Trump: US launches strike on three nuclear sites in Iran

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President Donald Trump said the U.S. had acheived a "spectacular military success" in bombing three Iranian nuclear sites on June 21.
"Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated," Trump said in a live address, threatening further strikes if Tehran did not agree to U.S. terms. He said Tehran's nuclear program was a "horribly destructive enterprise."
Trump earlier in the evening announced U.S. airstrikes on Iranian uranium enrichment sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan, writing on Truth Social on June 21 that "All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow."
More: U.S. hits Iran nuclear facilities, braces for counterattack
The U.S. and its regional allies braced for possible Iranian retaliation as different members of Congress condemned and celebrated the attack.
The conflict began a week ago when Israel attacked Iranian nuclear and military sites, targeting uranium enrichment facilities. The two countries have been engaged in aerial strikes and Trump had been pondering U.S. involvement for the past week.
"Congratulations to our great American Warriors," Trump wrote. "There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!"
Terror alert levels should be elevated in the near term, even in major cities outside the Middle East and anywhere Iran may have sleeper cells, said Andrew Borene, a former senior official at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center.
'What happens next is largely going to be driven by Tehran's next moves. Their shadow wars have never been confined to missiles, drones, and cyber attacks,' said Borene, who is now executive director for Global Security at private intelligence firm Flashpoint.
Borene said in an analysis that there is 'a real risk of further spillover if Iran resorts to its historical use of asymmetric means through proxy terrorism.'
Offensive cyber operations on critical infrastructure, or terrorist attacks by Iranian proxies, also could rapidly derail hope for de-escalation and diplomacy in the near term, Borene said.
-Josh Meyer
'There will either be peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days,' Trump said.
He noted that there are many other targets in Iran.
'If peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes,' he said.
-Sarah Wire
'Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace,' Trump said in his address to the nation. 'If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.'
He then described tactics of the regime.
'For 40 years, Iran has been saying, 'Death to America,' 'Death to Israel,'' he said. 'They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs. That was their specialty.' The president appeared to be referring to attacks launched by Iran-backed militants in the years after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
-Erin Mansfield
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised President Trump for bombing three Iran nuclear sites, saying the decision could lead the Middle East toward a future of 'prosperity and peace.'
'America has been truly unsurpassed,' Netanyahu said in a video statement. 'It has done what no other country on earth could do. History will record that President Trump acted to deny the world's most dangerous regime the world's most dangerous weapons.'
-Erin Mansfield
Fordow is an Iranian underground uranium enrichment facility located about 80 to 90 meters deep inside a mountain, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
More: US bombs Iran: What to know about possible weapon, the 'bunker buster'
It is located 20 miles north of the Iranian city of Qom.
Fordow was one of three nuclear sites, including Natanz and Esfahan, that were struck by US military operations on July 21 to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. "A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
-Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy
B-2 bombers took off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri in the early morning hours of June 21. The warplanes are known not only for their stealth technology, but also for their ability to fly long-range and carry the big 'bunker buster' bombs used in the June 21 mission.
With design and materials that limit its ability to be detected by enemy radar, the B-2 is thought to be the only aircraft equipped to carry the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or GBU-57, known as the "bunker buster."
The entire fleet of B-2 stealth bombers is based at Whiteman, southeast of Kansas City, with the 509th Bomb Wing, part of the Air Force Global Strike Command.
Fox News reported six bunker-buster bombs were dropped on Iran's Fordo nuclear site.
-Dinah Pulver
The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war. The president is the commander in chief of the military, which means he carries out wars that Congress approves.
However, presidents of both political partes have perennially used the U.S. military to bomb or invade countries without formal approval from Congress. There have even been allegations that the Korean War and the Vietnam War were illegal. Congress attempted to limit presidents from using this type of power when it passed the 1973 War Powers Act.
Trump was most recently criticized for potentially violating the War Powers Act when he bombed the Houthis in Yemen, notoriously discussed on the SignalGate chat that embarrassed top officials in his administration.
-Erin Mansfield
B-2 bombers conducted a series of strikes on targets in Iran, according to a senior Defense Department official. There were no casualties.
Measures to protect the nearly 40,000 U.S. troops in the region have been incrementally increased over the last two weeks, said the official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The Army has been at third of four levels of alert at most places in the region, the official said.
-Tom Vanden Brook
More: U.S. hits Iran nuclear facilities, braces for counterattack
President Trump posted on Truth Social that he will be speaking to the nation at 10 p.m. ET on June 21.
"I will be giving an Address to the Nation at 10:00 P.M., at the White House, regarding our very successful military operation in Iran," Trump wrote. "This is an HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISRAEL, AND THE WORLD. IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR. THANK YOU!"
-Swapna Venugopal
Trump's decision came under immediate criticism from at least one Republican in Congress: Rep. Thomas Massie, a libertarian who represents Kentucky.
Massie shared Trump's post on social media with the message, 'This is not Constitutional.'
Massie had previously introduced a bill to prevent Trump from going to war with Iran without congressional authorization, which drew cosponsors that included progressive Democrats such as Rep. Ro Khanna of California.
The GOP lawmaker was one of two members of Trump's political party who voted against his tax bill in the House of Representatives last month. Trump called him a 'grandstander' ahead of the vote and said he should be 'voted out of office.'
Far-right GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an ally of Trump's, publicly pushed for the U.S. to stay out of the war, a half hour before Trump announced the attack.
'Every time America is on the verge of greatness, we get involved in another foreign war,' she said in a post on X.
Greene has been one of the most outspoken opponent's within MAGA of American military involvement in the conflict that exploded on June 13 when Israel attacked Iranian nuclear sites.
'There would not be bombs falling on the people of Israel if Netanyahu had not dropped bombs on the people of Iran first,' she said on June 21. 'Israel is a nuclear armed nation. This is not our fight. Peace is the answer.'
–Francesca Chambers
Earlier in the day, the State Department began evacuating American citizens and permanent residents from Israel and the West Bank, U.S Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee announced on social media.
'The Department of State has begun assisted departure flights from Israel,' Huckabee wrote in a post on X on June 21 asking people seeking government assistance to fill out a form.
-Swapna Venugopal
The strikes followed days of Israeli bomb and drone strikes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aimed at disrupting Iran's quest for a nuclear weapon, to which Iran responded by launching missiles at Israeli civilian targets. Netanyahu had been pressing President Donald Trump to enter the war, knowing the Pentagon possesses the ability to destroy Iran's nuclear enrichment capability.
In his first term, Trump pulled out of the Iran deal brokered by President Barack Obama in 2015, saying it did not do enough to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. As the war between Iran and Israel has spiraled in recent days, he has repeated that Iran "cannot" get a nuclear weapon.
Iran has threatened that the U.S. would suffer "irreparable damage" if it becomes directly involved in the conflict.
The U.S. "should know that any U.S. military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage," Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on June 18.
The U.S. Air Force has the unique capability to destroy deeply buried, fortified structures like those that house Iran's nuclear facilities. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or GBU-57, has a 'high-performance steel alloy' warhead case that allows the weapon to stay intact as it burrows deep into the ground, according to Pentagon documents.
In 2012, the Air Force conducted five tests of the weapon at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Data and visual inspections showed that each bombing run 'effectively prosecuted the targets.'
There's only one warplane in the Air Force that can carry the bomb. Each B-2 Spirit stealth bomber based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri can hold two of the penetrators.
Israel had sought the Pentagon to drop the bombs because their penetrating weapons cannot reach the depth necessary to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
-Tom Vanden Brook
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump: US launches strike on three nuclear sites in Iran