On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Situation Room,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said President Donald Trump ordered the airstrike that killed Iranian General Soleimani to cause “chaos in the Middle East” to distract from impeachment.

Hirono said, “I conclude that there is ongoing chaos within this administration. Clearly that the Iraqi Parliament wants us to leave, and this letter actually seemed to comport with it, and only to be told moments later, it is a mistake. So, you know, we have asked earlier what is the end game? I don’t think that there is an end game that this administration thought about, because this is the way that the president makes his decisions. And here we are with chaos in the Middle East. We are sending close to 10,000 more troops into the Middle East. Where they are going to be stationed, we don’t know. We are sending B-52s, and rather than de-escalating the tensions that are already there I think we have done the opposite.”

She added, “I think that the president is so concerned about the impending impeachment trial that this is a heck of a way to distract us, and using basically the lives of our troops and not to mention the civilians in this area.”

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