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Missiles Fired from Iran Toward U.S. Bases in Qatar and Iraq; Qatar: Missile Attack Intercepted, No Deaths or Injuries Reported. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired June 23, 2025 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:30:00]

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR: ... were actually given a heads up by Iran on this ahead of time. We can't stand that reporting up as of yet. I can't verify that.

But certainly a sense that Doha knew something was coming, whether that was from U.S. intelligence or whether that was from Iran itself. And I was told that this -- the word symbolic was used by somebody briefed on the matter. And I think that speaks to the way that Iran has certainly put out a statement and suggested the atmosphere of this is symbolic.

They have suggested that if this is sort of, you know, the extent of their response, then it would be in proportion to what the U.S. had done. And that there is still an off ramp at this point. That's certainly the sense that I'm getting from speaking to sources.

So clearly, at this point, difficult to suggest that that off ramp, diplomatic off ramp is going to happen anytime soon. But if we concentrate on that term symbolic that we've heard both from Iran now, and from sources that I've spoken to, this was an airbase have been evacuated. It's the big airbase in the region.

And I think it's fair to say that there is somewhat of an assumption here. This may be a sort of, you know, shock on all moment, but that may satisfy Iran, that it has responded and that there is now, you know, a further opportunity to deconflict this at this point. And certainly the region would certainly like to see that.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Yes, Becky, we're going to check in with you in a short while. I want to bring in Clarissa Ward here. If Barak Ravid reporting, others reporting is correct. If this is the response, that's that's extraordinary.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That is a pretty underwhelming response in terms of all the panoply of options that Iran had at its disposal that we discussed yesterday. But underwhelming in a good way, I should say, in the sense that nobody was hurt, nobody was killed.

COOPER: And how much of that is a result of limited ability by Iran to respond? And how much of that is lack of desire to escalate this? I mean, you raised the point several days ago after this strike that the message from the Trump administration is take this and we're moving on.

WARD: And so I think we have to look at it that way. This is about self-preservation for the Iranian regime. They have been decimated over the last 11 days. If they want to survive to see another day, they have to play the long game. And historically, we have seen that Iran is very capable of playing the long game. And so in this sense, they're able to, you know, project some kind of, you know, symbolic, as Becky was saying, strength.

I still think it raises questions, even if there was coordination with the Qataris. And when I was looking through the foreign ministry's statement, when he talked about, you know, how they had already evacuated the bases, it does seem that there was some kind of a coordination.

COOPER: Well, Barak Ravid reviewed saying these statements seemed like they had been.

WARD: They were like ready --

COOPER: They were ready to hit send.

WARD -- to like hit send.

Exactly. Even so, there's always a risk. The minute you have missiles flying in the sky, there's always a risk.

COOPER: Fred Pleitgen is in Tehran. He's on the phone. Obviously, difficult to get the communication. So we want to go to him right away. Fred, any more information? What are you seeing or hearing from Iranian state media?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Hi, Anderson. Look, first of all, right as we're starting to talk here right now, I'm actually hearing what appear to be some strikes going on on the eastern part of Iran. So those, no doubt, will probably be Israeli strikes that are happening here in the late evening hours.

But as far as the Iranian, what they call the retaliation is concerned, I've got actually a couple of statements. There was one from the Revolutionary Guard calling this a powerful and destructive retaliation against American aggression, as they say.

And I just a couple of minutes ago got a new statement from the Secretariat of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, where they say that they fired missiles at their target.

They claim that the number of missiles that they fired at U.S. installations in the Middle East are the same number of bombs dropped on Iranian military -- on Iranian nuclear installations here by the United States. So obviously saying that this is a tit-for-tat response by the Iranians. They are also saying, and really trying to underline all of this, that this is not an aggression, as they say, against the people of Qatar, who they say are very noble and with whom they say they have friendly relationships. And the Iranian is also pointing out that the base that they attack, which is obviously the LED airbase in Qatar, is far away from any urban centers. And I'm just getting, as we're speaking right now, seeing on Iranian state TV, IRIB, that they're claiming that three of those Iranian missiles hit their target, they say.

