White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby apologized Tuesday for falsely claiming last week that Iraqi officials were notified before a series of coordinated airstrikes.
Kirby initially claimed 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 spokesman Vedant Patel confirmed this was not accurate and that Iraqi leaders were not informed until after the strikes.
"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."
In a Tuesday press conference, Kirby opened by speaking at length about the false claim.
"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.
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