SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
President Trump spoke publicly about the ongoing U.S. military strikes on Iran today. At the White House, he said this moment was the, quote, "last best chance to strike at Iran's nuclear weapons program." Last year, it is worth noting, the president said that program had been completely decimated by U.S. military strikes. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, also spoke today at the Pentagon, updating reporters on the military campaign and its objectives - and trying to explain to Americans why the country is suddenly at war. We are joined by NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez. Hi to you both.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: Franco, I'm going to start with you. This is the first time we've heard from the president beyond posts on social media. What did we learn?
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah, he echoed a lot of what we've already heard from him, but he did say that comp operations would continue for four to five weeks - but they could actually go on longer. And he boasted that operations were actually ahead of schedule because they had expected it would take weeks to eliminate military leadership. But that was actually accomplished in the first set of strikes, really within the first few hours. And Trump gave a bit more detail on the specific objectives that he says need to be met before stopping the attacks. There are four of them.
One is destroying Iran's ballistic missile capabilities. Two is taking out their navy. He noted that they've already sunk 10 ships since the strikes began. Three is ensuring that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. Of course, he has said - and he said again - that the program was obliterated but that Iran was trying to get it going again. He also accused the regime of playing games with the U.S. during those negotiations.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And we thought we had a deal, but then they backed out. Then they came back, and we thought we had a deal, and they backed out. I said, you can't deal with these people. You got to do it the right way.
ORDOÑEZ: And finally, Scott, fourth reason - ensuring that Iran does not continue to fund and direct militant proxy groups like Hezbollah and Hamas that fight across the region.
DETROW: OK. And Tom, you are - what about the Pentagon press conference today? What did that tell us?
BOWMAN: Well, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs chairman General Dan Caine briefed the press, again talking about taking out - as Franco said, taking out Iranian missiles, its nuclear program and navy. Now, there already have been six American soldiers killed in Kuwait by an Iranian missile and as many as 18 wounded. And General Caine said this is just the beginning of this operation and also to expect more casualties. Let's listen.
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DAN CAINE: This is not a single overnight operation. The military objectives that CENTCOM and the joint force have been tasked with will take some time to achieve and in some cases, will be difficult and gritty work. We expect to take additional losses, and as always, we will work to minimize U.S. losses. But as the secretary said, this is major combat operations.
BOWMAN: Now, this is a tactical look, Scott. We're still not getting a sense of the overall way ahead. Hegseth and others said it's not regime change, but this is regime change by the barrel of a gun. Hill staffers were briefed - were asking, well, why now? What is the imminent threat? They did not get a satisfactory answer, and I'm told lawmakers will get a briefing and will likely have the same questions as well.
DETROW: There are still so many questions here. I'm curious, did anything really stand out to you from the briefing?
BOWMAN: Yeah. Secretary Hegseth said there are no rules of engagement, and I'm told some people - military people - are outraged by that. There are rules to protect civilians, especially when you're dropping, you know, 1,000-pound bombs and missiles fired from ships and aircraft. There are reports that a U.S. missile destroyed a girls' school in Iran, killing more than 100. A military spokesman put out a statement saying they're looking into those reports, adding, quote, "the protection of civilians is of utmost importance to us." Now, one other thing I'd like to point out, the administration has offered differing rationales for this ongoing attack, including the Iranians would soon have the ability to have a missile capable of reaching the United States. The Defense Intelligence Agency has reported that they could possibly build one that could reach the United States by 2035. But now, of course, that timeline is off.
DETROW: Yeah. So Franco, I'm going to go back to the White House and you. Beyond the president posting on social media, really, there was very little communication by any administration officials over the weekend. Is that unusual?
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah, I mean, it's very unusual. I mean, historically, presidents would often, you know, make a case to the American people. They'd explain why this needed to happen at this moment, for example. But, you know, this president didn't do that. You know, we got really more vague explanations of the dangers. You know, at the State of the Union address, he kind of jumbled together some of those concerns that he has and the administration has, but no plan. The president also did not seek backing from Congress or even ask for authorization to go to war. And that's really going to be a debate this week on Capitol Hill.
Ever since the strikes started, Scott, the White House has really just clamped down on messaging. You know, except for some short phone interviews with select media outlets, Trump has really only taken a few questions about his plans - none on camera, by the way. And until today, the only time we saw him was, you know, getting on and off the plane and returning to the White House. I mean, frankly, the messaging has just been so mixed. He told the New York Post, for example, that he's not ruling out sending U.S. ground troops in Iran if they were necessary. And then today, he did not say that he's calling for Iranians to rise up and take over the country as he has before.
DETROW: Let's get back to the key question here. Do we know more about the rationale for why now or more on the internal deliberations that led to these strikes?
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah. I mean, so much of this is based on the argument that Iran poses an immediate threat, an imminent threat to the United States. But the president has not presented any hard evidence of that. And just again, he's not letting anyone ask about that evidence. I mean, even today, while his first public comments in front of cameras, he didn't take any questions - which, Scott, you will know better than anybody, that is very unusual for this president.
DETROW: Yes.
ORDOÑEZ: He's always taking questions.
DETROW: Always happy to.
ORDOÑEZ: And, you know, there are many questions, especially, what is the plan going forward? What are they going to do once all this infrastructure is destroyed? I mean, he doesn't explain - what is the plan for the long term? I mean, is the plan really just to leave this all to the Iranian people to deal with?
DETROW: Tom Bowman, I'm going to go back to you about conditions inside Iran. So many key leaders were decapitated in strikes this weekend, which leads to another key question - who is running the country? Was that addressed by U.S. military officials?
BOWMAN: Well, it was not addressed by military leaders who, of course, are in charge of the tactical pictures, you know, targets and so forth. We do - don't have a good sense of who's in charge. A three-person leadership council holds power until a new supreme leader is named, especially - expected in the coming days.
DETROW: I mean, question for both of you - you have both covered a lot of similar story lines to this. Any sense of how this plays out? Are there off-ramps? Could we still see negotiations? Could this pull the U.S. military into a protracted conflict? I mean, we're all thinking about the recent Iraq wars in previous decades.
BOWMAN: Well, Iranian leaders are saying they will not negotiate. They'll continue to resist, continue to attack with missiles. A retired senior officer told me the concern is Iranians have more missiles than the U.S. has interceptors. Also, this is spreading. Already, the U.S. has mounted airstrikes against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and you could see more of that in Iraq and elsewhere. It's hard at this point to say whether or not this will be a protracted conflict, like you saw in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's no sense any U.S. troops will be heading to Iran, which, of course, would lead to a long and bloody fight.
ORDOÑEZ: You know, there's really the question about how this plays out politically as well with the midterm campaign season about to kick into high gear. I mean, if it turns into the protracted conflict, Republicans are worried because they want to shift toward the economy.
DETROW: NPR's Franco Ordoñez and Tom Bowman, thanks to you both.
BOWMAN: You're welcome.
ORDOÑEZ: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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