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Trump: "We Have Completed Our Very Successful Attack on the Three Nuclear Sites in Iran"; Sources: U.S. B-2 Bombers Used to Target Iranian Nuclear Sites. Trump Announces Air Strikes on Three Nuclear Sites in Iran. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired June 21, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: -- on the screen, he says in a -- in a Truth Social post, "We have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran including Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran airspace. A full payload of bombs was dropped on the primary site Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American warriors. There is not another military in the world that could have done this. Now is the time for peace. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
I'm here with CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv. Obviously Jeremy, this is something that we have been waiting for and watching for. We got the word earlier today that B-2s were in the air. There has been some reporting they're heading toward Guam. We don't know exactly what aircraft were used in this.
They said a full payload of bombs, which there had been a lot of discussion about how many of these bunker buster bombs would be required to really damage Fordow facility. Unclear if just one would be enough. He says bombs. It sounds like there were multiple strikes.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And, you know, even as he is talking about multiple nuclear sites in Iran, the one to key in on is the Fordow facility, because we know that that is the facility that is buried deep beneath a mountain in Iran that would require those B-2 bombers and would require those 30,000-pound bombs to be dropped over that facility.
And most experts have estimated that it would take multiple bombing runs to actually get to the depth required to destroy that facility in Fordow. And it appears that the United States has now carried out that strike. The question, as you said, how many runs did it take? Were they able to destroy it completely? You know, we don't know that yet. We don't have that battle damage assessment that they need to do.
COOPER: We should also point out the Natanz facility, according to the IAEA and others, that did -- that was damaged by Israeli authorities. That was damaged early on in Israel's actions against Iran. The exact level of damage was not clear. There were some initial reports that perhaps the damage was worse than it actually was.
The -- the electrical supply to the centrifuges at the Natanz facility were cut -- that electrical supply was cut. I spoke to the head of the IAEA, who said he believed that that would have caused some of the centrifuges in that Natanz facility to spin out of control and probably go offline and be damaged. But again, it seemed like Fordow wasn't had not really been directly hit as far as we know.
DIAMOND: That's right. The Israelis had primarily focused their attention on the Natanz facility. We know that they had done extensive damage to the above ground facilities, some damage to the below ground facilities, and then as well some damage to Isfahan as well, although they left a lot of that untouched.
Some of that, according to experts who I've spoken to, may stem from the risk of radiation that could stem from, you know, if you hit that facility very hard. The Fordow facility, they didn't seem to really strike that, the Israelis themselves, and that reflected the fact that they knew that in order to actually get to that facility, you would need those GBU-57s, which are those enormous 30,000-pound bunker- busting bombs.
COOPER: Which, by the way, have never actually been used in combat, and certainly not in a situation like this.
DIAMOND: That's right. I mean, the United States has used a lesser bomb known as the mother of all bombs, which is in Afghanistan. That bomb is actually not the mother of all bombs if you consider the GBU- 57, because it is smaller than this 30,000-pound bunker-busting bomb, which would, every expert has said, would be the bomb that you would use for the Fordow facility.
At this stage, we don't know that they have actually used that. We don't have confirmation from the military, but presumably that would indeed be the weapon of choice for this facility.
COOPER: The thing about those bombs is that they can penetrate deep through concrete, deep through fortifications. The question is, would you need to hit with multiple of those -- of those bombs in the exact same spot to really get to the depths that we're talking about? I mean, there's estimates of how deep the Fordow facility goes, and I've seen a variety of them. But it's extensive. I mean, it is very deep in this mountain.
DIAMOND: Without a doubt. And you not only have the mountainous structure, you know, the natural fortification that is provided in this facility, but there's also been some analysis that there is likely some reinforced concrete as well.
So, you have the mountain itself, but then you may also have reinforced fortifications for this facility itself. And that's why most experts have said it would likely take multiple runs of these GBU-57s, known as these 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs, to be dropped over this facility.
I do think that it is interesting that we are also talking about U.S. strikes, according to the president, on these two other nuclear facilities as well. And that, you know, all the attention has been focused on this Fordow facility, which is where the United States was needed in order to destroy that facility. [20:05:04]
But the fact that President Trump authorized strikes on these two other nuclear facilities as well indicates that he really wanted to make sure that this job was done. And this is an attempt by the United States, by President Trump, to truly eliminate the entire Iranian nuclear program and that just cannot be understated.
COOPER: Particularly the site at Isfahan, my understanding is that there were large reservoirs of nuclear fuel there, and that during the initial -- the initial attack a week ago, that site had not been struck, and there had been some thought that perhaps that was intentional to kind of give options to the Iranians, kind of a window to -- to have a diplomatic effort.
DIAMOND: I mean, we haven't even talked yet about the enormous head fake here from President Trump. I mean, you know, in just the last few days, President Trump talked about giving the Iranians two weeks, right, two weeks for diplomacy to run its course.
COOPER: He always said within two weeks --
DIAMOND: Within two weeks, within two weeks --
COOPER: The headline was two weeks.
DIAMOND: But that was the headline, and the impression that he was giving was that there was time. He was giving the impression that there was time to negotiate a deal with Iran, and now he has decided to take military action. And the question is, when he talked about nearly two weeks, was he indeed trying to give the Iranians that impression in order to be able to carry out these strikes without the Iranians knowing that it was coming?
COOPER: Some of the guests that we have had on over the last several days have raised the possibility that this was kind of a head fake. There was also that diplomatic effort meeting of foreign ministers in Geneva yesterday. One could make the argument perhaps he wanted to see if anything would actually come out of that. It didn't seem -- certainly didn't seem like that ended with any -- any movement toward a sign that Iran was really serious about negotiations.