[13:35:03]

Whether or not that's correct, obviously impossible to see from this vantage point right here. But that's sort of the messaging that we're getting here from the Iranians, that this was a destructive response, destructive response, as they put it. They claim, obviously, very much in response to those U.S. attacks on those nuclear installations here in Iran.

And again, unclear whether or not this is it for the Iranians, whether this is a tit-for-tat response, as they say. But certainly reading the statement now from the Supreme National Security Council, saying that it was the same amount of missiles as the amount of bombs that were dropped on nuclear facilities, it certainly could very well be.

And right now, Anderson, just for a quick update, I am also seeing some surface-to-air missile fire now outgoing here over Tehran towards the east of the city. So it certainly seems as though there could be an aerial attack here on Tehran going on at the same time as well -- Anderson.

COOPER: Hey, Fred, how common is it for you to see outgoing, whether it's anti-aircraft fire or any kind of outgoing response by Iran on the ground to what's happening in their skies?

PLEITGEN: Well, I mean, outgoing anti-aircraft fire is pretty common. I mean, we see that almost every evening. As I'm speaking to you right now, I can see bursts of anti-aircraft gunfire in the skies here over Tehran right now, and it's certainly something that we've seen also over the past couple of days.

Today, though, was really an outlier since we've gotten here, because we did see some very, very strong attacks here in the city center of Tehran. There was one that was only about a block away from where we're staying, where we heard jets overhead. And then there was a series of extremely loud explosions that we could hear that really shook the building that we were in.

We then went into the basement of that building, and when we emerged and went on our rooftop, we saw pretty much the entire sky over the northwest of Tehran engulfed in thick black smoke. So today it seems as though there were a lot of attacks, attack missions that were flown here over the territory of Tehran. The Iranians, of course, saying they are going to respond to that as well.

But it certainly seems as though right now all of this is still very much in full swing. But the attacks, of course, that we're seeing on Tehran, Israeli aerial attacks, and the Iranians are saying that they are going to continue to respond to those as well. But they also say that they very much see themselves in a conflict with the United States, saying that they are accusing, I would say, Donald Trump of being dragged into a war with Iran by the Israelis -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Fred. Hey, Fred, just one other question. When I assume that there is -- I mean, Israel is unique in that they have this early warning system where you often get, for ballistic missiles, you may get a 10-minute warning in advance.

And people have hardened shelters for the many, in many, many buildings and basements, sometimes even in people's apartments. Are there any early warnings signals going out in Tehran? Did you hear any early warning signal when that struck hit?

I think we lost Fred Pleitgen from Tehran.

I want to bring back in Colonel Cedric Leighton and Commander Kirk Lippold. Commander, let me start with you.

How likely is it you think at this stage, and again, hard to say, there's a lot of potential targets all throughout this region, and there's a lot of militias and other proxy forces, which the weekend could still strike. Well, actually, first of all, yes. Commander, how likely do you think that this may be it from Iran, given the telegraph nature of this strike and what seems like, you know, very ready responses, as Barack Ravid pointed out, from Qatar and others in the region?

COMDR. KIRK LIPPOLD, FORMER USS COLE COMMANDER, US NAVY (RET.): I think, Anderson, we should be hopeful that this is the one maneuver that has actually occurred, that Iran feels that they have struck back at the great Satan, the United States, and that while the conflict may still rage between Iran and Israel, between the United States and Iran itself, this may have been their one shot, and that will be good, and it will give now both sides an opportunity, that critical window of opportunity, to now come to the table and really discuss the two key points, which are dismantling their nuclear program and turning over all of the nuclear material that they have to date, regardless of where it is in the enrichment process, because that has to be the red line. It's been clearly stated.

