SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 The United States conducted this operation with a very clear goal in mind.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t gotten a chance to see a lot of reporting.\u00a0 I don\u2019t understand what the confusion is.\u00a0 Let me explain it to you, and I\u2019ll do it once again as clearly as possible.\u00a0 Perhaps you\u2019ll report it that way.<\/p>\n
The United States is conducting an operation to eliminate the threat of Iran\u2019s short-range ballistic missiles and the threat posed by their navy, particularly to naval assets.\u00a0 That is what it is focused on doing right now and it\u2019s doing quite successfully.\u00a0 I\u2019ll leave it to the Pentagon and the Department of War to discuss the tactics behind that and the progress that\u2019s being made.\u00a0 That is the clear objective of this mission.<\/p>\n
The second question I\u2019ve been asked is: Why now?\u00a0 Well, there\u2019s two reasons why now.\u00a0 The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States.\u00a0 The orders had been delegated down to the field commanders.\u00a0 It was automatic, and in fact it beared to be true because, in fact, the \u2013 within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the south and in the north for that matter had already been activated to launch.\u00a0 In fact, those had already been pre-positioned.<\/p>\n
The third is the assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties.\u00a0 And so the President made the very wise decision.\u00a0 We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn\u2019t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed, and then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn\u2019t act.<\/p>\n
Going back to the purpose, the purpose of this is to destroy that missile capability.\u00a0 Why does Iran want that ballistic missile capability?\u00a0 What they are trying to do and have been trying to do for a very long time is build a conventional weapons capability as a shield where they can hide behind, meaning there would come a point where they have so many conventional missiles, so many drones, and can inflict so much damage, that no one can do anything about their nuclear program.\u00a0 That is what they were trying to do, is put themselves in a place of immunity where the damage they can inflict on the region would be so high that no one can do anything about their nuclear program or their nuclear ambitions.<\/p>\n
They are producing, by some estimates, over 100 of these missiles a month.\u00a0 Compare that to the six or seven interceptors that can be built a month.\u00a0 They can build a hundred of these a month, not to mention the thousands of one-way attack drones that they also have.\u00a0 They\u2019ve been doing this for a very long time.\u00a0 And by the way, they\u2019ve been doing it under sanction.\u00a0 You see the attacks they\u2019re conducting right now.\u00a0 They\u2019re attacking airports.\u00a0 They\u2019re attacking hotels.\u00a0 They are hitting, not just military bases; they\u2019re attacking our embassies directly.\u00a0 They\u2019re attacking facilities that have nothing to do with war or with military.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s a weakened Iran.\u00a0 That\u2019s an Iran despite years of sanction.\u00a0 Imagine a year from now or a year and a half from now the capabilities they would have to inflict damage on us.\u00a0 It\u2019s an unacceptable risk, especially in the hands of a regime that\u2019s run by radical clerics.\u00a0 The ayatollah is a radical \u2013 was a radical cleric.\u00a0 That entire regime is led by radical clerics who don\u2019t make geopolitical decisions; they make decisions on the basis of theology \u2013 their view of theology, which is an apocalyptic one.\u00a0 That has to be taken very seriously as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So that was the purpose for what this operation is all about.\u00a0 That\u2019s what it\u2019s focused on.\u00a0 As the President said earlier today, it is on or ahead of schedule.\u00a0 I will defer to the Department of War to discuss the progress being made at a tactical level.\u00a0 But it was the right decision and an important decision for the safety and security of the world.<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 Does Congress have to weigh in?\u00a0 Does Congress have to weigh in?\u00a0 Is the President declaring war, and does Congress have to weigh in?<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Well, what \u2014<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 And was there an imminent threat?\u00a0 Did you tell lawmakers that there was an imminent threat?<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked \u2013 and we believe they would be attacked \u2013 that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded because the Department of War assessed that if we did that, if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked \u2013 and by someone else, Israel attacked them, they hit us first, and we waited for them to hit us \u2013 we would suffer more casualties and more deaths.\u00a0 We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage.\u00a0 Had we not done so, there would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen and we didn\u2019t act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life.<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 Are you saying the U.S. was forced to strike because of an impending Israeli action?<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 No, first \u2013 well, two things I would say.\u00a0 Number one is: no matter what, ultimately this operation needed to happen.\u00a0 That\u2019s the question of why now.\u00a0 But this operation needed to happen because Iran in about a year or a year and a half would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short-range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it because they could hold the whole world hostage.<\/p>\n
