Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told CBS News on Sunday that he does not believe Iran is “anywhere close” to obtaining a nuclear weapon, arguing that U.S. military action last year dealt a crushing blow to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
Appearing on Face the Nation with host Margaret Brennan, Cruz pointed to Operation Midnight Hammer, which targeted key Iranian nuclear facilities at the end of what he described as the 12-Day War last June.
“So, there is no doubt that a year ago, Iran had an active and ongoing nuclear program,” Cruz said. “We took out the vast majority of that at the end of the 12-Day War.”
Brennan pushed back, noting that the intelligence assessment Cruz referenced had not been made public.
“That intelligence assessment was not made public if that is what was briefed to you,” she interjected.
Cruz elaborated on the scope of the U.S. strike, describing the use of powerful bunker-buster munitions against hardened underground sites.
“We launched targeted bombs at the end of the 12-Day War where we dropped the equivalent of about a third of a nuclear weapon on those underground facilities,” Cruz said. He specifically mentioned Fordow, a facility built into the base of a mountain.
“The bunker buster bombs we used, Israel doesn’t have those bombs, no other country has those bombs,” he continued. “We took them out last year.”
Despite the damage inflicted, Cruz said Iran remained determined to rebuild its nuclear capabilities.
“The Iranians were still hellbent on rebuilding,” he said.
Brennan questioned who was currently monitoring Iran’s nuclear materials in the absence of U.S. or Israeli troops on the ground.
“Look, the quantity of nuclear material, I didn’t say anything one way or another on that,” Cruz responded. “What I said is, they were building nuclear weapons a year ago and our bombing took that out. They also had an ongoing desire to rebuild them.”
He acknowledged that he does not have access to present-day intelligence on Iran’s progress since the facilities were struck.
“I don’t have present-day intelligence on what progress they had made toward rebuilding nuclear weapons since we bombed their facilities,” Cruz said. “I have no indication that they were anywhere close to getting nuclear weapons, because our bombing was devastating.”
Cruz added that the extent of the damage was one of the reasons he urged President Donald Trump to act decisively.
“That’s one of the reasons I urged President Trump, ‘Now is the time’ to strike,” he said.
President Trump defended the strikes in an eight-minute video posted online early Saturday morning, declaring that Iran “can never have a nuclear weapon.”
“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated,” Trump said.
In a separate interview with Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich on Sunday, Trump claimed that had the United States and Israel not initiated the missile strikes, Iran “would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks.”
The exchange highlights ongoing debate over the impact of last year’s strikes and the current state of Iran’s nuclear program, as lawmakers and the administration continue to argue that decisive military action was necessary to prevent Tehran from crossing the nuclear threshold.
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