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Two Israeli Soldiers Killed in Israel's First Military Deaths of War; New Wave of Iranian Drone, Missile Strikes Reported Across Persian Gulf; Interview with Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA); Israel Launches Wide-Scale Strikes in Iran After Targeting Oil Sites; Analysis of Iran's Nuclear Threat; Analysis Suggests U.S. Responsible for Deadly School Strike. Aired 1-2p ET

Aired March 08, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:32]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now intensifying attack. Massive flames, thick plumes of smoke blanketing the skies of Tehran. Israeli strikes pounding Iran's fuel facilities, and now reports of black oil saturated rain falling on the Iranian capital. CNN is there on the ground.

Deadly explosions, Iran fighting back by unleashing a new wave of attacks on Gulf states despite earlier signals from Iran's president those attacks might stop. The fresh warning from Qatar's leader.

And a new supreme leader. Iran's clerics say they have chosen the country's next ayatollah. How Israel is now vowing to respond as the world waits for an official announcement.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington, and you are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

SCIUTTO: We begin with what we know right now as the U.S. and Israel's war on Iran enters its ninth day. Just moments ago, Israeli military says it launched what it called wide scale strikes across Iran. Just last night, Israel struck for the first time oil storage sites and refineries in the capital of Tehran. Those are -- those flames you're seeing there.

This morning millions of the city's residents woke up to a sky filled with thick black clouds like those. CNN's team inside Tehran saw blackened rain falling, appearing to be saturated with oil.

Several Iranian clerics say a new supreme leader has been chosen after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the very first hours of this war. They have not yet announced the name of the new supreme leader. And after Iran's president suggested on Saturday that strikes on fellow Gulf nations might end, countries across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are in fact reporting new strikes today.

You can see the results of one right there. All this comes as President Donald Trump, who has called for Iran's unconditional surrender, says he is not ruling out sending U.S. ground troops into Iran. It would be a remarkable step and of course great danger for those forces.

My colleague, CNN anchor Erin Burnett, she is live in Tel Aviv. She'll be joining me for the next several hours.

Erin, I understand there have been new air raid signals where you are.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, we've had several just over the past few hours. One actually ending just a minute or two before I came here to come on the air with you, Jim, and interestingly, you know, when those come in sometimes you can see the actual interceptions or missiles. Sometimes you hear them and may not see them.

Earlier today we heard, I did not see, but just very near where we are just a few blocks away, they say less than half a mile, an apartment was hit and you can see the evidence of what came in. People there believe that it may have been some sort of a cluster munition. We don't know that to be true, but there were people, they had gone into the shelter, and so they were not killed in that situation.

But this is what's happening here but also across the Gulf, as you know, and in Tehran, where they don't get the air raid siren warnings of the strikes that are happening and covering that sky with smoke and that acid black, oily rain that you just described, Jim.

I want to bring in our CNN colleague Nick Paton Walsh because there is obviously this other front in the war. You've got the Israel-Lebanon border. Israeli soldiers were killed there this morning, and that marks Israel's first military death since the war began.

So, Nick, as this widens, as this is escalating at this hour, what more are you learning about the circumstances surrounding these soldiers' deaths?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they appear to have been near a bulldozer at the time of this incident. An anti-tank rocket of some description fired by Hezbollah, causing these two first fatalities. 14 other Israeli soldiers have since moved began on the other side of the border behind me since this phase of the conflict began, being injured.

[13:05:06]

Now you're joining me as we've been hearing over the last hour or so, quite regular, what sounds like outgoing artillery fire presumably Israeli. And we've had alerts here as well. Hezbollah claimed to have attacked on this side of the border 13 separate times. So clearly intensification. I think it's fair to say at this stage a slightly more active Hezbollah than perhaps you might have expected, given claims over the Israelis to have had quite good control in some of the buffer zone here.

And I think possibly, too, discussion growing about exactly what the extent of the Israeli presence over the border behind me is or will be. We know that they've said they were putting more reinforcements in at the beginning of this a few days ago, around the fire positions. They retained these two casualties. We've seen these two deaths suggest that something wider is afoot. There are indications around here of more military maneuver than we saw when we were here a few days ago.

But it comes at a key time, though, Erin, of course, while Israel is engaged on two fronts. Another strike wave against Iran just announced. The next phase they called this recent move to hit various parts of the oil infrastructure of Iran, causing that thick black smoke and also to their claim to have hit some key leadership here, but also, too, inside of Beirut as well, saying they hit some key leaders last night in a strike on a hotel there.