The Iranians know it, and now they need to come to the negotiating table in good faith and in a timely manner so that we can end this conflict quickly, so that it does not continue to destabilize the Middle East.

[13:40:00]

COOPER: I was looking up. I heard a plane. It's rare to hear planes because the airspace around here is closed down, so that's why I was looking up for a second.

Ian Bremmer joins me now. He's written a number of remarkable books on global affairs. He's the president and founder of the Eurasia Group and GZERO Media.

Ian, what do you make of what we have just seen, the strike? What do you think it tells about what happens next? IAN BREMMER, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, EURASIA GROUP AND GZERO MEDIA: I think that of the three parties that are fighting here, the three parties that are the United States, Israel, and Iran, Iran is by far the least capable. They're very aware of that. They've lost any deterrent capability. And therefore, they have become the most risk- averse. And that's not what we're used to seeing from the Islamic Republic historically.

They've lost their proxies. They've lost the ability to scare the Israelis or the Americans away from attacking them with impunity. And the counter-strikes that we've just seen from Iran, which will be presented to their own people as incredibly strong and strident in the same way that they've presented to their own people that the American attacks on Fordow were marginal and didn't cost much damage, that's what they're saying internally with their control of their own state media. It's all disinformation.

What we know externally is that they warned the Americans in advance and calibrated these attacks against the most well-defended American bases to help ensure there weren't going to be casualties. So this is Iran trying very, very hard not to precipitate further escalation from the United States.

I'd be very surprised, and I know this is early, if we were to see any more from Iran against the United States in the near term. The question, of course, will be, how does Trump respond? The question, of course, will be, how the Israelis respond? But I think the Iranians are making very clear where they are right now.

COOPER: Well, Ian, it's extraordinary to me that Iran essentially put out a press release, I mean, it was an official statement, saying, pointing out the parity between this strike and in terms of numbers -- they say the number of missiles was exactly equal to the number of bombs dropped by the U.S., which I guess would be 12. If that is true, it's interesting to me that they would put out a statement as if people might not even realize there was parity. They wanted to make sure and highlight it that this is the definition of a proportional response in terms of just actual numbers of missiles.

BREMMER: They're doing everything they can to try to show President Trump that this is it, and please don't hit us again. Because we know that this can go much more badly for us than it can for you. That's the message the Iranians are sending.

Now, will President Trump take it that way? You know, there are a lot of things that the Iranians could do if they wanted to make life more difficult for the Americans, not least of which would have been not giving advance notice to the U.S. and focused attacks on places where the Americans aren't as well defended, where you don't have THAAD and patriot systems that are lined up to knock the Iranian missiles out of the sky the way you do at Al-Udeid. They haven't done anything to try to disrupt, for example, the Straits of Hormuz.

You saw Trump coming out and saying oil prices at 70, we don't want it any higher. The Iranians are saying, yes, yes, yes, we're not going to do anything with oil price here. Just don't do anything more against us.

Now, is that going to be acceptable to the Israelis? There are some Israelis in the leadership that have talked about regime change. Some have talked about the Supreme Leader that they would like to take out.

Are the Israelis going to be comfortable that this is enough, that they've accomplished what they want to in this war? That's highly unclear. Certainly, they've been much more comfortable escalating. They've been much more comfortable trying to bring the Americans in. They're the ones that have been targeting and assassinating large numbers of Iranian military leaders. They're doing a lot more damage.

And also, one more point, the fact that the Iranians are saying, you know, parity in terms of the number of missiles, certainly not parity in terms of the amount of damage being done. Again, we all know that. Is President Trump accepted to take the win?

Because right now, if you were to stop the war today, this is, frankly, Trump's most significant success, geopolitically, of his second term. Now, again, unclear the Israelis will accept that, but I suspect that Trump is pretty happy with what he's seeing right now.

