and Jon Gambrell of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/06/2019