So clearly intensification here and in Iran and the constant I think question now, as we've been discussing, exactly where is the announcement of the new supreme leader. A startling moment, frankly, to have this confusion -- Erin.

BURNETT: Yes, startling. And, you know, their rush to do it, that it must be done 24 hours then here it's been done. But who is it? Is it done, right? That unbelievable confusion within that, we know something very significant, although hard to read through it.

Nick Paton Walsh, thank you very much, here with me in Israel, just north up in Haifa, along that Lebanon front.

Countries across the Gulf, the Gulf countries right now, that's Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, enduring another wave of drone and missile strikes today. State-run media says Kuwait's Social Security headquarters was hit in a drone strike. Obviously that's a civilian location. Footage geolocated by CNN showed that building. It's about 22 stories in flames, and we've geolocated the video that you're looking at on your screen right now.

Saudi Arabia has released new video of one of many drone and missile attacks that it's experienced in recent days. This one showing a drone interception, they say. The country now reporting its first deaths since the start of the war. The Saudi Civil Defense says that two people were killed and 12 others injured after a military projectile struck a residential facility.

Talking to sources in the United Arab Emirates, they're talking to me, senior government officials, about four casualties and obviously the incredible frustration at this point that they feel in the position that they are put in.

Our Clarissa Ward is in Erbil, Iraq, which was also targeted by two explosive laden drones late last night.

So, Clarissa, what more can you tell us about this new wave of strikes that we're seeing where you are, and of course across the region, and how Gulf countries are responding?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Erin, those last two strikes on the Erbil airport did not appear to have caused any casualties. But last night was a very heavy night with at least one Kurdish Peshmerga fighter killed at the Erbil airport and also in the city of Sulaymaniyah.

Just relentless bombardment and this is coming predominantly, Erin, from Iran backed militias inside Iraq. And that is putting a real strain on the relationship between the leadership here in Iraqi Kurdistan and the government in Baghdad, and just last night, we saw images of lawmakers in the Iraqi parliament breaking out into chants of death to Israel, death to America. Those lawmakers reportedly affiliated with the party that is attached to some of these Iran- backed militias and we have seen the U.S. conducting a number of airstrikes against them.

The irony of these attacks, though, Erin, as we have seen across the region, is that while they may be targeting Americans, they are not for the most part killing Americans. They are killing Kurds and Emiratis and Pakistanis and Saudis. And that is a big part of why you are seeing this mounting frustration. You talked about those attacks in the Gulf which have not let up despite that promise from Iran's President Pezeshkian yesterday that these attacks would stop.

They have continued at pace not just as you mentioned, of course, that building in Kuwait that we have seen engulfed in flames, but also a desalination plant in Bahrain.

[13:10:09]

This is civilian infrastructure and it's becoming clear that for Gulf leaders and sources I have been speaking to in that area confirmed this with me, that patience is really running thin and that while they don't want this to escalate further, they are getting closer to a point where they may feel that they have to act out in self-defense. And I think you saw that borne out, as we discussed last night as well, in the Emirati leader's comments, very rare comments from him, calling Iran the enemy and saying in no uncertain terms, do not mistake our patience for weakness.

So a real warning being leveled there to the Iranians and here in Iraqi Kurdistan. Strong words from the leadership for the government in Baghdad to clamp down on these Iran-backed Iraqi militias -- Erin.

BURNETT: Clarissa Ward, thank you very much. As I said in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, the capitol there, Erbil.

And joining us now to talk about what's happening at this very moment is Karim Sadjadpour. He, of course, is our CNN global affairs analyst, but also senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. And absolutely central to all conversations on this war.

Karim, talking to Gulf officials today, tonight here, you know, they are expressing, as Clarissa said. But to me, look, they're still using the word we are protecting. We are defending. They are not joining the war to go on offense, but they are furious. And I think that that's a word being used. Right? They are furious and they are outraged.

And while it's not a war that they ever wanted to have start, they didn't want to be here, they didn't think it was the way to go, here we are and now that furious -- those feelings are directed at Iran.

So, Karim, what are you hearing happens now?