[13:45:00]

COOPER: I mean, if this is the end of it, then it's a remarkable accomplishment, given the decades of efforts by various administrations to slow a nuclear program, prevent a nuclear program.

Just in terms of what happens next with Iran, if, in fact, this is it, how likely do you think it is that the Trump administration is essentially asking for direct negotiations between the United States, Steve Witkoff, whomever, and Iranian officials, no through third parties, Europe, Qatar, direct talks, and just, you know, straight deal-making?

That is not something, I mean, negotiations, as we have seen for decades with Iran, are notoriously long and difficult, and you know, back and forth, and a lot of kibitzing. Do you think it likely that they would actually then engage directly with the administration?

BREMMER: Willingness and capability are two different things. You know, we know part of the reason why there wasn't direct conversations between Trump and the Supreme Leader is because it was hard for the Iranians to get a message back directly to the United States. If they're not using e-mail, if they're not meeting together, I mean, if the Supreme Leader recognizes that a decapitation attack from Israel could come at any moment, their ability to respond in a unified way is significantly degraded.

And what we have seen so far over the past week is that Iran has acted with surprising restraint, and they've acted with cohesiveness. Now, I expect that to continue, but that doesn't mean that Iranian capabilities will allow it to continue. And might there be rogue elements of Iran's military leadership that decide to act by themselves? Might the command and control structure inside Iran start to degrade to the point that you can't give effective orders, either in terms of what the military should be doing or in terms of diplomacy? It's going to be hard. Even if the Supreme Leader decides that we need to negotiate with the Americans right now, putting that into practice and having, you know, sort of ongoing talks that you feel that you can play a significant role in may be really hard to do, especially if the Israelis are continuing to take shots at you.

COOPER: Well, one last question to you. It's also the Israeli piece of this. If you were Israel, do you give up the ability to strike at will in the skies of Iran?

I mean, if, say, you stop offensive operations right now or whenever, do you still have the ability to project power at will inside Iran? Is that something you just maintain for years?

BREMMER: Well, they haven't given it up with Hezbollah over the past months. It's hard to imagine they would give it up with Iran. You know, they describe it as mowing the grass. And if they see a target of opportunity, certainly if they were to see the Iranians trying to set up another nuclear site, one would expect that Israel would take a shot. You'd expect the Israelis to continue to engage in espionage, cyber attacks, other capabilities that would make it extremely unwise for nuclear scientists to want to go about their daily business as they had status quo ante in Iran.

I think unless the Trump administration was prepared to put pressure on Israel that they have certainly not shown any inclination to going forward and saying, we don't want you to do anything, it's hard for me to imagine that Israel would take that off the table.

COOPER: yes. All right, Ian Bremmer, I appreciate you being with us. Thank you, really interesting.

I want to go to Zach Cohen in DC. Zach, I understand you have some new reporting.

ZACH COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Anderson, we're learning from a source familiar that Iranian officials did give Qatar advance notice prior to launching the attack at the U.S. military base located there. And this was coordination, I'm told, intended to minimize casualties and preserve the possibility of a diplomatic off- ramps. It tells you a little bit about the proportionality of this retaliatory Iranian attack.

And similarly, we're also told by a defense official who confirms that the base there in Qatar was attacked by medium-range ballistic missiles emanating and originating from the country of Iran.

[13:50:00]

So a defense official acknowledging what we've been talking about here for the last several minutes, up to an hour. As well, very important here, no reports of U.S. casualties at this time, but the Defense Department continuing to monitor the situation closely. COOPER: Zach Cohen, appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Joining me now is former CNN Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr. She's currently a fellow at the USC, the USC Annenberg Center on Communication, Leadership, and Policy. Barbara, it's great to see you. What stands out to you about this latest attack by Iran, by the response, and what seems like the pre-warning about it from Iran?

