Speaking alongside acting Defence Secretary Shanahan after meetings in Congress amidst rising tensions with Iran, Secretary of State Pompeo indicated that "we shared with both the House and the Senate our strategic campaign, the effort to push back against Iran's malign activity - 40 years of terrorist activity... and we tried to place that - or place the recent intelligence in context of 40 years of history. And we walked through our efforts and our ultimate objective over the past days, which has been to deter Iran". Shanahan referred to "credible intelligence about threats to our interests in the Middle East and to American forces" that had been received on 3 May, adding that "that intelligence has borne out in attacks, and I would say it's also deterred attacks. We have deterred attacks based on our re-posturing of assets". "Our biggest focus at this point is to prevent Iranian miscalculation", Shanahan added. "This isn't about deterrence, not about war - or not about going to war". At the conclusion of the press availability, Pompeo, responding to a reporter's question, remarked that "there are plenty of ways that we can have a communication channel [with Iran]. I'm very confident in that".