KARIM SADJADPOUR, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, first, Erin, there's two kinds of countries in the Persian Gulf. You have countries that are in the business of destroying, like Iran, and countries that are in the business of building, like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. And it takes decades to build things, it takes weeks to destroy things. So these countries have so much to lose and they benefit, they need stability in the region for their economies to thrive. And what the Islamic Republic of Iran is trying to do is essentially spike the price of oil, blow things up, and put pressure on the Gulf countries, and obviously put pressure on American public opinion to try to restrain President Trump and end this war abruptly.

BURNETT: So, Karim, you know, I was just looking at some of the prices. Obviously gasoline prices in the United States, something that touches everyone. According to AAA, on average now, we're up 16 percent in just one week.

But when you look at various measurements that are going to bleed through and what could become economically catastrophic, could, depending what happens here, jet fuel prices have almost doubled. Liquefied natural gas prices have more than doubled. We're just talking about in the past several days. But by some of the measures here that are going to affect prices.

I guess the question is, Karim, is there anything that anybody feels can be done to stop it? I know talking to some shipping executives, they're very concerned. They feel that they expected the United States to step in, for example, to provide safe passage to the Strait of Hormuz. But that has not yet happened.

SADJADPOUR: There are questions about whether the United States, President Trump will release some strategic energy reserves in the United States. There are questions about whether the U.S. Navy can help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and escort ships through. But, you know, at the moment the risk is very high of that probability. And I think people want clarity. People certainly in the region, people of Iran and frankly people of the United States, I think want clarity from President Trump about what is it that he's hoping to achieve here and what is his end game.

BURNETT: And, Karim, what are you hearing? You know, Nick Paton Walsh mentioned the incredible confusion right now over the election of a supreme leader. It was -- that it was going to be urgent, then it was done. Then they don't announce who, raising questions as to who it is, if it is complete. What do you know and what do you read into this?

SADJADPOUR: Well, right now the money is on Ayatollah Khamenei's son Mojtaba. He's 56 years old. He is someone whom the Revolutionary Guards are ostensibly backing, and he has support of hard line clerics but it puts the regime in a difficult position because this is a regime, Erin, which came to power in 1979, deposing hereditary monarchy and saying hereditary monarchy is un-Islamic.

[13:15:06]

And so if they indeed choose to set up a hereditary theocracy, that's great hypocrisy for them. But what I also see, Erin, there was a speech yesterday which Ali Larijani gave. He's the guy who's kind of currently running Iran, and that for me was perhaps the first glimpse of the Islamic Republic 2.0, which I saw in that interview, which -- he's in a bunker, this kind of subtle shift to what I would call grievance driven nationalism. Kind of away from the radical Islamism of the last four decades. Frankly, it resembled a lot of the remarks of Vladimir Putin in Russia.

BURNETT: All right. And Ali Larijani, you know, we did see that important, as you point out, just the location of that, from a bunker.

Karim Sadjadpour, thank you very much.

SADJADPOUR: Thank you.

BURNETT: And next here in the CNN NEWSROOM with Jim and myself today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken, and he warned the moment of truth is approaching. Well, what is the moment of truth? Coming up, we're going to speak to one of Prime Minister Netanyahu's Top advisers about what that means.

And straight ahead, President Trump not ruling out sending American ground troops into Iran. As Jim said, it is a remarkable moment. Will Congress even have a say? Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell will join us live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:21:09]

SCIUTTO: New today, President Trump is not ruling out deploying U.S. troops on the ground in Iran. Listen to what he said just last night aboard Air Force One when asked if there were any circumstances in which he would order such ground forces.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Could there be possibly for very good reason, have to be very good reason. And I would say if we ever did that, there would be so decimated that they wouldn't be able to fight at the ground level.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Joining me now to discuss more, Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California. He's a member of the House Iran Human Rights and Democracy Caucus, also running for governor of California.

Congressman, thanks so much for taking the time.

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Of course.

SCIUTTO: So first, I know that Democrats already believe that the president went to war without congressional authorization, necessary congressional authorization. But if the president were to order ground forces to Iran, would that, should that require a vote in Congress?

SWALWELL: Absolutely. And first, Jim, I just want to say, you know, I approach this first as an American. You know, I represent a district that has Iranian Americans from the diaspora. They are excited to see the fall of the regime. We have troops who are from my district serving over there. I want to see the least amount of troops lost. We want our neighbors and Israel to be protected.

