US strike ended Iran-Israel war: Trump
Washington: United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday attempted to hog credit for ending the 12-day Israel-Iran war, claiming the US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites essentially ended the hostilities that wreaked severe damage to civilian properties and lives on both sides.
He controversially compared last week's strikes with the US nuclear strikes on Japan in 1945, which obliterated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Asked about Iran's nuclear program, Trump said Tehran 'went through hell' during the 12-day war, which forced it to forgo its nuclear weapon ambitions.
"I don't think they will ever do it again. They will take their oil, they will take their missiles and have their defence... I think they have had it. They just went through hell. The last thing they would want to do is enrich. They had been trying to enrich... by the way, it is hard to enrich. They spent trillions of dollars trying to do this thing, but they couldn't come up with this," he told reporters in The Hague.
He said the US and Iran were getting along well.
"We are actually getting along with them very well right now. Had we not succeeded in that hit... that hit ended the war...I don't want to use the example of Hiroshima, I don't want to use an example of Nagasaki, but it is essentially the same thing – that thing ended that war, this thing ended this war," he said.
In August 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing over 2 lakh people, most of whom were civilians. Days after the strikes, the Japanese government announced unconditional surrender to the Allied forces, ending the protracted World War 2. The strikes remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict.
Trump disputed an intelligence report that found the airstrikes he ordered on Iran had only a limited impact on its nuclear program, even though the assessment came from the Pentagon.
'The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed,' Trump said on Truth Social. He said CNN and the New York Times, which first reported the intelligence findings on Tuesday, 'have teamed up in an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history."
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The cold underground turns into a kind of living room housing a couple of dozen people. A blond woman is already sleeping under a blanket with her spaniel beside her, the dog's graying muzzle peeking out. The boy with the parrot eats sandwiches with his friend as their parents scroll through their phones. A young man plays Candy Crush. Someone snores. The same updates ping throughout the shelter. Each corner has someone reading from their phone in hushed tones. It is past 12:30 a.m. and there are a few dozen drones in the air, and Russian warplanes carrying cruise missiles have taken off. By 2 a.m. we will know whether they have launched their munitions. Each update comes with a mental calculation of how long the bombs will take to arrive and the morbid question of what and whom they will target. 'Balistyka?" people blurt out as walls vibrate. 'Was that a ballistic missile?" Each explosion, even when it is an interception by Ukrainian air defense, shakes the shelter. Those who were asleep are alert now. Ballistic missiles can only be countered with U.S.-designed Patriots, which Ukraine has in short supply. The shock wave from one makes the body shudder. 'A strike in Solomyanka," a working-class district in Kyiv, the man with the mustache says. 'Ambulances were called," I read out loud from my phone to the neighboring women. We are left to guess the extent of the damage. It is illegal for Ukrainians to post images of strikes and air-defense systems firing, because Russia is known for hunting down air defenders and carrying out so-called double-tap attacks—striking the same place twice to kill first responders, journalists and civilians who arrive at the scene. The woman with the spaniel sits up and scans her phone. She asks nobody in particular: How many missiles can a Russian Tu-160 strategic bomber carry? 'Between six and 12," I say. 'Oh God," she responds. 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For an hour, I try to sleep between the machine-gun fire and explosions as Ukrainians battle against the final wave of drones and missiles. A glance at photos starting to circulate online shows the damage from the strikes. A student dormitory is hollowed out, missing windows. The midsection of a nine-story apartment building has been bombed to the ground by the ballistic missile we heard. I can also smell it. Fires blaze across the capital. The smell of smoke fills the air. Authorities advise residents to close their windows and avoid the outdoors. A collective grief descends over the city. Streets bustling the night before fall into a shellshocked whisper. Survivors post condolences online to those who didn't. People in the streets yawn, their eyes distant and tired. 'Was it loud where you were?" Kyivans ask one another by way of a greeting. The toll of those who didn't share our shelter or our luck that night is stark: 28 killed and more than 140 wounded.
