Washington — President Trump has been briefed on both the risks and the benefits of bombing Fordo, Iran’s most secure nuclear site, and his mindset is that disabling it is necessary because of the risk of weapons being produced in a relatively short period of time, multiple sources told CBS News.
“He believes there’s not much choice,” one source said. “Finishing the job means destroying Fordo.”
The president approved attack plans on Iran on Tuesday night, but has not made a final decision on whether to strike the country and formally join Israel’s air campaign, a senior intelligence source and a Defense Department official told CBS News on Wednesday.
Mr. Trump held off on deciding to strike in case Tehran agrees to abandon its nuclear program, the sources said.
CBS News previously reported that Mr. Trump was weighing a strike on Fordo, a subterranean uranium enrichment facility. Israel has not conducted any known strikes on Fordo since it began bombing Iranian nuclear and military targets late last week.
Trump’s decision
Mr. Trump is willing to get the U.S. involved if that’s what it takes to knock out the site, sources said. As of Thursday morning, he was still reviewing his options and has not made a firm decision either way. He has discussed the logistics of using bunker-buster bombs, two of the sources said.
It was not immediately clear how much of the U.S. military infrastructure needed for a strike was in place or how much time it would take to move assets into position.
One option Mr. Trump has considered is that Iran could disable Fordo on its own, if its leaders so choose, two of the sources said.
David Lammy, the foreign secretary of the U.K., is set to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington later Thursday, a European official said, with active diplomacy underway to find an off-ramp in the conflict and make a take-it-or-leave-it offer to Iran. London maintains an embassy in Tehran, giving the U.K. visibility that the U.S. does not have in the Iranian capital.
Mr. Trump is aware of the diplomatic effort being undertaken, with the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Great Britain, as well as the high representative of the EU, set to meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva on Friday.
Mr. Trump has viewed intelligence reports indicating the estimated speed at which Iran could produce bombs, two of the sources said.
John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, has said in closed-door settings that Iran is viewed as being very close to possessing nuclear weapons, despite the official line from the intelligence community that Iran’s leadership hasn’t given a formal order to build bombs, according to multiple sources.
Ratcliffe has said that claiming Iran isn’t close would be similar to saying football players who have fought their way to the one-yard line don’t want to score a touchdown, one U.S. official said.
Congressional committees that have been briefed by senior CIA analysts have been told the intelligence community’s view remains that no order to weaponize has been given by the supreme leader and that Iran has not restarted research on a delivery mechanism for a nuclear bomb.
The CIA declined to comment.
“Things change, especially with war”
Mr. Trump told reporters on Wednesday he had not made a final decision on whether to strike Iran.
“I like to make the final decision one second before it’s due, because things change, especially with war,” he said.
“I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” he said earlier in the day, adding that he’d like Iran to negotiate on a deal to end its nuclear program.
Iran — which has long insisted the program exists solely for peaceful purposes — said Wednesday it “does NOT negotiate under duress,” and said it would “respond to any threat with a counter-threat.”
Iran has prepared missiles and equipment for strikes on U.S. bases in the Middle East if the U.S. joins the Israeli campaign, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official and a Pentagon official briefed on the matter.
Israel began striking Iran last Friday morning. The Trump administration has said publicly it is not participating in the offensive strikes, though CBS News previously reported the U.S. has helped Israel intercept Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes.
In recent days, Mr. Trump has not ruled out the idea of joining Israel’s campaign, saying on Truth Social his “patience is wearing thin.”
The president said Tuesday the U.S. knows the whereabouts of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. On Sunday, CBS News reported Mr. Trump had opposed an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei.
Jennifer Jacobs is a senior White House reporter at CBS News.
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