But my job in Congress is to make sure that there's a plan, and this guy has no plan. The president said today, we've already won. Well, let me just take a step back, Jim, because he was asked about a plan last week and he started talking about his ballroom. And so if you level set that he has more plans for a ballroom than a war in the Middle East.

SCIUTTO: There are -- there's increasing evidence that this war is expanding. My colleagues and I reported on Friday that Russia is now providing Iran with intelligence about the locations and movements of U.S. forces, which, of course, one could imagine could put those forces in greater danger. You talk about topics that the president does not want to discuss. I think based on comments in recent days, you can make a case this is one of them.

I want to play some of those answers and get your thoughts on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We don't comment on intelligence reports that are leaked to the press. Whether or not this happened, frankly, it does not really matter.

TRUMP: If they are, it's not helping much. If you take a look at what's happened to Iran over the last week, if they're getting information, it's not helping them much.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What would it mean to you if they were? I mean, even if it's not helping the Iranians particularly much, it's still involving themselves in a conflict that they're not --

TRUMP: I guess they'd say we do it against them, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they say that? We do it against them? I don't know. Look, they could give all the information that they want, but people they're sending it to are overwhelmed. Russia would be overwhelmed, too. Anybody would be overwhelmed.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The Russian involvement.

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: No one is putting us in danger. We're putting the other guys in danger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Not a word from any of them condemning Russia providing such intelligence. What's your reaction to hearing that?

SWALWELL: Boy, Jim, it's a stunning 10-year record of failing to condemn Russia while U.S. troops are put in the way because he won't do it. But I also just have to say, Jim, this is a long record that the president has now of saying he's going to do one thing, and then he does the other. And people, frankly, in California if you ask them what their top priority is it's just to bring down the damn prices. They see a guy who said he'd lower costs on day one and he'd end wars on day one, and he's doing the exact opposite.

[13:25:01]

And for someone to say he won the war already, he said that today, again if you just take account of what's happened, Americans are stranded in the region. There's no plan to get them back. Gas prices are spiking because the cost of oil has now gone up. We've lost American soldiers. He doesn't even have the respect, you know, to honor them by taking off his hat, and his secretary of defense says it's insulting to put the soldiers on the front page.

So there's a real cost here, and there's no plan as far as what comes next. And that's why, at the very least, a Republican Congress that is in the majority right now should want to take the reins and want to take a role of setting some parameters here.

SCIUTTO: There will be another opportunity to set some parameters because the White House is expected to soon ask Congress for emergency funding as much as $50 billion to help support its war. Earlier today, House Leader Hakeem Jeffries would not commit to either voting for it or blocking it. I want to play what he said and get your thoughts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. But at this particular point in time, the administration has failed to make its case as to the rationale or justification for this war of choice in the Middle East.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: It's going to be a tough vote admittedly one must say for Democrats. Should Democrats vote against additional funding?

SWALWELL: It's not tough for me. I'm not voting to give them more resources when they haven't told me why the war started in the first place. They won't even call it a war, except the guy who's prosecuting, everyone else is lying and saying it's not a war, and there's no plan as far as where it goes. So to me, it seems like our focus should be on lowering prices at home, investing in having security here at home, and again, he's blocking terror alerts from going out to local law enforcement.

His priorities are entirely in the wrong direction. Congress's only authority here, if we want to assert it at this point, is the power of the purse. And this is where we absolutely have to use our leverage. No more wars. SCIUTTO: Congressman Eric Swalwell, we appreciate you joining us this

weekend.

SWALWELL: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Just ahead, black billowing smoke clouds filling the skies over Tehran after Israel has struck the country's oil sites. We have more of our continuing coverage of the war with Iran.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:31:51]

BURNETT: I'm Erin Burnett here in Tel Aviv on this Sunday night here.

New today, Tehran residents are dealing with the aftermath of strikes on key oil storage strikes or oil storage sites, I apologize, from Israeli jets. This video we geolocated. It shows the massive fire and smoke plume at a facility just outside of Tehran. And again, you may have seen some of those billowing images on social media sites, but we have geolocated that particular video. It is one of several oil facilities which were hit and were still burning as of this morning.

Senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen is in Tehran for us, and we will note that CNN can only operate in Iran with the country's government approval.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's an absolutely apocalyptic scene here. We've just made it to the Shakran oil depot, which was attacked last night in a massive wave of airstrikes. We heard those going on for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, with massive thuds and explosions that we could hear. And that thick black plume of smoke, we saw that last night, and now we're actually seeing it up close.

