By Bo Erickson, Jasper Ward, Patricia Zengerle and Erin Banco
PALM BEACH, Florida, Feb 28 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday there could be U.S. casualties after he announced the United States conducted “major combat operations” in Iran.
The strikes, which Trump said were aimed at destroying Iranian missiles and annihilating its navy, follow repeated U.S.-Israeli warnings that they would strike Iran again if it pressed ahead with its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Trump monitored the situation from his Florida oceanfront resort, Mar-a-Lago, alongside his national security team, and spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Saturday.
“My administration has taken every possible step to minimize the risk to U.S. personnel in the region. Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill,” Trump said in an eight-minute video posted on Truth Social.
“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties, that often happens in war, but we’re doing this, not for now. We’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.”
Almost 12 hours after the strikes, the Defense Department said it had “no reports of U.S. casualties or combat-related injuries. Damage to U.S. installations was minimal and has not impacted operations.”
OPERATION TO LAST SEVERAL DAYS, U.S. OFFICIAL SAYS
The U.S. military has named the operation Epic Fury, the Pentagon said on X.
This is the second time the U.S. has carried out strikes on Iran since Trump returned to the White House last year. The first was in June when Washington carried out a series of attacks on Iranian nuclear sites.
Saturday’s strikes, unlike the first, are expected to be carried out over several days, a U.S. official told Reuters.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio called top congressional leaders known as the “Gang of Eight” before the strike, said Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee.
“Everything I have heard from the administration before and after these strikes on Iran confirms this is a war of choice with no strategic endgame,” Himes said.
Democratic leaders, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, said the administration must seek congressional authorization for the preemptive use of military force that constitutes an act of war. But in his statement, Jeffries also said there is a need to “aggressively confront” Iran on human rights violations, nuclear ambitions and support of terrorism.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, also one of the Gang of Eight, said the group had been briefed in detail earlier this week about potential military action against Iran.
Rubio had told the leaders during a briefing at the White House on Tuesday that the operation would likely move forward even as diplomatic efforts continued, two sources familiar with the matter said. The secretary of state on Friday informed the top lawmakers that the operation to attack Iran was likely to commence in the following hours, but said Trump could still change his mind, the sources said.
Washington and Tehran held a series of talks in recent weeks about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, including a meeting on Thursday.
For the American public, the serious turn in the middle of the night could feel like whiplash, as only hours earlier the president was in Texas touting the economy and Republican political candidates, and later buying hamburgers for patrons at a fast-food restaurant.
Some European nations are urging a return to negotiations, but most of Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress — and a few Democrats such as Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — cheered Saturday’s strikes.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and frequent advocate for an aggressive U.S. foreign policy, criticized European calls for further talks.
“To our European allies: you have gone pathetically soft and lost your zeal for confronting evil apparently unless it’s on your front porch,” Graham said in a social media post.
TRUMP ENCOURAGES IRANIANS TO TAKE OVER GOVERNMENT
In Saturday’s video announcement, Trump told the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s elite armed forces, to lay down their weapons, promising that they would be granted immunity.
The other option, according to Trump, is “certain death.”
The president first floated the idea of strikes on Iran in January amid two-week-long nationwide protests, during which thousands of people were killed by authorities.
He said that the U.S. would come to the rescue of protesters if Iranian officials were to shoot and kill them. Trump later encouraged the protesters to continue protesting, saying that help was on the way.
Trump mentioned the killing of protesters during his statement on the strikes, telling Iranians to take cover because bombs will drop “everywhere.”
“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations,” he said.
(Reporting by Bo Erickson in West Palm Beach, Jasper Ward, Patricia Zengerle, and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington; Additional reporting by Erin Banco, Phil Stewart and David Morgan; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Tom Hogue, Sharon Singleton, Peter Graff, Sergio Non, Rod Nickel)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.