Trump Gave Final Go-Ahead for Iran Attack Hours Before Bombs Fell

President Trump had been saying he would give Tehran up to two weeks to yield to U.S. demands before ordering an attack. Then Saturday afternoon at his private club in New Jersey, he gave the final go-ahead to strike in a few hours.

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CNN

11 minutes ago

• CNN

General describes moment US bomb was dropped on Iran

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President Donald Trump has come to see the director of national intelligence as "off message" when it comes to the conflict in the Middle East, according to one senior White House advisor. 02:04 - Source: CNN Inside the room of the Geneva-Iran talks Talks between European and Iranian officials in Geneva, Switzerland were "very tense" at first, but then became much more positive. CNN's Matthew Chance takes us inside the room where these talks took place. 02:04 - Source: CNN Why aren't tariffs causing inflation? For the past year, many economists warned that tariffs would increase prices, but inflation is lower today than when President Trump took office. CNN's Matt Egan breaks down why this might be the case and how economists expect that to change in the coming months. 01:09 - Source: CNN Aftermath of Iranian strike on Haifa CNN's Nic Robertson shows the aftermath of an Iranian strike on Haifa, Israel, less than an hour after it made impact. 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Business Insider

14 minutes ago

• Business Insider

Satellite images show the damage at Iran's deeply buried Fordow nuclear site after massive US strikes

New satellite images show damage after US airstrikes at Iran's Fordow nuclear facilities. Fordow was one of three Iranian nuclear sites that the US bombed early Sunday morning (local time). The strikes came amid an Israeli campaign to degrade Iran's nuclear program. New satellite imagery reveals damage at the Fordow nuclear facility in Iran after US military aircraft bombed the site. In the images, which were captured on Sunday by the US commercial satellite imaging company Maxar Technologies and obtained by Business Insider, several large holes or craters can be seen on a ridge over the underground complex at Fordow, south of Tehran. The images show what looks like a layer of dust or debris caused by the US airstrikes over the area, and several tunnel entrances that lead to the underground facility appear to be blocked with dirt. President Donald Trump announced early Sunday morning local time that the US had attacked Iran's Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan nuclear facilities in what he later described as a "spectacular military success." He said that US aircraft dropped a "full payload" of bombs on Fordow, one of Iran's main nuclear enrichment facilities. The site is buried deep in the side of a mountain and is the country's most hardened facility. Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers dropped a total of 14 heavy bunker-buster bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities. He described the operation, known as Midnight Hammer, as highly secretive and complex. Speaking to reporters early on Sunday, Caine said that the B-2s dropped the 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, which is the US military's largest non-nuclear bomb and believed to be the only weapon that is capable of penetrating Iran's deepest nuclear facilities like Fordow. It marked the first-ever operational use of the MOP, he added. During a press conference, Caine said that over 125 US aircraft — a mix of the B-2s, 4th- and 5th-generation fighter jets, and aerial refueling tankers — were involved in the operation, which consisted of a considerable amount of deception. He said that American forces used 75 precision-guided weapons against Iranian targets, including the 14 MOPs, and more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a submarine somewhere in the Middle East. Caine said the battle damage assessment will take some time, although he said initial indications are that all three Iranian nuclear sites that were struck sustained damage and destruction. The US bombing came after a week of sweeping Israeli airstrikes across Iran that officials said were intended to degrade the country's nuclear program and military capabilities. Trump, who had long pushed Tehran to agree to a new nuclear deal, had spent the past few days weighing whether to join Israel in its campaign. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump for attacking the Iranian nuclear sites. Since June 13, Israeli fighter jets have targeted Iran's nuclear sites, top scientists, senior commanders, missile launchers, air defenses, bases, warplanes, weapons production facilities, and other high-profile military infrastructure. Iran has retaliated by launching hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, many of which have been intercepted. The US bombing is a major escalation in the conflict that could see Iran retaliate by targeting American forces, as Tehran has threatened to do. The Pentagon has a large presence in the Middle East, consisting of warships, aircraft carriers, fighter jets, and ground troops. Both Trump and Pentagon leadership have called for peace, warning Iran it could see more strikes if that can't be achieved.

