NYT: Bessent Moves To Military Base After Iranian Threats Against His Life
The official leading the US economic pressure campaign left his Washington-area home; the Treasury says he “will not be deterred,” and the report says the severity of the threats is unclear
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently moved out of his Washington-area home and onto a military base after Iranian threats against his life, The New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing three people with knowledge of the matter.
A Treasury spokesperson confirmed the move and said Bessent “will not be deterred by the Iranian regime’s threats,” and that he remains committed to the campaign to squeeze Iran’s economy.
US officials concluded in recent weeks that Iranian plotting against current and former American officials had reached a more advanced stage, based in part on intelligence about threats to Bessent, according to the report.
Fox News Digital, citing a senior administration official, reported that the threats had reached “more than an advanced stage” and prompted Bessent and his family to move.
The Times said the severity of the threats to him is unclear, that Iran’s ability to carry out large-scale attacks in the United States and overseas is limited, and that US officials have nonetheless deemed some targeted Iranian threats serious, such as a murder-for-hire plot against President Donald Trump during the 2024 campaign. Iran has not responded to the report.
Bessent has led the economic pressure campaign against Iran since August, when he launched “Operation Economic Outcast,” which targets Iran’s digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping, and seeks to cut off funds to the Revolutionary Guard, which also controls much of the economy. Iran’s rial fell past 2 million to the dollar around the launch, and Bessent and other officials say the pressure is shrinking Iran’s economy and degrading living standards.
But US intelligence indicates that Iran’s leadership is determined to hold on to power at nearly any cost, according to two officials cited by the Times, suggesting that economic pain alone may not lead to regime change.
Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned in August that any country that joins the US campaign would be treated as an “enemy.”
Bessent is the latest senior official to leave a Washington-area home for a military base or other protected housing, following at least half a dozen last year, including White House chief of staff Stephen Miller and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Times reported.
The administration has not disclosed the scope of the threats against top officials, and not all involve Iran. In October, the US put embassy staff in the Middle East on heightened alert and reduced personnel because of intelligence that Iran was in “advanced stages” of planning attacks on Americans, and it pulled B-1 bombers from a British base after a suspected plot, which Iran denied.
The US also moved aircraft from a second British base, RAF Mildenhall, on Monday over a threat from Iran.