Look at the damage they\u2019re doing now.\u00a0 And this is a weakened Iran.\u00a0 Imagine a year from now.\u00a0 So that had to happen.\u00a0 Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it.\u00a0 But this had to happen no matter what.<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 Mr. Secretary, President Trump said overnight that his top choices to now run Iran were killed in the strikes.\u00a0 Does the United States have a firm plan for how they intend to handle this power vacuum in Iran to ensure that an IRG hardliner does not take power?<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 Well, so two things, and two things can be true.\u00a0 Number one is our mission and our focus is the destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities and their ability to manufacture them, as well as the threat posed by their navy to global shipping.\u00a0 That\u2019s our objective.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That said, we would not mind, we would not be heartbroken, and we hope that the Iranian people can overthrow this government and establish a new future for that country.\u00a0 We would love for that to be possible.\u00a0 But the objective of this mission is the destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities and of their naval capabilities.<\/p>\n
Yeah.<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 Are you saying \u2013 based on that, are you saying that there is no responsibility, no plan for the U.S. to at least play a role in whatever government comes next?<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 I mean, we might.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see how circumstances play out, but you \u2013 I\u2019m telling you what the objectives of this operation are.\u00a0 The objectives of this operation are to destroy their ballistic missile capability and make sure they can\u2019t rebuild it, and make sure that they can\u2019t hide behind that to have a nuclear program.\u00a0 That\u2019s the objective of the mission.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That said \u2013 abundantly clear \u2013 we would love for there to be an Iran that\u2019s not governed by radical Shia clerics.\u00a0 As I\u2019ve said myself repeatedly for years, the leadership of that country does not reflect the people of Iran, and I think that\u2019s been pretty apparent in the protests that you\u2019ve seen.\u00a0 If there\u2019s something we can do to help them down the road, we\u2019d obviously be open to it, but that\u2019s not the objective.\u00a0 The objective of this mission is the destruction of their ballistic missile capability.<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 Mr. Secretary, regime change has not gone well for the United States.<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 The what now?<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 Regime change has not gone well for the United States for many, many decades.\u00a0 How do you assure the American public that things will not get worse for the next regime that comes in there and replaces the ayatollah?<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 Well, we would love to see this regime be replaced.\u00a0 And ultimately, as the President has said because \u2014<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 But how do you know that?<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 No, no, but let me finish my answer.\u00a0 As the President has said, he would love for the people of Iran to use this as an opportunity to rise up and remove these leaders.\u00a0 They\u2019ve been wanting to remove them for a long time.\u00a0 We\u2019ve successive waves of protests, and we\u2019ve seen them slaughter people.\u00a0 Okay?\u00a0 But the objective of this mission is to make sure they don\u2019t have these weapons that can threaten us and our allies in the region.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we\u2019re doing what we\u2019re doing now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And while we would love to see a new regime, the bottom line is no matter who governs that country a year from now, they\u2019re not going to have these ballistic missiles and they\u2019re not going to have these drones to threaten us.\u00a0 That\u2019s the objective of this mission, is to deny them the ability to use ballistic missiles to threaten their neighbors, to threaten our bases, to threaten our presence in the region, and ultimately as a shield behind which they can do whatever they want with their nuclear weapons ambition.\u00a0 We were not going to let them hide behind that, and that\u2019s why this was such a critical mission to undertake now, while they were at their weakest point, and not a year from now, where they could inflict even more damage and perhaps already be behind that point of immunity.<\/p>\n
Right here behind \u2013 you and then you.\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 Your critics in Congress have said that they should have a role, they should be able to weigh in here, and that there are going to be war powers resolutions votes in Congress later this week.<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 Why not notify Congress ahead of this?\u00a0 And does Congress still have \u2014<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 Well, we did.\u00a0 We notified Congress.\u00a0 I mean, we notified the Gang of Eight.\u00a0 We notified the congressional leadership.\u00a0 There\u2019s no law that requires us to do that; the law says we have to notify them 48 hours after beginning hostilities.\u00a0 We\u2019ve done that.\u00a0 I think the notification went today.\u00a0 But we did notify members of Congress in advance.\u00a0 But we can\u2019t notify 535 members of Congress, and \u2014<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 They vote to authorize the war, though.<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 Well, the Congress can vote on whatever they want.\u00a0 But there\u2019s no law that requires us to do that.\u00a0 And I want to say something because I see people on TV.\u00a0 Look, that is fine if they want to take a war powers vote.\u00a0 They can do that.\u00a0 They\u2019ve done that.\u00a0 They\u2019ve done that a bunch of times.\u00a0 But there\u2019s no \u2013 people keep saying that we have \u2013 there\u2019s no law that requires the President to have done anything with regards to this.\u00a0 To begin with, no presidential administration has ever accepted the War Powers Act as constitutional \u2013 not Republican presidents, not Democratic presidents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That said, we have followed the notification at 48 hours, and we\u2019re here today \u2013 I\u2019ve done more Gang of Eight briefings than I got in the four years that Biden was president and I was a member of the Gang of Eight.\u00a0 All of that said, we have complied with the law 100 percent, and we\u2019re going to continue to comply with it.\u00a0 We\u2019ve done the notification and we \u2013 officially to Congress, but we did notify members of Congress.\u00a0 We just can\u2019t notify 535 people.\u00a0 That\u2019s not possible.