I want to go to CNN's Alayna Treene, who joins us now, and also Natasha Bertrand, who's on the phone.
Alayna, can you just talk about the statement that the president has made? Who have you seen coming in and out of the White House this evening in the last few hours?
ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Yeah, look, I mean, obviously an incredibly significant move here by the White House, really just saying that they have moved forward in striking these three Iranian nuclear facilities, really trying to aid the Israelis in their goal of wiping out Iran's entire nuclear program.
Notable as well that he thanked American warriors and said there's not another military in the world that could have done this. Also saying that all planes are now outside of Iranian airspace.
Now, to give you some context, the president did land back at the White House. He was at his club in New Jersey about a little bit over, around two hours ago now, and he went right into the West Wing to meet with his national security team. We spotted some of them coming in, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe, someone who's been very influential, we're told, behind the scenes in briefing the president, but also giving him, laying out different options he could take here.
We also spotted moments ago Secretary of State Marco Rubio just outside the West Wing on the phone. Look, the president -- the Marine, is still out there continuing to huddle with his national security officials as he released this statement.
But I think we can't understate how big of a move this is, especially as we know that the president, I have been told repeatedly in my conversations this week with White House officials, really struggling with this decision of whether or not to move forward with U.S. strikes, or just continue to try and see if there could be some diplomatic solution.
Clearly, tonight he has moved forward and showed that he has made his decision, and they have already completed these strikes and gotten out of the Iranian airspace.
COOPER: Alayna Treene, from the White House, thanks very much.
I want to go to retired General Mark Kimmitt, who is joining us. General Kimmitt, I'm wondering what you make of -- of this announcement by the president and the decision to act now.
BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY (Ret.): Well, I'm fascinated, and candidly, I'm impressed. I never really could understand what the two- week pause meant or what it was for. What was left to negotiate? What were we going to expect the Iranians to offer? In many ways, it was much like a Trump deal. I mean, he's trying to make a deal to buy an apartment, but all of a sudden the apartment was destroyed. So, where's the negotiation?
So, I think the use of deception and trickery in this case, first of all, was successful, but second of all, saved the potential loss of American lives.
COOPER: Let me ask you, just in terms of like a bomb damage assessment, how long will that take? I don't know if that's something the U.S. does, if Israel is doing that, or some combination thereof.
KIMMITT: Well, you can anticipate that every intelligence gathering asset that the United States has from satellite to communications intelligence to human intelligence is now focused at least on Fordow to make sure that they have an accurate reading of what damage has been done to that site. And if there's going to be a need for attack or reattack.
[20:10:05] COOPER: How -- I mean, when you have a site like that, which is so deeply, so deep underground and in the side of this mountain, how hard is it to get accurate bomb damage assessments? If you don't have, you know, I mean, from -- from satellite imagery, if you're -- if you do not have special forces on the ground, actually inside a facility.
KIMMITT: Well, hopefully you're hearing and intercepting their communications, whether it's digital or whether it's voice to get some sense of what happened down there. But you're absolutely right. You probably will only get a 10% answer to that question.
I would not want to be the target tiers in the bomb damage assessment teams that now have to turn to the president and say, we got it, we didn't get it, or we didn't get it enough. Likely, there will be a need for a re-attack. It certainly could have damaged, but probably did not destroy the facility.
So, we'll just have to wait and see when that information comes into the president, what his next action is going to be.
COOPER: The president talked about, I'm looking for at his -- his social media posts. He said, "All planes are now outside of Iran airspace, a full payload of bombs was dropped on the primary site, Fordow."
What would a full payload specifically mean? How many bombs are we talking about? Do you know?
KIMMITT: Well, it depends. I think that some of that is classified, but what I tell you is it probably has the lift capacity to carry no more than one of the mobs that we've been talking about. But as you've seen, really the --
COOPER: Only one per plane.
KIMMITT: -- the B-2 has 30,000 pounds and -- and that -- that's a pretty heavy bomb.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: So, I don't know, but --
KIMMITT: Well --
COOPER: Yeah.
KIMMITT: Yeah, but I'm an army guy, so I'm not an expert either. So, but I would anticipate they could only carry one and -- but they could certainly carry a lot of 2000 pound bombs. You've seen significant number of videos showing the B-2 dropping large amounts of bombs, and it could very well be that they dropped the massive ordinance penetrator at Fordow and used 2000-pound bombs on the other sites. I don't know, again, we don't have the information and an army guy is rarely the person to be asking air force questions.
COOPER: OK. If you can stay with us, I want to also bring in Fareed Zakaria, and our Jim Sciutto.
Fareed, first of all, what do you make of -- of this breaking news?
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: It is extraordinary. I think Trump has managed to do something that he -- to be fair to him, had always marked out, which was he did not want Iran to have a nuclear program. But what's clear is in the last few weeks, he shifted ground on two issues.
The first was he had started out in a position which was Iran can have some enrichment, just has to be monitored and things like that. He moved to what was essentially the Israeli position, which was zero enrichment. And he -- and he outlined that in the middle of about two weeks ago.
The second is that he seemed to have lost faith that the Iranians were negotiating in earnest. And he got, he seems to have gotten frustrated because I think this was not his first option. His first option was a deal with the Iranians, but the maximalist condition he placed was with zero enrichment was -- was one the Iranians didn't seem willing to go to.
And he was -- I think he thought the Iranians were not negotiating earnestly. So, the result is you have -- you have this extraordinary move, which almost certainly has destroyed almost all of Iran's enrichment.
