Democratic senators said they were left with questions Thursday about what was largely viewed as a successful strike in Iran, even as many cautioned the damage done to the country’s nuclear program may fall short of the Trump administration’s claims.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe and other top intelligence officials briefed lawmakers for the first time about the Saturday strike — a meeting held as Trump administration officials have worked overtime to push their argument that the attacks left Iran’s nuclear facilities “obliterated.”
“The point is: We don’t know,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “Anybody who says we know with certainty is making it up because we have no final battle damage assessment.”
“Certainly, this mission was successful insofar as it extensively destroyed and perhaps severely damaged and set back the Iranian nuclear arms program. But how long and how much really remains to be determined by the intelligence community itself,” he added.
Reports emerged Tuesday about a preliminary assessment that said the U.S. strikes may have set the Iranian nuclear program back by “a few months.” The administration has pushed back forcefully at those reports, including at a Pentagon briefing earlier Thursday.
Some Democrats criticized Trump’s assessment that the plants were obliterated, which they widely viewed as overzealous, especially after seeing the latest information in the classified setting.
“I hope that is the final assessment,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee. “But if not, does that end up providing a false sense of comfort for the American people?”
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said all of the descriptions of the damage to the program were fitting.
“Everybody’s got their own words: set back, obliterated, destroyed, greatly diminished. It’s all of those things. I would say, I think all those are accurate, depending on how you use any one of those terms,” Cramer said.
But pressed to select his own term, Cramer paused.
“I would say that it is severely set back. And not just because the bunker busters were so effective at Fordow and the other sites that got hit by the missiles. And just to build a building like that would take probably a year, just to get some scientists up and running … it would take a long time to reestablish from scratch.”
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) faulted Trump for his glowing assessment of the mission before the planes had even returned.
“The way this should work is the president and the secretary of Defense should have waited until they had an assessment in their hands, and then figure out what they want to share publicly about that assessment. That’s not what happened in this case,” Kelly said.
“The president said something, the secretary of Defense repeated it, before they had anything from the [Defense Intelligence Agency]. I think that’s pretty clear to people. I mean, he basically made his own assessment based on very limited information. … The airplanes weren’t even back in Missouri by the time he’s doing his own personal [battle damage assessment].”
Kelly noted “obliterated” is not a military term of art but said there was much success to see in the operation.
“Nobody got shot down. Every Tomahawk seemed to hit its target. Every one of those GBU-57s hit the target. A lot of that stuff’s underground — it’s going to take a long time to figure out exactly what the condition of these facilities are,” he said.
“This probably might go back and forth based on information that we have. But I think what’s really fair to say is there’s been a lot of damage done to the Iranians’ ability to enrich uranium, and that has set them back if they wanted to develop a nuclear weapon.”
Members were briefed by Ratcliffe, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after questions surrounded who would be the ones delivering the classified information to lawmakers.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was initially slated to appear alongside Ratcliffe and Caine on Tuesday, but was eventually pulled amid reports that she has been sidelined by the White House from recent meetings on Iran and Israel.
“We had questions. No one asked why she wasn’t there,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). “That she was sidelined and not invited … is something that everyone has thoughts about.”
According to Kaine, all four administration figures briefed members during the meeting, with none necessarily taking the lead.
The briefing also came ahead of a vote that is expected in short order on Kaine’s war powers resolution. The measure attempts to block Trump from taking additional military actions against the Iranians without green light from Congress.
Senate Republicans are expected to side with the president on the measure, especially after he pushed for the ongoing ceasefire between Iran and Israel.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is the most likely of any Senate GOP member to side with Kaine, who has been hoping to get more Republicans on board with his fellow Democrats.
Many lawmakers left the meeting with the expectation they would get additional briefings.
“We do not have a complete assessment yet of the impact of the strikes of last week,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said.
“And when we do, I think that’ll answer a lot of currently unanswered questions.”