\u00a0 But we did the Gang of Eight, twice.\u00a0 I briefed them last week and then I called them the night before the operation.<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 Can you tell us what you know, Mr. Secretary, what the administration knows about the strike on a building in southern Iran?\u00a0 The Iranians are saying it\u2019s a school.\u00a0 There are reports of large numbers of civilians, including children, killed?<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen those reports.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have \u2013 I would refer you \u2013 not because I\u2019m not trying to answer your question, but I don\u2019t want to get it wrong.\u00a0 The Department of War would be investigating that, if that was our strike.\u00a0 And I would refer your question to them, and I\u2019ll make sure they\u2019re aware that you have that question.\u00a0 But we\u2019d like to know.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: \u00a0The Iranians say it was an American \u2014 an American missile.<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 Well, clearly, the United States would not deliberately target a school.\u00a0 Our objectives are missiles, both the ability to manufacture them and the ability to launch them, and the one-way attack drones.\u00a0 That would be our focus, and that\u2019s what we would be focused on.\u00a0 We would have no interest, and frankly no incentive, to target civilian infrastructure.\u00a0 The Iranians are, on the other hand, targeting civilian infrastructure.\u00a0 You guys have seen it.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve seen it.\u00a0 They\u2019re hitting hotels.\u00a0 They\u2019re hitting embassies.\u00a0 They\u2019re hitting airports.\u00a0 They\u2019re hitting oil infrastructure.<\/p>\n
QUESTION: \u00a0But if these are children killed, what would your response be?<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 Well, it\u2019d be very tragic, but I can\u2019t speak to the details behind it because I\u2019m not \u2013 I just don\u2019t have it.\u00a0 It would be a tragic outcome if it\u2019s happened.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have the details as to what led to it.\u00a0 But what is clear, that the United States would not target, deliberately target a school.\u00a0 They are, on the other hand, deliberately targeting civilians, as you\u2019ve seen, because you know why?\u00a0 They are a terroristic regime.\u00a0 They sponsor terrorism and they participate in terrorism.<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 Mr. Rubio, what\u2019s your message to Americans who are concerned about rising energy prices given the spiking of oil prices today?<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 And we \u2013 we\u2019ve \u2013 we knew that going in would be a factor.\u00a0 And so we have a program in place that will begin to be implemented by Secretary Wright, Secretary Bessent.\u00a0 We talked about it last night, again, about this program.\u00a0 We talked this morning.\u00a0 And starting tomorrow you will see us rolling out those phases to try to mitigate against that.\u00a0 Obviously, markets are going to be reacting to news about what\u2019s happening.\u00a0 And again, a reminder \u2013 think about it, okay?\u00a0 This terroristic regime, led by radical clerics, has the ability potentially to shut off 20 percent of global energy.\u00a0 That\u2019s the kind of leverage they have because of their navy.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to destroy their navy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there is a plan in place.\u00a0 We anticipated this could be an issue.\u00a0 And Secretary Wright and Bessent will begin to roll out those steps starting tomorrow to mitigate \u2013 to mitigate \u2013 against the impact that could have.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve got to do this briefing, so I\u2019ve got a couple more.\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 Do you anticipate putting boots on the ground?\u00a0 And how long do you anticipate the conflict to last?<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 Well, we don\u2019t \u2013 let me say two things about it.\u00a0 Number one, I\u2019m \u2013 the President always has the options to undertake whatever operations he decides to do as the Commander-in-Chief.\u00a0 That said, the \u2013 we believe the objective that we have set for this mission, which is the destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities, both launch capability and manufacturing, can be achieved without ground forces.\u00a0 Right now we\u2019re not postured for ground forces.\u00a0 But obviously, the President has those options.\u00a0 He\u2019s never going to rule out anything. But right now our focus is on the destruction of their ballistic missile launchers, their ballistic missile stockpiles, and their ballistic missile manufacturing capability, as well as their one-way attack drones and their navy because of the threat it poses to global shipping.<\/p>\n
All right, I\u2019ve got \u2013 I got \u2013 can only do one more.\u00a0 Right there, right there in the middle.\u00a0 Yes, sir.<\/p>\n
QUESTION:\u00a0 Is there a diplomatic exchange going on right now between the U.S. and Iran?\u00a0 Any exchanges whatsoever outside of \u2014<\/p>\n
SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 No, not at this time.\u00a0 I mean, look, we always have people that reach out from inside of governments.\u00a0 You don\u2019t know if they\u2019re authorized to reach out or not.\u00a0 They\u2019re suffering a tremendous amount of damage.\u00a0 Honestly \u2013 again, I\u2019m not going to give away the details of our tactical efforts, but the hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military.\u00a0 The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now.\u00a0 Someone was screaming, \u201cHow long will it take?\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how long it\u2019ll take.\u00a0 We have objectives.\u00a0 We will do this as long as it takes to achieve those objectives, and we will achieve those objectives.\u00a0 The world will be a safer place when we\u2019re done with this operation.<\/p>\n
All right?\u00a0 Thank you, guys.\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SECRETARY RUBIO:\u00a0 The United States conducted this operation with a very clear goal in mind.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t gotten…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-321474","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}