By MARY CLARE JALONICK and LISA MASCARO, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Republicans — and at least one Democrat — immediately praised President Donald Trump after he said Saturday evening that the U.S. military bombed three sites in Iran.
“Well done, President Trump,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina posted on X. Texas Sen. John Cornyn called it a “courageous and correct decision.” Alabama Sen. Katie Britt called the bombings “strong and surgical.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., questions Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth during a Senate Committee on Appropriations subcommittee hearing to examine proposed budget estimates for fiscal year 2026 for the Department of Defense, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, June 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin posted: “America first, always.”
The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, said Trump “has made a deliberate — and correct — decision to eliminate the existential threat posed by the Iranian regime.”
Wicker posted on X that “we now have very serious choices ahead to provide security for our citizens and our allies.”
The quick endorsements of stepped up U.S. involvement in Iran came after Trump had publicly mulled the strikes for days and many congressional Republicans had cautiously said they thought he would make the right decision. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Saturday evening that “as we take action tonight to ensure a nuclear weapon remains out of reach for Iran, I stand with President Trump and pray for the American troops and personnel in harm’s way.”
Related Articles
Trump’s move against Iran may draw more criticism from MAGA’s anti-interventionists
Democrats are at odds over the Israel-Iran war as Trump says US has struck Iranian nuclear sites
Watch live: Trump addresses nation after U.S. military strikes on Iran nuclear facilities
Mahmoud Khalil vows to continue protesting Israel and the war in Gaza after release from detention
US has struck 3 Iranian nuclear sites, Trump says, joining Israeli air campaign
Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., were briefed ahead of the strikes on Saturday, according to people familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.
Johnson said in a statement that the military operations “should serve as a clear reminder to our adversaries and allies that President Trump means what he says.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford, R-Ark., said he had also been in touch with the White House and “I am grateful to the U.S. servicemembers who carried out these precise and successful strikes.”
Breaking from many of his Democratic colleagues, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, an outspoken supporter of Israel, also praised the attacks on Iran. “As I’ve long maintained, this was the correct move by @POTUS,” he posted. “Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism and cannot have nuclear capabilities.”
Both parties have seen splits in recent days over the prospect of striking Iran. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican and a longtime opponent of U.S. involvement in foreign wars, posted on X after Trump announced the attacks that “This is not Constitutional.”
Many Democrats have maintained that Congress should have a say. The Senate was scheduled to vote as soon as this week on a resolution by Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine requiring congressional approval before the U.S. declared war on Iran or took specific military action.
Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House intelligence panel, posted on X after Trump’s announcement: “According to the Constitution we are both sworn to defend, my attention to this matter comes BEFORE bombs fall. Full stop.”
President Donald Trump said the strikes, which he described as “very successful,” had hit the Natanz, Fordo and Isfahan sites, with Fordo being the primary target. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran confirmed there were attacks early Sunday at all three nuclear sites.
This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows the Fordo enrichment facility in Iran on Jan. 24, 2025. (Maxar Technologies via AP)
Israel launched a surprise barrage of attacks on sites in Iran on June 13, which Israeli officials said was necessary to head off what they claimed was an imminent threat that Iran would build nuclear bombs.
Iran, which has long insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, has retaliated with a series of missile and drone strikes in Israel, while Israel has continued to strike sites in Iran.
The U.S. and Iran had been in talks that could have resulted in the U.S. lifting some of its crushing economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran drastically limiting or ending its enrichment of uranium. Until Saturday, Washington had helped shoot down Iranian strikes on Israel but had not launched direct attacks on Iran.
Here’s a look at the sites Trump said the U.S. struck and their importance to Iran’s nuclear program.
Natanz enrichment facility
Iran’s nuclear facility at Natanz, located some 135 miles southeast of Tehran, is the country’s main enrichment site and had already been targeted by Israeli airstrikes. Uranium had been enriched to up to 60% purity at the site — a mildly radioactive level but a short step away from weapons grade — before Israel destroyed the aboveground part of the facility, according to the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Another part of the facility on Iran’s Central Plateau is underground to defend against potential airstrikes. It operates multiple cascades, or groups of centrifuges working together to more quickly enrich uranium. The IAEA has said it believes that most if not all of these centrifuges were destroyed by an Israeli strike that cut off power to the site.