The question, however, is you still need diplomacy. You still need a political solution because the Iranians can rebuild. You know, remember, this is a nation that has been pursuing nuclear energy for 70 years. The programs were first started under the Shah of Iran. They can rebuild. It will take them years. There will be -- it will be difficult.
So, the best way to make sure that Iran stays non-nuclear would be now to have some kind of agreement. And President Trump seems to understand that because the only part of that truth social post that's in all caps is now is the time for peace. So, he clearly still wants to make a deal.
The Iranians don't have a lot of options, but that doesn't mean they will -- they will be ready or willing to very quickly make a deal. This is a very stubborn, nationalistic, prideful group of people, very ideological.
[20:15:03]
So, the key issue is now, how do they view this devastating setback? Do they say, look, let's accept finally the -- the Israeli-Trump condition, zero enrichment, or are they going to -- is this going to get their backs up?
COOPER: And also just the control room, I'd like you to put that map back up and also just have Fareed and I in two boxes so we continue to talk just so our viewers can get a sense of the locations we are talking about. It's three sites, Fareed, Fordow, Natanz, Isfahan. All of them, according to the president, have been hit by in this round by the United States.
I was just talking to General Kimmitt about, you know, bomb damage assessment. I don't know that they will instantly know, or how long it will take them to know how much damage there is, but there is the possibility of needing to -- to strike it again?
ZAKARIA: There is that possibility, but I would suspect that unless something went badly awry, these were pretty effective. Because remember, the Israelis have bombed Isfahan and Natanz already. Natanz and Fordow are the main ones. The Israelis bombed Natanz in a very ingenious way where they bombed essentially the power supplies.
So, Natanz is -- was already largely inoperable. I mean, I think the numbers were something like 70% of the centrifuges were not working anymore. So, further damage to Natanz means it's almost surely out of the game. Fordow is the big question, because as you pointed out, it's very deep in the mountain. But if you damage it enough, Anderson, it becomes very difficult.
You know, the geology plays in both directions. If you bomb it so much that the geology becomes unstable, you can't really have a very large, complicated nuclear facility with tens of thousands of centrifuges running in a place where, you know, parts of the mountain are geologically unstable and could cave at any point. So, I would guess there's a very good chance that substantial damage was already done.
COOPER: Fareed, I want to bring in also Jim Sciutto, who's joining us by phone. Jim, your thoughts right now.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: One thought to echo to some degree what Fareed said is that this has been a bridge too far for multiple administrations going back as long as Iran has had a threatening nuclear program that --
COOPER: Jim, I just want to jump in and just let our viewers know, the president is going to be speaking at 10 p.m. Eastern Time tonight, while obviously bringing that to you live.
Continue, please.
SCIUTTO: But to the point, a U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, particularly its most highly protected nuclear facilities, and Fordow being the most protected, the deepest by design, it's too far for multiple administrations, Democrat and Republican, until now, because the concern was you do so and you're at war with Iran.
Now, presidents of both parties have considered such a strike, but pulled back from the brink because of that difficulty, because of that danger. But of course, they shared the same goal, which was to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
The Obama administration attempted with a nuclear agreement, pulled the U.S. out of that agreement, and then attempted to come to its own nuclear agreement short of war. But now we have a U.S. president who made a decision to go to war, in effect, to end that nuclear program or set it back significantly. That is quite a moment for us to witness here, and even, of course, a president who within the last 24, 48 hours have been talking about negotiating to end the program.
It is a watershed moment, and we don't know the consequences, and we don't know how far this will go. We don't know how Iran will respond. We don't know how, if the U.S. has to strike again. One can reasonably say, or at war, given -- given the U.S. using its considerable military resources to take out a nuclear program that Iran considers existential, right, I mean, pursued one to allow for the survival of its leadership.
So, this is quite a watershed moment. The other point I would make is that in doing so, the U.S. used some of its most advanced weaponry to get to this site. You need bunker buster bombs, as they're known, the most powerful, as General Kimmitt was referring to, the GBU-57, designed to penetrate hundreds of yards, meters deep in the ground to get it at a site like Fordow. In fact, it was developed in advance. Bunker busters existed going back to World War II, but not to this size and capability.
[20:20:00]
This is a weapon that was designed with Iran in mind, with striking targets like Iran's buried nuclear facilities in mind. So, it's a watershed moment, both in terms of the decision the U.S. president has made here, and we don't know what the consequences will be, but also the amount of force used to do so.
COOPER: Standby if you can. I want to bring back in retired General Mark Kimmitt. General, just in terms of follow-on effects and what U.S. forces in the region should be prepared for or concerned about, there's obviously a lot of U.S. personnel, there's some -- there's tens of thousands of U.S. personnel in this region. There's the Houthis, who still have the ability to project power to some degree. Hezbollah is greatly weakened, Hamas obviously as well. How concerned are you about Iran trying to utilize what proxies they have left in response to this?
KIMMITT: They should be very concerned. First of all, I'd say my -- my telephone is lit up by every Air Force colleague of mine telling me that the B-2 bomber can take two GBU-57 mops and 80 JDAM 2,000-pound bombs.
Now, that said, look, the Iranians are down, but they're not out. The fact remains is that proxy networks, while diminished, are still lethal. You take a look at the significant number of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq alone, they can put up quite a fight and put a significant amount of American interests, American troops, American infrastructure at risk.
The fleet at Bahrain, the Air Force in Al Udeid, the other assets that we have around the region, they have been on a heightened, if not the highest level of force protection probably since the Israeli attack last week.
