State Department Says Iraq Was Not Notified Ahead of U.S. Air Strikes

During the regular State Department briefing yesterday, deputy spokesman Vedant Patel contradicted National Security Council spokesman John Kirby yesterday on the matter of whether the U.S. had notified the Iraqi government prior to the U.S. airstrikes on Iraq on Feb. 2. Kirby had claimed just shortly after the strikes that the U.S. had notified the Iraqi government about the U.S. strikes ahead of time. “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. We informed the Iraqis immediately after the strikes occurred,” Patel said in response to a question by the reporter from Rudaw, the Iraqi Kurdish news service.