“The bottom line is that we do not yet know” what caused the explosion, Esper told Fox News in an interview broadcast this weekend.
“Yesterday I commented that it looked more like an accident and it’s unfortunate that some in the media … are trying to draw divisions within the administration between maybe me and the president and others. It’s just not true,” he said.
Esper told the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday that the US “still received information about what happened. Most believe it was an accident as reported. And beyond that I have nothing further to report about it. It is obviously a tragedy.”
Hours after Esper said “most believe” that Beirut’s explosion was “an accident”, Trump appeared to have doubts about the possibility that it was an accident at a White House news conference, saying, “How can you say accident? ? ” while you also said, “Right now you have some people who think it was an attack and some people who think it was not.”
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows went even further when asked about Esper’s assessment that the explosion was likely an accident, saying, “From his point of view, Secretary Esper, he does not know.”
On Tuesday, Trump said he was talking to some of “our generals” and that they had witnessed the explosion a bombing.
The bombing in Beirut killed at least 158 people and injured dozens more. More than 6,000 people were injured in the incident.
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