Senate Democrats question “obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear sites after classified briefing on strikes
Washington – Some Senate Democrats cast a doubt about the characterization by the Trump administration of strikes against Iran’s nuclear installations after senior officials informed the senators on Thursday.
In recent days, President Trump has repeatedly declared “total obliteration” after three nuclear sites were bombed in a secret attack by the United States Initial classified assessment found that strikes brought the Tehran nuclear program back in a few months, while Trump said that the nuclear program was back “mainly decades”.
Democrats have questioned the assertions of Iran’s quantity of nuclear program.
“I move away from this briefing always believing that we have not erased the program,” Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut democrat, told journalists. “The president was deliberately misleading the public when he declared that the program was erased. It is certain that there is still an important capacity, an important equipment that remains.”
“You cannot bomb knowledge of existence – regardless of the number of scientists you kill,” added Murphy. “There are still people in Iran who how to work centrifugal. And if they have always enriched uranium and they always have the possibility of using centrifugal, then you do not place the program per year. You are putting the program per month.”
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the best democrat of the Senate intelligence committee, suggested that the administration jumped too early on a conclusion.
“Listen, I hope this is the final evaluation,” said Warner. “But if not, does it end up offering a false feeling of comfort to the American people?”
The head of the majority of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said that he had not received adequate responses to find out if the nuclear stock was erased.
“What was clear is that there was no coherent strategy, no end game, no plan, no specific, no detailed plan on how Iran does not reach a nuclear weapon,” said Schumer.
Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said that only a final evaluation of battle damage confirming the assertions “would allow us to be comfortable or complacent about what has been done”.
“The fact is that we do not know. Whoever says that we know with certainty get married because we have no final evaluation of battle damage,” he said. “I think that” erased “is far too strong in words because it implies that it could not be reconstituted or in one way or another, it was completely eliminated.”
However, Blumenthal praised military action as “who will fall into the annals of military history”.
“Admittedly, this mission has succeeded in the extent that it destroyed largely and perhaps seriously damaged and reviews the Iranian nuclear weapon program. But how long and how much to be determined by the intelligence community itself,” he said.
The republican senator Lindsey Graham de Caroline du Sud was held behind the characterization of the administration, but recognized that Iran’s capacities could possibly be restored.
“The real question is, we have erased their desire to have a nuclear weapon,” said Graham after the classified briefing. “I don’t want people to think that the site was not damaged or erased. It was. But that said that, I don’t want people to think the problem is over, because it is not the case.”
Graham said he thought the program had been found for years. Republican senator Kevin Cramer of Northern Dakota said that he was convinced “that he was taken up – a year, at least”.
The Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, president of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that strikes “effectively destroyed the Iranian nuclear program”. Cotton added that the initial assessment had several intelligence gaps and “supposed the worst case with perfect conditions in Iran”.
Senior intelligence managers said Wednesday This new intelligence has shown that the nuclear program had been “seriously damaged” and that its “destroyed” facilities. The Iranians of the “years” would be necessary to rebuild the facilities, said CIA director John Ratcliffe and the director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Ratcliffe was one of those who informed the senators on Thursday, as well as the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor Marco Rubio and the president of the chiefs of joint staff, General Dan Caine.
The briefing had been initially scheduled for Tuesday but was delayed by two days, overwhelming certain Democrats who demanded immediate transparency about strikes after their departure in the ignorance of military action.
Emily suspended and
contributed to this report.
