Senate Democrats Left Unsatisfied by Trump Administration’s Classified Iran Briefing

Senate Democrats are demanding more information from the Trump administration following a classified briefing on Thursday. They say that the White House is not giving Congress nearly enough information about the impact of the strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities that were conducted last weekend. Senators were briefed by administration officials on Thursday about the attacks at the Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites. The briefing was conducted by Secretary Rubio, Secretary Hegseth, the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine. Notably absent was the United States director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who often delivering the daily briefing to President Trump. Many have pointed out that Ms. Gabbard has long advocated for avoiding war with Iran. “There’s a real question as to why the director of national intelligence is not allowed to be in these briefings,” Senator Murphy told reporters. “That’s a question we should get answered.”Mr. Murphy went on to say that he saw no evidence of Iran’s nuclear capabilities being hindered for the long term. “We have only set back the Iranian nuclear program by a handful of months. There is no doubt there was damage done to the program, but the allegations that we have ‘obliterated’ their program just don’t seem to stand up to reason,” he said. “I just do not think the president was telling the truth when he said this program was ‘obliterated.’”“There’s still significant remaining capability,” Mr. Murphy added. “The president was deliberately misleading the public when he said the program was ‘obliterated.’” A fellow Connecticut lawmaker, Senator Bluemental, said he saw no evidence of “obliteration” in the classified briefing. “Right now, we have no final battle damage assessment,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “The point is: we don’t know” about the future of Iran’s capabilities, he added. “Anybody who says that with any certainty is making it up.”The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Cotton — who rarely speaks to the press — said on Thursday that while the damage to the nuclear facilities was “catastrophic,” he could not confirm that the Islamic Republic’s enriched uranium stockpiles had been destroyed. The Trump administration has been saying for days that the nuclear program had been completely “obliterated.”“I think we’ve caused catastrophic damage to Iran’s nuclear program,” Mr. Cotton said after the briefing. When asked if he had any idea of where any additional enriched uranium had been moved by the Iranians, the senator said he didn’t “have a comment on that.”“I will say it was not part of the mission to destroy all of their enriched uranium or to seize it or anything else,” Mr. Cotton said Thursday. “Again, this is not a ‘Mission Impossible’ movie. There’s not a single thing out there that can be done or not done to allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.”Senator Graham, speaking to reporters after the briefing, called the operation “brilliant,” “bold,” and “necessary.” He struck the most optimistic tone of all the lawmakers who spoke to the press after the briefing. “They blew these places up in a major league way,” the South Carolina senator told reporters. “Learn from World War II: You appease religious Nazis, you’re gonna get more religious Nazi behavior.”“You have to weaken them. You have to put them on their knees,” Mr. Graham said of the Iranians. The top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Senator Warner, echoed his Democratic colleagues, saying he was especially worried that Ms. Gabbard was not at their briefing on Thursday. “I obviously have great concerns about [Ms. Gabbard] — concerns that she literally fired people from the intelligence community who would not change the intelligence product,” Mr. Warner said. He also said he saw no evidence that the Iranian nuclear program had been set back years, as the White House has claimed. “We obviously don’t have all of the enriched uranium eliminated,” he said. “There are some questions they have to answer. … The only way we get certainty is with inspectors on the ground.”“That will only come with diplomacy,” the Virginia senator told reporters.

Senate Democrats Left Unsatisfied by Trump Administration’s Classified Iran Briefing

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