What we're also seeing is that some of those destroyed storage tanks are still on fire. There's still flames originating from them. You can also see here that the area around here is also completely destroyed. There's people here actually working on this electricity pole to try and get the electricity back. And then this tanker vehicle here also that is right in front of the gate has been completely destroyed as well.

The front gate of the facility also in complete ruins. The facility appears to be completely in ruins now after these massive airstrikes, and again, still on fire, still burning, and you can see that thick black smoke through the entire city across all of Tehran. It's been raining this morning in Tehran, there was oil mixed into the rain so this is definitely a massive incident that is still going on.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: All right. That's our Fred Pleitgen in Tehran. And joining me now is Michael Eisenberg. He's an adviser to the

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also a general partner at Aleph, which is an early stage venture capital fund.

All right. I have a lot I want to ask you about, Michael, but let's just start with where Fred was and the discussion out there about what is being hit in terms of infrastructure and whether that makes infrastructure both here and in the Gulf region a target. What can you tell us about those strikes that happened in Tehran?

MICHAEL EISENBERG, ADVISER TO ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: First of all, it's good to be back and see you again, Erin. Second of all, you know, the Iranians have attacked our infrastructure. They fired on various sites in Israel that are infrastructure sites. So we didn't start firing on their infrastructure, they did. And this is not Iranian civilian infrastructure. This is IRGC infrastructure.

These storage tanks belong and serve the IRGC, the evil death cult regime of Ayatollah Khamenei and whoever replaces him. And so this is not just any strike. This strike is a targeted strike against terrorist infrastructure.

BURNETT: Right. So you're saying that that infrastructure, you do not view it as civilian, where Fred was? You view that as military infrastructure, IRGC.

EISENBERG: No, it's not civilian infrastructure, it's IRGC infrastructure, whereas the Iranians and Hezbollah, by the way, have fired here on civilian infrastructure.

BURNETT: All right.

[13:35:00]

So in this context, and I want to ask you about the leadership in Iran in just a moment. But first of all, the context of what Prime Minister Netanyahu, you're an adviser to him, he said the moment of truth is approaching. Is there more that you can tell us about what that means for the next coming days?

EISENBERG: I think what the prime minister is saying is there are once-in-a-generation opportunities to change the course of history, and there's once-in-a-generation opportunity for the people of Iran to take their destiny into their own hands, to take their future into their own hands, to break away from this regime. And I think when the prime minister who has spoken to the Iranian people time and again over the last couple of decades is saying to them is, hey, this is the moment.

This is the moment of truth. The moment of truth has arrived. Be true to yourselves. Stand up and be the great Iranian people that you once were before the death cult hijacked you some 47 years ago. And so hopefully the conditions for the Iranian people to take their own future into their hands are being created now. And hopefully we'll look back and look at that speech of the prime minister and say, wow, that was a Churchillian speech that really defined this moment in history.

BURNETT: So, so, OK, then in that context, let me ask you about what Karim Sadjadpour just said, and I know there's been a lot of question marks, so maybe you can shed some light on this, about who is running Iran. Obviously, in a practical sense, it's been Ali Larijani in recent days. But in terms of the supreme leader itself, right, this week long, over a week now, and we didn't have one.

And then it was a 24-hour time period. And then today maybe we did. And Karim saying most likely it appears it is Ayatollah Khamenei's son, which he points out is a hypocrisy when you say it cannot be nepotism. Do you have clarity on who it is? And do you think they're not telling us because they're worried that then you're formally going to kill him? I mean, what's happening?

EISENBERG: First of all, I don't know but I saw that President Pezeshkian, if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, said, hey, we're not firing anymore on the Gulf states and then 10 minutes later they attacked the Dubai airport. So the answer may be nobody is fully in charge of Iran at this point, and they're on the run. And I'll just say this for what the prime minister said that nobody is immune, it's a high risk job. Let's just say that.

BURNETT: To be the supreme leader.

EISENBERG: To me it's a high risk job. Any of those jobs are high risk jobs right now. The Israeli military said that if they gathered to elect somebody today, they should watch out. And those are high risk jobs. You should not want to be a dictator over the Iranian people, a ruthless dictator, which both Ayatollah Khamenei and you said about his son, who's a hardliner, is as well.

