Spy chiefs feared Trump would blow Iran strikes with Truth Social posts

Telegraph

4 hours ago

US spy chiefs feared that Donald Trump would reveal top secret plans to strike Iran with his Truth Social posts.
The US president is said to have almost blown Operation Midnight Hammer, the high-stakes mission to strike three nuclear plants in Iran, by issuing threats on his social media platform.
Mr Trump, who writes on Truth Social more than a dozen times a day, was the 'biggest threat to operational security' as he hinted at military action, an official told the New York Times.
In a series of posts last week, expectations around the world grew that the United States was on the verge of joining Israel's strikes against Tehran in an effort to decapitate its nuclear programme.
Mr Trump wrote days before the strike: 'Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!
'What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CANNOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON.'
His public announcements began to worry military planners and officials at the Pentagon, given the success of the mission relied solely on the element of surprise.
Three of Tehran's most critical enrichment facilities, including its underground facility at Fordow, were pummelled by B-2 stealth bombers and a barrage of submarine-launched missiles early on Sunday morning.
Decoy deployed
Fearing that the president had given too much away, the military decided to have a set of B-2 bombers fly to the west and into the Pacific as a decoy.
Following the strikes on the bases, Iran claimed that it had smuggled almost all of the country's highly enriched uranium to a secret location in the days before.
Satellite images showed a convoy of trucks outside the Fordow base on Thursday June 19.
Mr Trump had informed Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, of US plans to bomb Iran the same day, although there is no suggestion that the two were linked. Refuelling tankers and fighter jets had been moved into position and bases in the region were preparing for retaliation.
At the same time, Mr Trump issued his 'two weeks' statement, which brought more time for last minute diplomacy.
Alongside the decoy bombers, the ruse helped clean up the mess of telegraphing the attack, which was partly of the president's making, officials added.
The president had spent Friday night and much of Saturday at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
But in a sign of a fast developing situation, he flew back to the White House just before 5pm. He did not speak to his travelling press pool at any point.
Hours later, seven B-2 stealth bombers were dispatched from American soil to drop massive bunker-busting bombs on the heavily fortified enrichment facilities at Fordow and Natanz.
They pummelled Iran's nuclear programme with 14 GBU-57 bombs, each weighing 30,000lbs, while a US submarine launched a further two dozen Tomahawk missiles, also striking the Isfahan atomic site.
After 18 hours of flying, the bombers arrived at their target completely undetected with the element of surprise intact.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told the New York Times that the president and his team 'successfully accomplished one of the most complex and historic military operations of all time'.
Mr Trump himself lauded it as a 'spectacular military success'.
The president's position on striking Iran had changed by the morning of Friday June 13, hours after the first Israeli attacks, the New York Times reported.
After the first missiles began to drop, Mr Trump later took calls from reporters on his cellphone, hailing the operation as 'excellent' and 'very successful' while hinting he had more to do with it than people realised.
Later that day, Mr Trump is said to have asked an ally how the strikes were playing out. He said 'everyone' was telling him he needed to get more involved, including dropping the 30,000-pound GBU-57 bombs.
In the 24 hours that followed, the president told another adviser that he was leaning toward using 'those bunker buster' bombs on Fordow. By then, it seems Mr Trump had already decided on striking the site.
The president was closely monitoring Fox News, his favourite channel, which was airing wall-to-wall coverage of Israel's military operation.
'We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,' he posted on Truth Social on Tuesday, June 17.
'We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.' He demanded, in all-caps, adding: 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!'
By this point, several people in the anti-interventionist Trump camp realised that a strike was inevitable and that the president's mind could not be changed.
JD Vance, the vice president, wrote a series of posts on social media that appeared to seed the ground for a potential US military operation.
He wrote: 'He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president.
'And of course, people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy. But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue.'