But candidly, this will be an opportunity for the Americans to demonstrate their force protection capabilities. I think that every Iranian militia, every Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps sleeper cell in the major cities, candidly, any aggrieved group out there who has a beef against the United States is going to see this as an opportunity to attack. I would suspect those American facilities are well- protected.
Certainly our embassies are, certainly our military bases are. I would expect the soft targets would be the ones that these organizations would attack first.
COOPER: General, can you just repeat what your Air Force friends were telling you? So, each B-2 can carry two of these bunker buster bombs, as well as how many other ordnance? How much other ordnance?
KIMMITT: It can carry 8 -- 80 joint direct attack munitions, roughly 2,000-pound bombs that have sensors on them that take them direct -- directly into the target.
COOPER: So, it can carry 80 of those 2,000-pound bombs that have sensors and two of the bunker busters?
KIMMITT: Or not and.
COOPER: Or. OK. So, the president had said -- yeah, the president had said that they used a full payload. So, if there were two involved, then we can obviously see what was potentially involved in this. We don't know the details of what ordnance was used against what site. But obviously, that Fordow facility seemed to be the prime target, as the president indicated in -- in his -- in his social media post.
As, you know, Israel has indicated, regime change was not, while an official goal, was certainly something that would not be undesirable to them. The president -- Prime Minister Netanyahu, had called on Iranians to rise up, as we have seen in demonstrations in years past in Iran.
How concerned are you in a situation like this that there is mission creep, that there, you know, it starts with this and then who knows what retaliation is and things escalate? How does one prevent that, I guess, is the question?
KIMMITT: I think I lost most of your question. But having said that, I think the issue of regime change is something that at this point ought to be taken off the table. External regime change, for sure.
And let's not hope for internal regime change as part of our -- as part of our planning. I think the real question, I mean, despite the two-decade experience with the United States and regime change, if you take just a look at the country of Iran, the huge size of it, the number of millions and millions of people, it's about three times the size of Iraq. I don't think that's a mission that the Israelis who are talking most about regime change, I don't think there's any way they would take on that responsibility.
[20:25:25]
And certainly an American presence would not be feasible. And it's unlikely that the international community would step in after any kind of, say, targeted assassination of key leadership and a leadership vacuum in that country.
COOPER: I'm going to bring in our correspondents here with me in just a moment. First, I do want to go quickly to Brett McGurk. Brett, given your experience, you and I were on the air when this -- when we got word of Israel's operations eight days ago. I'm wondering what you make now of what we have now learned the U.S. has done and what questions are foremost in your mind to get answered about what just happened.
BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Anderson, looking back from that Thursday night when we were on air, I think the die was cast. I think we talked that night about Fordow and you just can't leave Fordow untouched. And this operation, I know it well because we spent about two years refining it, making sure it's ready if a president ever needed it. I'm fairly confident it was successful.
Anderson, I just spoke with a very senior administration official. They feel that the strike was very effective. They also made the point, I think importantly, they are speaking to regional leaders and to Iran that this is it. This is about the nuclear program. This is not an expanded campaign.
They still want to get back to the path of a diplomatic arrangement, which has been on the table for some time. So, that is the message I think we're likely to hear from the president at 10 o'clock. They are prepared for a potential Iranian response.
I would put it in three categories. We know them well, missiles, militias, and terrorism or hostage-taking. But I think we have, as I understand it, both sent a warning to Iran not to think about that. And if they do, we would have a counter, trying to avoid going up that ladder. There will be a lot of diplomacy here tonight. It's ongoing right now, making clear to Iran, this is about your three nuclear sites. It does not go on from here. But whatever choice Iran makes next will be very important.
And, you know, we talked last night, Anderson, I mean, there was an opening yesterday. Had the Iranian foreign minister signaled any opening to a diplomatic path, and he just did not at all.
And there was more diplomacy today, a lot of back channels, very dynamic, I've actually never seen anything like it. The fluidity today, everybody talking back channels, I was talking to a lot of my former counterparts, trying to find some opening and press upon Iran, like, look, guys, agree to sit with the Americans and -- and sit down on the deal that they presented six weeks ago. And there was just no opening from the Iranians.
So, in any case, we'll see more tonight. This was a very, I know this operation down to the T, I am fairly confident it was quite successful on those three sites. But in any case, the message now going out is that this is it. And this can be the ceiling of this escalation and try to get a deal.
I say one more thing, Anderson, you mentioned last night, it's a little counterintuitive. But there are talks ongoing, Hamas is sending a delegation to Cairo to talk about a ceasefire in Gaza, which is extraordinary in the backdrop of this arrangement. And those who are working on that believe there might be an opening to actually get a ceasefire in Gaza, which is desperately needed.
So, there is some hope here, some hope that this can lead to not only some de-escalation on the Iran situation, because I think the Israelis will culminate their operation here soon and possibly in Gaza. That's the best case. The worst case is the Iranians have mustered a counter response and we'll see that unfold.
But as this played out today, just a final point, the Israelis are doing airstrikes, significant airstrikes right around the Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, thinking about potential responses there. I think the ground is very well prepared. So, again, Iran can do missiles, militias, terrorism.
We know what they try to do. They are incredibly degraded from what we had assumed. But we have to see where this goes. But I just wanted -- that's what I've heard from a senior officials involved in this. Those are the message going out to the Iranians and to regional officials. And I think we'll hear more later tonight.
COOPER: I just want to reiterate, I mean, you have an extraordinary record of service. You have heard from a senior official the details on this, which you've just given to us and that the U.S. has sent the message to Iran that this is essentially won and done. It's no further from the U.S. as long as nothing else further on happens. Is that correct?
BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: The objective of the mission are the three nuclear sites. That's the objective. And so if everything stops here, that's it. If Iran tomorrow, I don't think they will, but if tomorrow they come and say, OK, let's sit down, I think there's a path to an agreement.
Look, these sites will eventually be rebuilt in some way. They can be rebuilt in a way that allows Iran to have a civil nuclear program. I do not think Iran will ever again have enrichment program because the Iran we have today, they have no air defense. And I doubt the Israelis are going to permit the Iranians to rebuild an air defense network.
So it's a -- it's just a totally different Middle East than we have assumed even two years ago. But Iran has capabilities. Its missiles, malicious terrorism, and they're going to have some choices to make, Anderson. But bottom line, yes, that is a message going out tonight diplomatically trying to say, this is what this is about. This is not about regime change. Again, something you and I have been talking about.
This is not about regime change. It's about your nuclear facilities. Should have taken the deal. You didn't. This is where we are. It can stop here or it can escalate. And the objective through that diplomacy is not to go up that escalation ladder, to try to stop it here. But, you know, this is -- look, this is an incredibly serious moment. I think that diplomacy has to be active, engaged from all sides. Our allies, our partners, even those who might not agree with this
decision, trying to ensure we do not go up that ladder. But if we do, I'm fairly confident that, you know, CENTCOM has prepared our own counters should that happen.
COOPER: Brett, use your judgment on what you can say, but I just want to ask, how confident can U.S. officials be, Air Force, everybody else, be about the level of damage is sufficient enough, particularly at the Fordow facility? Are they able to do real-time assessments of or does that require, you know, repositioning satellites, and that's going to take some time before there's an accurate sense of how damaged these facilities are based on this new attack?
MCGURK: One thing I'd say about this operation, we know a lot about it. So this is not like a new situation, a new target. I don't want to say too much, but I think our commanders, they knew exactly what to target, what to hit, the pilots. So that's one thing. But yes, there will be over the coming hours, as light comes up, there will be battle damage assessments to determine the success.
But I think right now they believe it was very successful based upon what was practiced and rehearsed over many years. I have to, you know, the massive ordnance penetrator is a munition that back in the Obama administration used to be discussed a lot, as we have that option, should it ever come to that. We all hope it would not come to that. But this is a military mission that has been honed across administrations with the hope that it would never have to be used.
Now, tonight it has been used, but this is something that has been rehearsed, practiced for years across presidencies. So I think they knew exactly what they were doing and feel good about the results. But I think, yes, they will do an assessment probably tomorrow, over the coming days, make sure if you have to go back and hit again something else that I've been involved in that in the past, that could be a possibility.
But again, the message here going out to the region and Tehran, this is about the nuclear facilities. This is not an expanded mission set. That's what this is about. And it can stop here.
COOPER: I don't know if you know or can say, but I have to ask, do you know how many of these bunker busters were used?
MCGURK: I can't say exactly.
COOPER: OK.
MCGURK: I think Mark just mentioned how many each B-2 can carry, but the mop in particular, we've never used it, Anderson. This is the first in military history. And this particular munition was really designed for a target like Fordow. So it's a first. But the assessment as of now, what I've been told, and is that they feel that it was very effective. But again, I think we'll know more here as day breaks and we get some more information.
COOPER: Yes. Brett McGurk, thank you very much. We'll continue to check in with you.
I just want to put up two posts from the president. One, he's posting about addressing the nation. He's going to talk at 10:00 p.m.
[20:35:04]
We can put that post up. I've yet to actually see it, but I'm told he is going to be addressing. He says, "I'll be giving an address to the nation at 10:00 p.m. at the White House regarding a very successful military operation in Iran. This is an historic moment for the United States of America, Israel and the world. Iran must now agree to end this war. Thank you."
I also want to put up the original post that the president put up, which is what announced all of this. I'll read you that as we get it, to put it on the screen. He said, this was just about 30 or so minutes ago, 35 minutes or so ago. "We have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran airspace. A full payload of bombs was dropped on the primary site Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American warriors. There's not another military in the world that could have done this. Now is the time for peace. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
Clarissa Ward is here with me, as well as Jeremy Diamond. Also, Nic Robertson is in Haifa, Israel.
Clarissa, let's start with you. Your thoughts. You and I were talking about this earlier. Will this happen? When it will happen?
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Will this happen? When will it happen? This is, on the one hand, not surprising and yet still quite shocking because this is definitely a new chapter in history. It's one that was expected. And yet still, I think we're trying to get our arms around what the real implications of it are. I've been trying to contact people in the region for the last hour. Obviously it's the middle of the night. No one is answering their phones.
People in Iran don't have internet at the moment, but I think based on what we've been hearing, one thing I can say with confidence is that it will be magical thinking to assume that there will not be some kind of a response for this because for the Iranian leadership and for the ayatollah, this is an existential issue. He has staked his credibility on this. He has made it clear abundantly on multiple occasions that if the U.S. intervenes militarily and in fact, his deputy foreign minister told our own Christiane Amanpour just two nights ago that if there is a military intervention on behalf of the United States, they will have no choice but to respond forcefully.
The primary target, obviously, most likely the easiest target, the softest target would be U.S. troops in the region. But you can also be looking at softer targets, ordinary citizens in the region. And so this is kind of Pandora's box. This is the whole reason that the Europeans had tried to gather everyone together to sit down in Geneva with limited success, granted, but with some kind of a rough framework, at least for a path forward and with the hope, perhaps naively, that this two-week timeline meant that there was two weeks to try to coalesce some kind of consensus around some sort of framework.