BURNETT: And do you read anything into, does the prime minister read anything into the fact that Iran isn't coming out and saying who it is, right? That they're trying to say it's done, but they're not saying who it is in the context of what you just said, high risk job?

EISENBERG: Yes. Look, I don't know.

BURNETT: Yes.

EISENBERG: They make their own decisions. But they should just make the right one and surrender. They should make the right decision. And just for the sake of the Iranian people, they should surrender. They should listen and heed President Trump and just surrender.

BURNETT: Michael Eisenberg, thank you very much. As I said, adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Thank you for your time tonight.

EISENBERG: Thank you, Erin.

BURNETT: And still to come, the threat of nuclear weapons in Iran has often been cited, of course, as the core justification for U.S. airstrikes there. So how is the Trump administration able to confirm the state of Iran's capabilities this time? We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:42:54]

SCIUTTO: Israel says it has launched yet a new round of strikes on Iran in the ongoing war. On the Israeli list of targets is the city of Isfahan. This is where Israeli air forces struck Iranian fighter jets. But more importantly, the city is also home to key facilities for Iran's nuclear program.

What's the goal here and what are the next steps? With me now, Nicole Grajewski. She's an Iran expert and nuclear policy program fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Nicole, good to have you.

NICOLE GRAJEWSKI, FELLOW, NUCLEAR POLICY PROGRAM, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: Thank you so much for having me.

SCIUTTO: So you wrote recently that airstrikes are not the final answer to concerns about Iran's nuclear program. Tell us why. What are the limitations?

GRAJEWSKI: Well, the limitations of airstrikes is essentially what they can reach. The outstanding issues in Iran's nuclear program primarily deal with the highly enriched uranium at Isfahan that is deeply underground and can only be really excavated with, ideally, international oversight.

SCIUTTO: So, you now, with that context, have President Trump yet again not closing the door to deploying U.S. ground forces. That would obviously be a dangerous military operation. But could you tell us what would be required? What size ground components? Dozens? Hundreds? What kind of equipment would you need if the goal were to be to take out many hundreds of kilograms of enriched uranium?

GRAJEWSKI: Yes. I mean, essentially, you'll have to have construction on the ground and you'll have to have excavators to remove a lot of the facility around it that was damaged because the U.S. and Israel have bombed the site before, and a lot of those tunnels were closed. Ideally you'd like to have international oversight. So the IAEA, which is the U.N. nuclear watchdog in order to make sure that any of the material was handled safely, the U.S. Army does have special teams involved in nuclear kind of materials and would be able to deal with that.

But the size of this contingent is kind of unknown because we don't necessarily know the state of this facility and whether or not those, you know, they could do so peacefully.

[13:45:01]

SCIUTTO: I mean, what you're describing there is obviously not a weekend operation, right? It would take time, equipment, and this may seem a fairly obvious question, but obviously you could not bomb it, I imagine, right, because you would have the danger of radioactive dispersal. GRAJEWSKI: Well, you could actually bomb it, but it depends on the

kind of yield. And so you could use the bunker busters, but those have proven not to be able to reach the facility underground. But radiation is not as much of a concern, partly because they are in canisters, though there's always the risk of loose materials when you're dealing with any kind of radioactive substance.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you about another topic. CNN reported on Friday that Russia is now providing intelligence to Iran on the locations and movements of U.S.. troops ships and aircraft, which one can imagine would put them at greater risk here. You have said that Russia wants to raise the costs for the U.S., Israel, the partners in this war, but doesn't want to go too far.

And I wonder, do you think providing intelligence that might allow Iran to strike U.S. forces fits that balance? I mean, would they calculate that that would not be enough for President Trump to react decisively?

GRAJEWSKI: Well, certainly this is an escalation when it comes to Russia-Iran relations, though I think that the Russian calculation here is that this isn't as alarming as, you know, the transfer of a direct weapon system or air defense systems. And additionally, a lot of the satellite imagery is available through commercial means. And I think the Russian argument, and I believe President Trump said this yesterday, is essentially that the U.S.. is providing similar kind of intelligence to the Ukrainians.

That being said, it does directly put U.S. forces in danger. And so it really, I mean, it depends on the position of the Trump administration here. But this is definitely an escalatory position in terms of the war.

