Trump ordered strikes over planned Iranian preemptive attack – report

President Trump decided in favor of striking Iran after US intelligence obtained evidence suggesting Iran was planning to launch a preemptive ballistic missile attack.

By World Israel News Staff

American intelligence officials obtained information suggesting that Iran was planning to carry out a preemptive ballistic missile attack on American forces in the Middle East, a senior American official said, pushing President Donald Trump to decide in favor of launching a large-scale air campaign against the Islamic Republic.

On Saturday, the official told reporters during a press briefing that intelligence reports indicating that Iranian forces were preparing for a possible preemptive ballistic missile attack on US forces in the region played a major role in President Trump’s decision to back Operation Epic Fury, the ongoing American air and naval strikes against Iran.

“The president decided he was not going to sit back and allow American forces in the region to absorb attacks from conventional missiles,” the official said during the briefing.

According to the source, the intelligence obtained indicated that prior to the outbreak of the war on Saturday, Iran was gearing up either to attack American forces preemptively or was laying the groundwork for a massive attack on US forces the moment a war began.

Failure to take action now, the official said, would likely have resulted in a significant number of American casualties.

“We had analysis that basically told us if we sat back and waited to get hit first, the amount of casualties and damage would be substantially higher than if we acted in a preemptive, defensive way to prevent those launches from occurring,” the official continued.

“We cannot continue to live in a world where these people not only possess missiles but the ability to make 100 of them a month in perpetuity, to overwhelm any potential defenses.”

“We are not going to be held hostage by them, and we are not going to let them hit us first because it would have substantially increased the risk to our troops in the region and to our allies.”