It's clear now that the two weeks was a ruse, and indeed many Israeli officials who we've been talking to, the more optimistic ones, had always thought that perhaps this was a ruse. This was smoke and mirrors to throw people off the scent and then go ahead and act militarily. But it definitely throws a real curveball to anybody who is involved in trying to work on the diplomatic component.
And certainly makes sense why we have seen the U.S. embassy made the decision to close here in Jerusalem for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. They've been frantically trying to evacuate people out of the country, and I think people are going to be waking up to a new dawn, a new reality, a new Middle East and a huge amount of ambiguity around what comes next.
COOPER: It's interesting. Air raid sirens have not gone off. There has not been incoming as of yet. We haven't seen any today in fact, unclear if one could read into that, what that might mean. But it was interesting here from Brett McGurk that U.S. officials and others are sending messages to Iran saying this was it. This was the target. It's not about regime change.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, obviously, for President Trump, I mean, as he has authorized these strikes, there are, you know, there's one thing that he doesn't want and that is Iranian retaliation that could potentially draw the United States even deeper into a conflict in the Middle East. That that seems to have been the main reason for why he was hesitating about carrying out these strikes in Iran, was the possibility that Iran would likely attack U.S. troops based in the Middle East.
And one thing to keep in mind with that, first of all, there are tens of thousands of U.S. troops in the Middle East, and they are much closer than we are right now to Iran. You know, they are in Bahrain. They're in Iraq. They are in the United Arab Emirates. And those sites can be targeted, not necessarily with ballistic missiles, but with less sophisticated missiles and which Iran has in much larger quantities, and which the United States does not have as many air defenses in those areas as they do right here, where you have the Iron Dome.
[20:40:12]
You have David sling, you have Arrow Three, and you also have the United States THAAD system as well. And so the two primary targets for Iran right now will be those U.S. bases in the Middle East, but also Israel as well. And so we will be waiting to see whether or not they can and whether they choose to carry out a significant retaliation tonight.
COOPER: We just learned that some members of Congress were notified of the attack. Obviously, that's significant. There have been a number of members of Congress, mostly Democrats, saying that the President Trump would have to get permission from Congress in order to undertake something like that. Clearly, that did not happen. But he gave some notification from what we are learning, some members were notified.
Nic Robertson, you're in in Haifa. Your thoughts right now.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, just a couple of days ago, Anderson, I was speaking to some former Mossad intelligence officials, very senior people, one of them in charge of the Iran file. And I was asking her, Shima Shine, about where Israel was in its war and in terms of military effort. She said, Israel is exactly where it would want to be and where it would plan to be at this moment.
The only thing that was missing was having the United States locked in at its side. This seems to be the sort of the piece of the puzzle that Israel would want in the -- in a broader context and a specific context in striking Iran. And it now has that. She was also the expert on Iran, on the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Her assessment of the way that Iran would interpret the United States coming in here would be that the leadership would feel that it's pressed into a corner, existential, as Clarissa said, and that they would have to strike back, that they could not be seen coming to the table when the United States, whom since their revolution in 1979 has been described as the great Satan, where the great Satan that is their nemesis has actually struck against them in this way that there would have to be a response. That's just a given. Exactly as Clarissa said.
So I found it interesting just a few hours ago, Anderson, when the IDF announced their latest most recent strikes on Iran, and they included Bandar Abbas, which is a very long way south and east in Iran, and that they were hitting drone storage facilities there and radar facilities. And the radar struck me as interesting because, of course, the radar arrays there will help Iran have visibility towards the east in the direction that the B-2s would have come from.
But the very fact that they struck Bandar Abbas not just sends a message that they can strike there, but will have been very aware of the fact that Bandar Abbas sits at the Straits of Hormuz, the choke point of the Persian Gulf, where so much of the world's oil comes out of countries like the UAE, like Saudi Arabia, and has to come by tanker through that 20-mile-wide stretch of water.
The stretch of water that in the past, moments of tension, Iran has mined ships, put mines in the water, has pirated and taken control of ships, and shut down this as a throttle point on the global economy. So I think the fact that Israel was striking there this evening as a precursor, we can now see to the strike on Fordow by the United States is an indicator of where they feel Iran might try to respond. s Jeremy was saying, using military facilities there to try to wreak havoc in the Gulf region.
COOPER: Yes. Nic Robertson will come -- we'll check in back with you. We're about 15 minutes away or so from remarks by President Trump. We'll obviously bring that to you live to hear what he has to say.
He announced this operation had taken place shortly before the 3:00 a.m. hour, 3:00 in the morning here in Tel Aviv. We got word.
I'm joined again by Brett McGurk.
Brett, just in terms of concern about U.S. forces in the region, other potential targets from Iran or their proxies, what kind of precautions do you think the U.S. has already begun to take, or would the U.S. have begun to take in order to prepare, in order to protect their forces?
MCGURK: I think, Anderson, we have been for the last eight days moving personnel, hardening positions, making sure air defenses in. So that has been ongoing. We've been seeing it particularly movement from some of those facilities in the Gulf states moving into Saudi Arabia a little more inland. So that has been ongoing.
[20:45:10]
We have in Iraq and Syria, probably it goes up and down a little bit, probably about 1200 troops or so at positions that can be vulnerable. I have to say, though, I want to remind everybody and the viewers after October 7th, those positions all came under attack almost every single day by Iranian backed militias. And three Americans were killed at a facility in Jordan. So these militias have attacked us and it stopped. We got a cease fire because we the number of things to deter further attacks.