SCIUTTO: I mean, one could imagine a U.S. president saying, you know, not on my watch, right, will someone provide intelligence that might allow striking U.S. forces? But my understanding is that Russian satellite capabilities are greater than, for instance, civilian capabilities. And if the intelligence is not just about locations, but also about movements, that would then be more sophisticated, would it not, than what is widely available?

GRAJEWSKI: Yes. I mean, one thing to understand about Russian satellite capabilities is they're nowhere near as advanced as the U.S. or even China, and there are gaps in coverage. It's not just the movement or the kind of live tracking of troops. It's also electronic intelligence. And so picking up signatures when it comes to radar. That's significant.

SCIUTTO: Right.

GRAJEWSKI: So definitely Russian capabilities are far more advanced than most commercial options but it's nothing compared to the kind of intelligence and surveillance and reconnaissance complex that the United States has.

SCIUTTO: Nicole Grajewski, we appreciate you joining. GRAJEWSKI: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: In a moment, President Trump is now blaming Iran for a deadly strike on a girls' school there. Munitions experts say evidence in fact suggests this was the result of a U.S. strike. We will have an analysis on the satellite images coming up next.

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[13:52:53]

BURNETT: President Trump says he believes the deadly strike on a girls' school was, quote, "done by Iran." He said that in a discussion with reporters on Air Force One. You can hear it for yourself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Did the United States bomb a girls' elementary school in southern Iran on the first day of the war, killing 175?

TRUMP: No. Based on what I've seen, that was done by Iran.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is that true, Mr. Hegseth, it was Iran who did that?

HEGSETH: We're certainly investigating.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Still investigating?

HEGSETH: But the only side that targets civilians is Iran.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Hegseth's comments there actually significant, right, that he just said they're investigating. And that is because it seems that the president's comments do contradict analysis compiled by multiple news organizations, including CNN. CNN's analysis suggests that U.S. military forces were likely responsible, although the White House has not ruled out the U.S. military involvement in the bombing, despite what the president said.

Iranian state media claims that the United States is to blame for the strike which killed 168 children and 14 teachers. Meanwhile, the United Nations human rights chief is demanding a prompt, impartial and thorough investigation into what happened and our international correspondent Isobel Yeung has more on the analysis of the bombing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ISOBEL YEUNG, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nearly a week after a strike killed scores of students in Iran's Minab, it seems more and more likely that the U.S. was responsible.

A new satellite image shows an Iranian Revolutionary Guards base and an elementary school in southern Iran. Here you see craters in several of the buildings, including the school. They were hit in their exact centers, suggesting precision strikes, experts say. A wall separates the school and the base.

Satellite images from December show dozens of people in what appears to be a handball court at the school. Reuters now reports that U.S. military investigators believe U.S. forces were responsible, though they haven't yet reached a final conclusion.

N.R. JENZEN-JONES, DIRECTOR, ARMAMENT RESEARCH SERVICES: It paints a picture of multiple simultaneous or near simultaneous strikes.

[13:55:01]

It looks like these were delivered with explosive munitions, probably air delivered. I think the most likely scenario in this case is that it's a U.S. or Israeli airstrike gone awry. It's probably a targeting failure somewhere in the targeting cycle, an intelligence failure.

YEUNG (voice-over): The Israeli military say they weren't operating in the area.

GEN. DAN CAINE, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHAIRMAN: To date, we've hit over 2,000 targets.

YEUNG (voice-over): American military officials say they carried out extensive strikes in this area and released this map showing strikes in southern Iran. The base and the school in Minab are located here.

HEGSETH: We of course never target civilian targets, but we're taking a look at investigating that.

JENZEN-JONES: The damage we've seen is quite significant. It's unlikely it was something like an air defense missile fired by the Iranians, for example.

YEUNG: When we try to assess who is responsible for airstrikes, we typically try to examine the weaponry fragments left behind. But in this instance, there's an Internet blackout in Iran. It's been really difficult to obtain that. And so this investigation is still not conclusive.

Isobel Yeung, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: All right. And obviously important reporting there from Isobel and our investigative team. In response to CNN's findings, a U.S.. military spokesperson said, quote, "It would be inappropriate to comment given the incident is under investigation."

All right. We're going to take a very brief break as our breaking news rolling coverage continues here. More developments out of Israel at the top of the hour. New strikes here, including a new wave of strikes between Israel and Hezbollah. And Israeli soldiers have now been killed. That is the first in this widening war. A live report from along that second front ahead.

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