Inside reports claimed that though the planes, part of the Operation Midnight Hammer started moving Friday midnight, President Donald Trump held off giving a final go-ahead until Saturday. On Friday evening, he hosted OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman at an event — exactly 24 hours before he launched the controversial attack on Iran and claimed that all three nuclear plants in Fordown, Natanz and Isfahan have been destroyed.
Trump retained the ability to call off the strikes ‘until the very last minute’
Vice President JD Vance said Trump retained the ability top call off the strikes “until the very last minute” but he chose to go ahead. The administration officers, CNN reported, went to great lengths to conceal their planning. The announcement that he will take two weeks time to decide on whether to join Israel in attacking Iran was a diversion tactic, insiders said. By the end of the week, US officials came to believe that Iran was not ready for negotiations. “This is a plan that took months and weeks of positioning and preparation so that we could be ready when the president of the United States called,” Hegseth said alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine. “It took a great deal of precision. It involved misdirection and the highest of operational security.”
‘Only if bunker buster bombs can destroy nuclear plants’
In his back-to-back high-level meetings in the Situation Room, Trump asked his aides to ensure that the bunker buster bombs were guaranteed to destroy the nuclear plants. Since the bunker-busters had never been deployed before, the officials were not certain about whether they could completely destroy the plants. The Pentagon claimed that the initial assessment showed “extremely severe damage and destruction” to Iran’s three nuclear sites though he said it will take time to determine the ultimate impact. Vice President JD Vance said the US is not in a war with Iran. “I think the president has been very clear that we are not interested in protracted conflicts in the Middle East,” Vance told ABC News’ “This Week” in an interview that aired on Sunday.“But there’s a question about how do you achieve peace? And we believe the way that you achieve peace is through strength,” Vance added, addressing a question about Trump supporters who are uneasy with the intervention. “The president, more than anybody, is worried about protracted military conflicts. That is not what we’re getting ourselves involved in,” Vance said.