But the point we know how to deal with that, it's a risk, but it's not a new risk. I think the challenge of Iran's missile program to some of our facilities in the Gulf is real, but the Israelis have been going after those missiles in a systematic way. I would not discount or understate the risk at all. I just -- what I have been seeing over the last eight days is preparations for this. I think this came sooner than many of us presumed, but there have been massive preparations, both to degrade Iranian capabilities and also to prepare ourselves for what might come.
I think missiles and, you know, Anderson, where you are, the long range missiles from Iran, there's a limited number, limited quantity. The Israelis seem to have been pretty effective here going after those, particularly the launchers. But Iran has a lot of shorter range missiles.
COOPER: Yes. They said they've destroyed about half the launchers for missiles.
MCGURK: Yes. So the launchers are key because if launchers determine how many you can get off in a single barrage, and that's important for the defense equation. Again, we did this back in April of last year. Massive ballistic missile, cruise missile drone attack all at the same time. In October of last year, 200 ballistic missiles at the same time heading to Israel. The defenses were very effective.
We've moved a lot of missile destroyers into the Eastern Mediterranean in the last week. I think we have five there now. That's very good. So preparations have been underway, but I -- look, this is extremely serious. I'm sure our intelligence community is doing everything to see what Iran might have in mind. And whether Iran, given their disarray, can really muster any sort of an effective response.
And the hope I know in the administration here is that the diplomacy and making clear to Iran that, you know, don't think about it, this can be it, prevails. That would not be unprecedented. And I have to say something, Anderson. You know, this, this event we're seeing right now, totally unprecedented. The last October, Israel launched an air attack into Iran after they were attacked by ballistic missiles. That had never been done before.
An overt air attack. Israel attacked Iran. The assumption was Iran would massively respond and they didn't. A couple other things, Anderson, to keep in mind, you know, all presidents are, their experience determines decision making. President Trump did the strike against Qasem Soleimani in January of 2020, and the response was not insignificant. About 15 ballistic missiles were fired at an American base.
There were a number of concussions from that attack, as you recall, and then that was it. Kind of put a cabin on it. The militias continued to do some things we had to deal with, but that was what we saw after that event. And an attack on Qasem Soleimani, who was the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps for Quds Force, kind of an iconic figure in Iran, again, was thought to be an event that would lead to potentially cataclysmic consequences. And it didn't.
This is different. This is an attack, American attack into Iran. Another unprecedented event. And I think there's an assumption Iran will do everything they can to throw what they have at us. But I don't -- that might not be right. We have to see, because there's been a lot of preparations, as we just discussed, and there's now a lot of diplomacy going on as well.
COOPER: Well, two things I want to just jump in. First of all, I misspoke. President Trump is going to speak at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time. I got the time change wrong here in Tel Aviv. So it's at 10:00 p.m. So that's a little bit more than an hour from now to our viewers. I think I said it was 15 minutes. I apologize for that.
But to your point, Brett, the -- earlier today Israel announced that they had killed in a late -- in a strike I believe it was today or maybe today it's already Sunday here. It's already almost 4:00 a.m. so I guess yesterday.
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But that they had killed, I think it was one or two top people in the Quds Force, which is the -- overseas arm for the Revolutionary Guard. So Israel has over the last eight or nine days effectively eliminated many of the people who would be involved in any kind of response of proxy forces. Correct?
MCGURK: Yes. As a military tactical campaign, this Israeli campaign over the last nine days has been incredibly effective. That's tactical. Does it lead to the strategic effect you want of Iran no longer having a nuclear enrichment program by which they might be able to produce a weapon, still remains to be seen. I think the odds of that after the American strikes tonight are very
high. But, you know, Israel's campaign the last nine days also completely unprecedented. I think if you asked anyone who follows the Middle East two years ago what would Iran do if Israel launched a massive military and intelligence campaign inside Iran, wiping out most of the military command, I think you would say Iran would start a major regional war, uncontrollable regional war, and they have not.
And there have been predictions of uncontrollable regional wars multiple times since October 7th, and it has not happened. So I think here there will be voices in Iran trying to throw everything they have at us, and there will be other voices cautioning a little more prudence. And the big question, you know, there's always been this analogy, Anderson, to Ayatollah Khomeini in 1988.
He supported a un Security Council resolution to end the Iran-Iraq war. He said, I had no choice but to drink from the poisoned chalice, meaning it had to make a compromise in that war. And there has always been a thought, if the Iranians are under so much pressure, Khamenei, the current supreme leader, could say, I have to drink from the poisoned chalice and give up the nuclear program. Here that choice has been made for him and how he responds will really determine what transpires in the next week. Again, I would not --
COOPER: Yes.
MCGURK: We have to be prepared for the worst. Prepared for the worst. And I hope the administration is doing that. You got to prepare for the worst and you work for diplomatically and other means for the best in which to contain the escalation, so that we're in a very dynamic situation right now that's going to unfold here over the coming days.
COOPER: I want to just check in with Clarissa Ward, Jeremy Diamond, who are here. It is remarkable the weakened state of Iran, not just tonight, but going into this Israeli military operation. I mean, systematically, Israel has over the last two years or so decimated much of Hezbollah with those pager bombs, walkie-talkie bombs, assassination of a Hamas official in a guest house in Iran of the Revolutionary Guard.
Obviously, the decimation of Hamas as well, even in Syria, eliminating air defenses, which seem to a lot of people on the outside, like during the troubles in Syria, why were they eliminating air defenses. They were paving a way for planes to be able to go and hit Iran without being knocked out of the sky.
