Newsman: President Donald Trump announces the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. The strikes mark the most significant U.S. military attack on Iran in modern history.
President Trump said Saturday the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear sites, bringing the U.S. directly into Israel’s war with Tehran.
“Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success,” the president said in a White House address.
Trump said in his roughly four-minute speech from the White House, “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”
“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Saturday.
Trump followed that post with a televised address at 10 p.m.
Trump said the U.S. used “a full payload of BOMBS … on the primary site, Fordow,” which is also known as Fordo.
Trump said all planes are “safely on their way home,” and out of Iranian airspace. Trump had said Thursday he would make a decision within two weeks whether to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites to give diplomacy a chance.
“NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!,” he said at the time in a statement.
U.S. President Trump said late Saturday that the bombing of the major nuclear sites was a “very successful attack” and threatened additional assaults if Tehran does not make peace. The targeted Fordo enrichment plant was described by Trump as “completely and totally obliterated.”
Trump also said that “any retaliation by Iran against the United States of America will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed” Saturday night.
The American aistrikes were welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who lauded Trump’s “bold decision” as a move that “will change history.”
Trump said he “worked as a team” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the strikes and “we’ve gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel.” He also warned Iran that “if peace does not come quickly,” more strikes would follow.
At the White House Saturday, Trump spoke alongsdie Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The U.S has surged forces to the region over the past two weeks, including new squadrons of F-16, F-22 and F-35 fighter planes, and the deployment of several destroyers to the Israeli coast. A second aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, is on its way to the Arabian Sea along with its own destroyer escorts and should arrive in the coming days, while a third carrier could soon be on the way, as the USS Ford is slated to leave port in Virginia in the coming days for a planned European deployment.
There are about 40,000 U.S. troops in the region, with 2.500 in Iraq next door to Iran.
Trump ordered the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, effectively joining a war that Israel started on June 13 when it started bombing Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure. One of the U.S. targets was Fordow, a uranium enrichment facility hidden deep inside a remote mountain in the desert.
Nuclear sites at Natanz and Isfahan were also struck. Israel said it helped the U.S. coordinate and plan the strikes.
The Iranian attacks on Saturday involved some of the most sophisticated weapons in the Pentagon’s arsenal and tapped into its commands overseeing operations from the Middle East to outer space, Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Sunday.
It took weeks to plan the Saturday attack, which involved 125 warplanes − including nearly one-third of its most sophisticated stealth bomber fleet – and submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The Fordo nuclear enrichment facility is buried deep inside a mountain to shield it from attacks.
Israel has been lobbying the U.S. to get involved in the military effort against Iran’s nuclear program for months, stepping up the effort after it launched unilateral strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites earlier this month.
Only the U.S. possesses the 30,000-pound bombs capable of reaching the deep underground site at Fordo, and those can be carried only by American B-2 stealth bombers because they are so heavy.
Strikes weren’t aimed at Iran regime change, US Defense Secretary Pete says
The goal of the U.S. strikes on Iran was not to prompt a regime change, Hegseth said during the news briefing Sunday morning.
“This mission was not, has not been about regime change,” Hegseth said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hasn’t denied that an Iran regime change is part of Israel’s military objectives, however.
“It could certainly be the result because the Iran regime is very weak,” Netanyahu said in an interview on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” a week ago. “I think it’s basically left with two things. Its plans to have atomic bombs and ballistic missiles, that’s basically what Iran has. They certainly don’t have the people. Eighty percent of the people would throw these theological thugs out.”
