Trump denies planning to send 120,000 troops to counter Iran

Washington - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that the United States does not want war with Iran but vowed to keep pressuring Tehran.

US President Donald Trump on Monday rejected a report that he is considering sending 120,000 troops to counter Iran, but didn't rule out deploying "a hell of a lot more" soldiers in the future.
"I think it's fake news," Trump said of a New York Times report that the White House is considering a plan to send 120,000 troops to the region as part of a tightening pressure campaign against the Iranian government.
"Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that," Trump told reporters. "Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. If we did that, we'd send a hell of a lot more troops than that."
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that the United States does not want war with Iran but vowed to keep pressuring Tehran. "We fundamentally do not see a war with Iran," Pompeo told a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Sochi.