Live Updates: Trump Claims Success After Bombing Key Iran Nuclear Sites

New York Times

a day ago

President Trump announced on Saturday that the U.S. military had bombed three of Iran's nuclear sites, including its uranium-enrichment facility deep underground at Fordo, injecting the United States directly into a war in the Middle East.
The president made the announcement on his social media website, Truth Social, shortly before 8 p.m. in Washington.
'We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran air space,' the president wrote. 'A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!'
The bombing came two days after the White House said Mr. Trump would make a decision 'within two weeks' about whether to move ahead with such an attack. Israeli officials were told about the bombing beforehand, and Mr. Trump spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel afterward, according to a person with knowledge of the conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Mr. Trump said he would address the nation on Saturday night from the White House at 10 p.m.
It was not immediately clear how many bombs were dropped, or how much damage was caused to Iran's capacity to enrich uranium and potentially pursue a nuclear weapon. And Mr. Trump, who had been debating whether to join Israel's war against Iran, immediately suggested that a diplomatic resolution was still possible. But it was far from clear that Iran would be interested in that.
Since making clear that he was considering striking Iran, Mr. Trump has faced pressure from Republican critics and supporters of such of a move, highlighting a split within his own party.
Some advisers both inside and outside the White House tried to either dissuade him from carrying out a bombing raid and to stick only to providing Israel with support from the intelligence community. Others, accepting that he appeared determined to bomb the nuclear facilities, set their minds to making sure he had a full picture of the potential fallout from such an attack and to limit America's involvement after the initial strikes.
For months, Vice President JD Vance has warned against the potential of a war aimed at regime change in Iran, and Mr. Trump has privately told advisers and associates in recent days that he has no interest in joining a prolonged war to topple Iran's leadership.
Mr. Trump has said repeatedly that he does not want to send American troops into battle overseas. Even after Israel began its bombing campaign, Mr. Trump was encouraging Mr. Vance and his envoy, Steve Witkoff, to pursue diplomacy with Iran. The president has expressed frustration at Iranian officials and their slowness to respond to messages. And his team has complained that it's hard to know whether their Iranian interlocutors are speaking on behalf of the country's Supreme Leader.
Now, the Trump team is bracing for Iranian retaliation.
Mr. Netanyahu told Mr. Trump in a June 9 phone call that he was determined to go ahead with an attack on Iran. Mr. Trump, who had been pushing for a nuclear deal with Iran for months, begrudgingly agreed to provide support from the intelligence community. But when Israel began its airstrikes on Iran, it was still unclear whether Mr. Trump would fully support its mission.
When the Israeli strikes began on June 13, the first statement that came from the administration, from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, distanced America from the war and made no mention of standing with Israel — an extraordinary omission for an American administration.
But by the next morning in the United States, when it appeared that Israel's first night of strikes had been a success, Mr. Trump began claiming credit for the operation and hinting to reporters that he had more to do with the mission than people realized. That weekend, as he prepared to leave for Canada for the G7 Summit, Mr. Trump said privately that he might need to drop 'the big one.' He was referring to the 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs, carried by B-2 bombers, that only the U.S. military had in its possession.
Mr. Trump built his political career in part on his denouncement of the war in Iraq following the deadly terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. Yet one of the actions of which he was proudest in his first term was the assassination of the Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran, an act that alienated some of his staunchest anti-interventionist supporters but that he repeatedly maintained was necessary and in the United States' interests.