CNN’s Sciutto, Sanger: Iran Strikes ‘Severe Blow’ to Nuke Program, Took Out Enrichment, ‘Worked’ Better than Expected
On “CNN Newsroom,” host and Chief National Security Analyst Jim Sciutto and CNN Political and National Security Analyst and New York Times White House and National Security Correspondent David Sanger discussed the strikes on Iran and Sanger said that the description of Iran’s program as obliterated is accurate for their enrichment, but it seems Iran did disperse some fuel and both agreed that the bottom line is that “this is a severe blow to the program, the combination of the U.S. and Israeli strikes, and a severe blow without the blowback that many had expected,” with Sanger saying, “this worked, by any measure…better than I think we would have expected, particularly a year or two or five ago.”
Sciutto asked, “So, the president picked this word obliterated and this kind of maximalist description of the results of this, and he’s sticking with it. And it seems that the administration is just trying to back him up on that. The intelligence agencies, etc. But when we look at the facts and what we know of the intelligence, do they back up that obliterated description of this?”
Sanger answered, “Jim, it depends on what part of the program that you are looking at. The problem here is the president came out with, as you rightly called it, a maximalist position before there had been any battle damage assessment. He did it within minutes of the end of the raid. And now, as frequently happens in this administration, they’ve basically decided that what they need to do is line everybody up to use the exact same phrase. I think that it’s working pretty well for the elements of the program where uranium was enriched. That’s what happened at Natanz and at Fordow, the main target, that big mountain that was covering over the centrifuges and centrifuge halls. And what happened there, it looks like, is that, thanks to, first, the Israeli attacks on Natanz and then the American attacks on Fordow, it is wiped out. And even the International Atomic Energy Agency believes there is no enrichment that’s happening and probably would require being rebuilt, my guess is, elsewhere. Where it doesn’t fit, Jim, is the missing fuel, the fuel they’ve already produced, that’s about nine or ten weapons’ worth. We know that it was in Isfahan…but it looks like it was dispersed.”
Sciutto then said, “So, listen, big picture, this is a severe blow to the program, the combination of the U.S. and Israeli strikes, and a severe blow without the blowback that many had expected, right? There were predictions of a regional war and perhaps a decisive retaliation from Iran. And, really, we saw only a symbolic one. That seems to be the bottom line, right? On the events of the last couple of weeks.”
Sanger answered, “Jim, you’re absolutely right. The reason previous presidents didn’t do this was that they believed that an overt act of war against Iran, bombing them, would result in an act of war back that would drag us into something bigger in the Middle East. President Trump was there at a moment of huge weakness for the Iranians. They had lost Hezbollah, they had lost Hamas, they had lost the government in Syria, all of which could have struck back at Israel on behalf of the Iranian government. And they had lost most of their air defenses and a good number of their missiles. So, this worked, by any measure, as you say, better than I think we would have expected, particularly a year or two or five ago.”
Sciutto responded, “No question.” And noted how people had always assumed that striking Iran’s facilities would spark a war. He added that intelligence is generally unclear and takes time to gather.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
