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Following a closed-door briefing with top White House officials, Senate Republicans left convinced that Iran’s nuclear capabilities had been neutered, while some Senate Democrats believed the briefing raised more questions than it answered.
Many lawmakers exited the briefing unwilling to divulge classified details breaking down the impact of President Donald Trump’s Operation Midnight Hammer. Those that did only shared sparing glimpses of what happened inside that tended to vary depending on where they were on the political spectrum.
“Their operational capability was obliterated. There’s nobody working there tonight. It was highly effective,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters after the briefing, doubling down on the Trump administration’s assertion that the three nuclear facilities in Iran were completely wiped out.
However, Graham still had questions about the status of Iran’s enriched uranium, telling reporters, “The program was obliterated at those three sites, but they still have ambitions. I don’t know where the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium exists, but it wasn’t part of the target set.”
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Every senator was invited to the briefing conducted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. John Caine.
It comes as Democrats have demanded more answers on just how much destruction was wrought upon the Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow facilities.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters that anyone in the classified briefing would agree that Congress must enforce the War Powers Resolution.
“President Trump said that the nuclear stockpile was completely and totally obliterated. I did not receive an adequate answer to that question. What was clear is that there was no coherent strategy, no end game, no plan, no specific, no detailed plan on how Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon,” Schumer said.
Meanwhile ahead of the briefing, Senate Republicans pushed back against a leaked report that Trump’s strikes on Iran did not obliterate the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, but still wanted more information on the full extent of the damage done to the key facilities.
A widely reported “low confidence” assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) suggested that the weekend strikes did not completely destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
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Trump has remained firm that the sites were “totally obliterated,” and the White House has strongly pushed back against the report. And both the Israeli and Iranian governments agree that the sites were badly damaged.
Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee told Fox News Digital that they were confident in the president’s assessment and pushed back against the DIA’s findings.
“First of all, one of the things I’d consider is the DIA said that Ukraine would be wiped out in three days,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., told Fox News Digital. “And second, whatever the damage to Fordow is, the damage to the [nuclear] capabilities of Iran are devastating.”
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Cramer said that the effectiveness of the bombing, which was carried out by several B-2 bombers armed with bunker-busting bombs, could not be “overstated,” and warned that lingering questions surrounding the effectiveness of the operation were just “fodder for political discussion.”
“I think the mission was accomplished,” he said.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker, R-Miss., had not yet read the report, but called the DIA’s finding and subsequent news reports “bogus.” Wicker’s sentiment came just after Senate Republicans met behind closed doors with Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter on Wednesday.
“We just spoke to the Israeli ambassador to the United States just a few moments ago, and his assessment is that their capability has been destroyed for years,” Wicker said.
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Still, just how damaged the nuclear facilities are, particularly the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant buried deep under layers of rock, is a question lawmakers want answered and believe would only come from a true boots-on-the-ground assessment.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told Fox News Digital that he’d seen all the evidence and there was not “an inconsistency” between the president’s assertions and the materials he had seen.
He said that the briefing would allow lawmakers “a chance from multiple sources to glean what’s actually down deep underneath,” but noted that until more clear information was available, absolute confirmation of the total damage wrought by the bombs was not complete.
Whether another strike should be authorized should further intelligence show that the program was not fully destroyed, Rounds said, “another strike depends on what the other options would be.”
“I don’t think you ever take anything off the table for the president, but there might be other ways of handling it as well, because we’ve really opened that place up now,” he said.
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