WARD: And I think that, you know, when you talk to people in Iran and I'm actually just talking right now to a woman who's a journalist inside Iran, that's sort of exactly the fear that a wounded dog can be their most dangerous when they're kind of on the back foot, when they are weakened. I've just been speaking to this woman. I've been talking to her throughout the last couple of weeks, but particularly obviously in the last week.
She just messaged me to say, my god, everybody is awake. Everybody is in shock. Obviously they haven't had internet. It comes in small waves. She's asking, you know, what do you think is going to happen? How will it continue? And she said something that really sort of struck me. She said if the war continues, the country will be destroyed. And if it doesn't, the Islamic Republic will take its revenge on us.
And I think she speaks for a very specific voice in Iran. But it's an important voice because it's a voice we're not hearing so much of, because there's so much fear about speaking out in Iran, which is that voice of people who feel caught in the middle, who have no love for the regime, and the ayatollahs, who have seen their friends and activists killed for literally dancing in YouTube videos.
But it will also have no love for Israel, who also are fierce patriots who resent the very idea of being sort of bombed into submission or regime change. And I think for people like this, and there are a lot of them on the ground, this is a profoundly frightening moment because in some ways they are going to be the ones to pay the consequences, right?
[20:55:03]
They are going to be the ones to wake up tomorrow to a new normal with all the risks that that entails. She told me that people are being rounded up and arrested because obviously we have our own Fred Pleitgen who is inside Tehran. When you suggest to people, would you like to try to make contact with Fred, the answer is like, absolutely not, because there is such deep fear. There is such deep fear about talking to anyone, risking your life. And so now the feeling is that they could face the retaliation of this. They could face the wrath of the wounded dogs.
COOPER: Understandably, such paranoia in the regime in Iran about who can they trust, I mean --
WARD: Three of their top leaders in one week.
COOPER: Right. I mean, the assassinations that have taken place require knowledge of movement of these people. It's not all just done by satellites. Clearly, some of it --
WARD: It's infiltration.
COOPER: It's infiltration.
DIAMOND: And it's also years, years of work by Israel's clandestine services.
COOPER: I mean, they were able to put a bomb in a government -- in a Revolutionary Guard guesthouse.
WARD: Bathroom. Yes.
COOPER: In the bathroom. I mean, it's incredible.
DIAMOND: And also able to establish a explosive drone base inside of Iran. That means not only smuggling those drones inside of Iran for years and years, but actually having somewhat of a secure facility from which they could launch those drones.
I've also been texting my sources in the Israeli government, and I'm told that, according to a source familiar, that the Israelis did get a heads up from the United States that they were going to carry out this bombing attack on these nuclear facilities, including Fordow. Of course, for days now, the Israelis have been hoping that this is exactly the kind of decision that President Trump would make.
And indeed, tonight, they have now learned ahead of all of us before these bombing raids were carried out, that indeed the United States was planning to do that. And it has indeed now happened.
COOPER: If we still have Brett McGurk, Brett, just to the point that we just heard, how much coordination in advance would there be? I mean, obviously they would -- the U.S. would have to tell Israel, we are going to do this? We're entering airspace in which Israel is in large, you know, for the large part in control of the skies. Do you have a sense of how much coordination there has to be in something like this in advance?
I think we're having a problem with your audio.
MCGURK: I'm sorry.
COOPER: Yes, we lost your audio, so I'm sorry. We'll try to get --
MCGURK: Yes, Anderson.
COOPER: You're back now. OK.
MCGURK: Yes. To your question, this had to be highly coordinated with the Israelis because the airspace over Iran is effectively Israeli airspace right now. And so this hat you had to have military to military engagement. That's through CENTCOM and the IDF. I'm sure that was quite deep.
And again, looking at I think Nic just mentioned, if you look at what the Israelis are striking today, I think it was in preparation, if you really look at it for not only for the strike tonight, but also to try to degrade some of the capabilities that the Iranians might have in response.
So my assessment, I don't know firsthand, but my assessment, this would have been very, very highly coordinated military to military between the U.S. and Iran, at least to, I'm sorry, and Israel, at least to de-conflict to make sure we could get in and out safely.
COOPER: I want to go to Oren Liebermann who's on the phone.
Oren, you were on the air, leading coverage when all of this began. I'm not sure if you could imagine that, you know, eight or nine days later, the U.S. would be directly bombing Fordow and the three top facility, Natanz and Isfahan as well. What are you hearing from people? What are your thoughts?
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Well, it's an interesting question about --
COOPER: Hey, actually, Oren, I'm told we just got -- hey, Oren. I'm sorry. I just told you we got Fred Pleitgen who's on the phone in Tehran right now, so I got to go to him.
Fred, I don't know how long this call will last. What have you seen? What have you heard?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Hi, there. Anderson. Well, what's going on right now is that Iranian state media still obviously say they can't confirm the news. So it seems as though the Iranians right now are still having trouble confirming whether or not these strikes really took place. They obviously also have the news that President Trump has announced the strikes took place on the three nuclear installations.
What they keep pointing out this is on state TV is that these sites are all under supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. They say that they're trying to find out more information themselves. So clearly they're not in a position yet to confirm independently as far as Iran is concerned that all of this has really happened. But certainly the news of President Trump's announcement has come out.
What we've seen tonight in Tehran seem to be a bit of an uptick in strikes, especially on the outskirts of the Iranian capital. It seems to have been close to the areas where some of the air defenses might be. There was, especially in the evening hours, a lot of outgoing anti-aircraft fire. There seem to be --
