Iran posed an “intolerable risk” to the U.S. with its missile threat and, during negotiations, wouldn’t accept “free nuclear fuel forever” – all of which led up to Saturday’s attack on Tehran.
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Senior administration officials briefed reporters on the hours leading up to “Operation Epic Fury.”
One official described Iran’s missile inventory and said it posed “an intolerable risk to the United States.”
The US had “indicators” that Tehran was going to launch a preemptive strike against American assets in the region, pointing to Iran’s retaliatory strikes on US bases in the region, including ones in Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, as proof.
“The president decided he was not going to sit back and allow American forces in the region to absorb attacks from conventional missiles. We had analysis that basically told us, if we sat back and waited to get hit first, the amount of casualties and damage would be substantially higher than if we acted in a preemptive, defensive way to prevent those launches from occurring,” the official said.
Another senior administration official described the final talks in Geneva with Iranian officials and revealed the astonishing offer the Americans made.
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“One of the things we offered – we said, we will give you free nuclear fuel forever,” the official said. “And they basically said that didn’t work for them. They needed to enrich uranium.”
The Trump administration said Iran’s nuclear capabilities were destroyed in Operation Midnight Hammer last year, but were concerned Tehran was preparing to ramp them up again.
