Dem Rep. Panetta: We ‘Degraded and Destroyed Much of’ Iran’s Nuke Program

On Friday’s edition of NBC’s “Meet the Press Now,” Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) said that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities “degraded and destroyed much of the Iranian nuclear efforts and their capabilities.” And that focusing on that and the path forward is more important than particular adjectives like whether the program was obliterated or delayed.

Host Kristen Welker asked, “Based on the briefing that you got, Congressman, do you believe that the U.S. strikes obliterated…that’s President Trump’s word, obliterated Iran’s nuclear program, or do you think it simply delayed it?”

Panetta responded, “I think we need to stop worrying about the adjectives that are being used, and start focusing on what actually happened, but, more importantly, what we need to do from here. Look, the briefing today, as much I can say, really focused more on the mission rather than the objective. It focused on the past, rather than what we need to be doing…to go forward and ensure proper diplomatic efforts.”

He added that “obviously, what we saw and what we’re seeing through open source is that this mission actually degraded and destroyed much of the Iranian nuclear efforts and their capabilities.” But we’ll need to follow this up with diplomacy because the knowledge still exists.

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