Associated Press

15 minutes ago

• Associated Press

Trump's big gamble in Iran is a risky moment after his pledges to keep US out of ‘stupid wars'

Follow AP's live updates on the Israel-Iran war. WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump expressed certainty his big gamble to directly assist the Israelis delivered a knockout blow to Iran's nuclear program — even as many supporters and detractors alike were warning that U.S. military action could draw the United States into an expansive regional conflict. Trump, in brief remarks to the nation on Saturday evening from the White House, said the U.S. strikes 'obliterated' three critical Iranian enrichment facilities and 'the bully of the Middle East must now make peace.' But it's a risky moment for Trump, who has belittled his predecessors for tying up America in 'stupid wars' and has repeatedly said he was determined to keep the U.S. and the Middle East from another expansive conflict. 'There will either be peace or there will be tragedy for Iran,' Trump said. He added, 'If peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill.' The U.S. has struggled for decades to deal with the threat posed by Iran and its proxies. Iran-backed groups carried out the 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, the Beirut barracks bombing that same year and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. And Iranian-backed militias were responsible for hundreds of Americans killed during the U.S. war in Iraq. Trump took note of the long history of animus, and took credit for taking action. 'For 40 years, Iran has been saying death to America. Death to Israel. They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs. That was their specialty,' Trump said. 'I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. It will not continue.' The possibility of U.S. involvement had been building for days. Still, the strikes, which were carried out early Sunday morning in Iran, carried an element of surprise. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday had said that Trump would decide whether to move forward with U.S. strikes on Iran within two weeks. But on Saturday afternoon, commercial flight trackers identified multiple U.S. aerial refueling tankers on a path suggesting that they were accompanying aircraft from the Midwest to the Pacific, raising speculation that something was afoot. Those aircraft may have been a decoy — they were not part of the mission. Trump returned from his New Jersey golf club just after 6 p.m., and had a previously scheduled evening meeting with his national security team. Less than two hours later, the president announced the strikes had been completed. The White House posted photos of Trump in the White House Situation Room with top advisers as he monitored the strikes, wearing a red 'Make America Great Again' hat. The action by Trump immediately raised some concerns among U.S. lawmakers that the president had exceeded his authority. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., quickly posted on the social media site X: 'This is not Constitutional.' Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said on social media that Trump hit Iran without congressional authorization and lawmakers should pass a resolution he's sponsoring with Massie 'to prevent America from being dragged into another endless Middle East war.' The decision to directly involve the U.S. comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that have moved to systematically eradicate the country's air defenses and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities. The U.S. military used 30,000-pound bunker busters on Fordo, while U.S. submarines also participated in the attacks, launching about 30 Tomahawk land attack missiles, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned the United States in advance that strikes targeting the Islamic Republic would 'result in irreparable damage for them.' And Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei declared 'any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region.' Trump had initially hoped that the threat of force would motivate the country's leaders to give up their nuclear program peacefully. Ultimately, Trump made the calculation — at the prodding of Israeli officials and many Republican lawmakers — that Israel's operation had softened the ground and presented a perhaps unparalleled opportunity to set back Iran's nuclear program, perhaps permanently. The Israelis have said their offensive had already crippled Iran's air defenses, allowing them already significantly to degrade multiple Iranian nuclear sites. Trump went forward with the strikes even as there is some murkiness about the U.S. intelligence community's assessment on how close Iran was to building a nuclear weapon. In March, Tulsi Gabbard, the national intelligence director, told lawmakers that it was not building a nuclear weapon and its supreme leader had not reauthorized the dormant program even though it had enriched uranium to higher levels. Trump earlier this week dismissed the assessment, saying Gabbard was 'wrong.' 'I don't care what she said,' Trump told reporters. It's unclear if the U.S. has developed fresh intelligence since Gabbard's March testimony, but she insisted following the public pushback from Trump that the two of them were on the same page about Iran. Trump's decision for direct U.S. military intervention comes after his administration made an unsuccessful two-month push — including with high-level, direct negotiations with the Iranians — aimed at persuading Tehran to curb its nuclear program. For months, Trump said he was dedicated to a diplomatic push to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. And he twice — in April and again in late May — persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on military action against Iran and give diplomacy more time. The U.S. in recent days has been shifting military aircraft and warships into and around the Middle East to protect Israel and U.S. bases from Iranian attacks. All the while, Trump has gone from publicly expressing hope that the moment could be a 'second chance' for Iran to make a deal to delivering explicit threats on Khamenei and making calls for Tehran's unconditional surrender. 'We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding,' Trump said in a social media posting. 'He is an easy target, but is safe there - We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.' The military showdown comes seven years after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Obama administration-brokered agreement with Iran, calling it the 'worst deal ever.' The 2015 deal, signed by Iran, the U.S. and other world powers, created a long-term, comprehensive nuclear agreement that limited Tehran's enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Trump decried the deal as giving Iran too much in return for too little, because the agreement did not cover Iran's non-nuclear malign behavior.