Senators Leave Classified Briefing Unconvinced U.S. Strikes Obliterated Iran’s Nuclear Program

TIME

Top Trump administration officials came to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers about President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb three Iranian nuclear sites.

Transcript

00:00Most of what we heard today, the American people deserve and need to hear,

00:05and there's no reason why it should be kept from them.

00:10My personal view, based on what I heard, is Iran continues to be a threat.

00:20A nuclear-armed Iran is a threat to the entire world, an unacceptable threat.

00:26And right now, we have no final battle damage assessment.

00:34Without any classified information whatsoever, I think it's safe to say that we have struck a major blow,

00:42alongside our friends in Israel, against Iran's nuclear program that is going to make America safer,

00:48our friends in the region safer, and protect the world from the risk of an Iranian nuclear weapon for years.

00:55To me, it still appears that we have only set back the Iranian nuclear program by a handful of months.

01:02There's no doubt there was damage done to the program,

01:05but the allegations that we have obliterated their program just don't seem to stand up to reason.

01:16Operation Midnight Hammer was brilliant, it was bold, it was necessary, and it was effective.

01:23They blew these places up in a major league way, major league setback, years, not months.

01:31My impression coming out is similar to my impression going in,

01:34and you can look at the CIA report, which Director Radcliffe talked about,

01:39and it's their report, and they stand behind it.

01:41It's been released publicly that they're saying a year to years in terms of the damage inflicted

01:46and the time it would take to recover.

01:48The other point that was made, and I think this is a very important point,

01:51we just demonstrated that we can take out their sites between what Israel did and the United States,

01:58you know, our stride, we can take out the setup that they have now.

02:03Would you really recreate the exact same thing?

02:06President Trump said that the nuclear stockpile was completely and totally obliterated.

02:13I did not receive an adequate answer to that question.

02:18What was clear is that there was no coherent strategy,

02:23no endgame, no plan,

02:26no specific, no detailed plan on how Iran does not attain a nuclear weapon.

02:33Anyone in that meeting, anyone,

02:37if they're being honest with themselves, their constituents, their colleagues,

02:42would know that we need to enforce the War Powers Act

02:45and force them to articulate an answer to some specific questions

02:50and a coherent strategy right away.

02:52I'd only like to say that it is so nice and so comforting

02:56to have a competent national security team in place.

03:00We heard an excellent briefing down there.

03:02I'm not going to give you any details,

03:03but I, for one, am comforted by having a president who is decisive,

03:08who took action to protect America,

03:10to protect our ally, Israel,

03:14and at least for a while take away the threat of a nuclear Iran.

03:20So, again, it's nice to have a competent team in place.

03:23Senator.

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