White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby apologized Tuesday for falsely saying last week that Iraqi officials were notified before a series of coordinated air strikes.
Kirby initially said on Friday that the bombing of targets related to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps inside Iraqi borders was communicated to national leaders beforehand.
He was forced to retract this claim after State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel confirmed this was not accurate and that Iraqi leaders were not informed until after the strikes.
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John Kirby (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Iraq, like every country in the region, understood that there would be a response after the deaths of our soldiers. As for this specific response on Friday, there was not a pre-notification,” Patel told the press on Monday. “We informed the Iraqis immediately after the strikes occurred.”
Kirby released a statement about the confusion the same day, saying he was going off “information that I had been provided at the time.”
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In a Tuesday press conference, Kirby opened by speaking at length about the false claim.
The U.S. launches air strikes in western Iraq.
“I’m sure many of you saw the statement that I issued yesterday correcting what I had said Friday night about pre-notification to Iraqi officials on Friday night before the strikes that we took on facilities related to the Iran-backed militia groups,” Kirby told the press. “And I deeply apologize for the error, and I regret any confusion that it caused. It was based on information we had or that it was provided to me in those early hours after the strikes. Turns out that information was incorrect. And I certainly regret the error.”
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“And I hope that you’ll understand there was no ill intent behind it, no deliberate intent to deceive, to be wrong. I take those responsibilities very, very seriously. And I deeply regret the mistake that I made.”
The strikes come in response to the deaths of three U.S. service members in a drone strike on a U.S. base in Jordan on Jan. 28. The attack injured dozens more.
The White House said Friday that the United States is “not looking for a war with Iran,” saying the retaliatory strikes carried out in Syria and Iraq were designed to “deescalate” tensions and “put an end” to attacks on U.S. troops in the region.
Houthi fighters are shown at a rally on the outskirts of Sana’a, Yemen, in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the recent Houthi strikes on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. (Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)
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A drone attack late Sunday evening that struck a military base in eastern Syria, where U.S. troops are stationed, left at least six allied Kurdish soldiers dead, officials said.
Militia fighters have been carrying out assaults on U.S. forces and civilian targets in the region since the breakout of the Israel-Hamas war in October.
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
