decision very, very shortly in that discussion to authorize the strikes against these particular targets. is there anything you can tell us about the u. s contractor killed. i m afraid not. i mean, we re trying to give the family some time and in space here to grieve. they just got devastating news yesterday. we do know that he was an american citizen and a contractor working for us at that particular base. but again , poppy, i think you can understand where we re going to give them a little bit of privacy right now, just to follow to poppy s question there. what are the things that us can the us do anything to help keep the personnel and u s contractsafe tre? well, the actions that we took yesterday are part and parcel that effort, don, i mean we re going to work to protect our people and our facilities as best we can. it s a dangerous environment. you said it at the top were there to defeat isis to ensure the enduring defeat of isis. they are still a threat in syria. they a
isis. they are still a threat in syria. they are still a threat in iraq. nowhere near what they were back in 2014, of course, but they re still there. they re still plotting. they re still planning there. so resourcing, they re still training and obviously they re still capable of conducting operations. and we ve got militant groups that that are supported by iran, that are the ones conducting these attacks against our troops and our facilities. we re going to continue to do whatever we can to defend themselves, and if we have to retaliate like we did yesterday, we ll do that. i think the question also become sort of. how is this measured? and is this an act? that is indicative of what is to come. we know that iran has been building these increasingly sophisticated ah drones selling them to russia, for example, in the fight against ukraine, and it was just striking that yesterday, john it was the commander of us forces in the middle east. at this hearing on capitol hill, who said this