BARBARA STARR, FORMER CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think it's just absolutely extraordinary and probably needs a heavy dose of common sense from everybody here, because what are we really talking about? What we appear, at least to be talking about, is the U.S. was aware that Iran was going to launch these missiles at the U.S. base in Qatar and possibly at other locations in the Gulf.

So what do you have here? You have a U.S. adversary making clear that they are going to launch weapons against the U.S. The U.S. knew this, decided not to strike first. That's my first point.

I find that extraordinary. You have to believe the Iranians that it was going to be a proportional response. U.S. intelligence presumably would have seen launchers, would have seen missiles on launchers, and still they decide not to strike when these are aimed at U.S. assets.

So where does it put President Trump? I mean, does he now order some type of retaliatory action, or does he say, OK, not much happened, Iran aimed at us, but we can move on from this? That's putting the president in a political box, I think, and also a national security box, because you have to assume America's adversaries around the world are watching this very carefully, and they will be watching to see what kind of U.S. response here may or may not be coming.

So I find it just remarkable. Remarkable that the U.S. knew this, OK, but remarkable now what President Trump may have to do to respond to all of this. Does he just say, OK, never mind and wait, essentially, until next time?

COOPER: I mean, I guess the issue is, Barbara, if everybody, I mean, not to underplay the seriousness of missiles flying through the air and being targeted at a country, even with forewarning, but if this is some sort of kabuki theater or some sort of just, you know, statement display, does the U.S. need to respond if everybody on the world stage knows what just happened?

I don't know the answer to that. I'm not sure there is an answer to that, but it is an extraordinary, what we have just witnessed and believe, what we are hearing right now, it's that all the reporting on this is really extraordinary.

Barbara, I appreciate you being with us. Stay with CNN. Our breaking news coverage continues after this short break.

[13:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: I'm Anderson Cooper in Tel Aviv. Thanks for joining us. The breaking news continues.

Iran retaliates. Qatar's defense ministry saying that its air defense has successfully intercepted an Iranian missile attack targeting the Al Udeid U.S. air base in Qatar, which is the largest U.S. base in the region. As of now, no casualties have been reported.

An Israeli source says 10 missiles were fired toward Qatar. One launched toward Iraq, though we have less information about that. Iran releasing a statement claiming that the number of missiles used to attack the base in Qatar was the same as the number of bombs the U.S. used to strike Iranian nuclear facilities.

That is important that they are pointing that out. It's a sign that they are trying to show that this is a reciprocal attack, not in the damage done, but just surely in the number of missiles fired compared to the number of bombs dropped by the U.S.

CNN's Clarissa Ward and Jeremy Diamond are with me now.

Clarissa, first of all, what are you hearing from all the sources you have in the region? And what do you make of what we've learned just over the last hour?

WARD: I think people are sort of breathing a little bit of a sigh of relief, which may sound counterintuitive after an attack like this, but the understanding we have is that this was carefully telegraphed to the Qataris. The Qataris, of course, then telegraphed it to the Americans. And so this was largely symbolic.

COOPER: Carefully calibrated by Iran to the Qataris.

WARD: Carefully calibrated by Iran in order that there would be no casualties, but it's still a display of force. They can market internally for their domestic audience as a big success.

COOPER: Which we've heard from Fred Pleitgen, that's exactly what they've done.

WARD: That's exactly what they've done.

COOPER: They have portrayed this as a strong response.

WARD: And we saw this, Anderson. This is the exact same playbook that we saw after President Trump ordered the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the IRGC head.

COOPER: The Iran Revolutionary Guard head.

WARD: Exactly. And he was a huge, towering figure in Iran. The Iranians were very upset. The way they responded, they struck an American U.S. air base, Assad, in Anbar province in Iraq. Nobody was killed. And then that was it. They were able to sort of draw a line under it and move on.

And so the hope now, I think, for many in the region will be like, OK, maybe now we can hit the pause button, see where this goes, allow diplomacy to play out. Though, obviously, a lot of that ...

END