The IAEA said those strikes caused contamination only at the site itself, not the surrounding area.
Iran also is burrowing into the Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, or Pickax Mountain, which is just beyond Natanz’s southern fencing. Natanz has been targeted by the Stuxnet virus, believed to be an Israeli and American creation, which destroyed Iranian centrifuges. Two separate attacks, attributed to Israel, also have struck the facility.
Fordo enrichment facility
Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordo is located some 60 miles southwest of Tehran. It also hosts centrifuge cascades, but isn’t as big as Natanz. Its construction began at least in 2007, according to the IAEA, although Iran only informed the U.N. nuclear watchdog about the facility in 2009 after the U.S. and allied Western intelligence agencies became aware of its existence.
FILE – This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows the Fordo enrichment facility in Iran on April 1, 2025. (Planet Labs PBC via AP, File)
Buried under a mountain and protected by anti-aircraft batteries, Fordo appears designed to withstand airstrikes. Military experts have said it could likely only be targeted by “bunker buster” bombs — a term for bombs that are designed to penetrate deep below the surface before exploding — such as the latest GBU-57 A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb in the American arsenal. The roughly 30,000 pound precision-guided bomb is designed to attack deeply buried and hardened bunkers and tunnels.
The U.S. has only configured and programed its B-2 Spirit stealth bomber to deliver that bomb, according to the Air Force. The B-2 is only flown by the Air Force, and is produced by Northrop Grumman, meaning that Washington would have to be involved in such an operation.
Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center
The facility in Isfahan, some 215 miles southeast of Tehran, employs thousands of nuclear scientists. It also is home to three Chinese research reactors and laboratories associated with the country’s atomic program.
Israel has struck buildings at the Isfahan nuclear site, among them a uranium conversion facility. The IAEA said there has been no sign of increased radiation at the site.
Related Articles
Watch live: Trump to address nation after U.S. military strikes on Iran nuclear facilities
US has struck 3 Iranian nuclear sites, Trump says, joining Israeli air campaign
Today in History: June 21, US Constitution becomes law
A woman tried to call her mom in Iran. A robotic voice answered the phone
Music streaming service Deezer adds AI song tags in fight against fraud
Other nuclear sites
Iran has several other sites in its nuclear program that were not announced as targets in the U.S. strikes.
Iran’s only commercial nuclear power plant is in Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, some 465 miles south of Tehran. Iran is building two other reactors like it at the site. Bushehr is fueled by uranium produced in Russia, not Iran, and is monitored by the IAEA.
The Arak heavy water reactor is 155 miles southwest of Tehran. Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it produces plutonium as a byproduct that can potentially be used in nuclear weapons. Iran had agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility to relieve proliferation concerns.
The Tehran Research Reactor is at the headquarters of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the civilian body overseeing the country’s atomic program. It initially required highly enriched uranium but was later retrofitted to use low-enriched uranium over proliferation concerns.
Associated Press staff writer Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.
Scott Miller, a former Twins beat reporter for the Pioneer Press who went on to become one of the nation’s pre-eminent baseball writers, died Saturday after a long illness. He was 62.
Miller came to Minnesota from the Los Angeles Times. He covered the Twins for six seasons, 1994-99, before leaving St. Paul to become the national baseball reporter for CBS Sports’ website.
“Heartbroken to share: Baseball lost a giant,” USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, a longtime friend, posted on X. “Scott Miller was a brilliant writer and an even better human.”
Through the years, Miller’s byline appeared in the New York Times and Bleacher Report. He was a frequent contributor to MLB Radio on satellite, and for several years he made regular appearances on television broadcasts for the San Diego Padres.
Miller also wrote two books about baseball: “Ninety Percent Mental” and “Skipper: Why Baseball Managers Matter and Always Will.”
Related Articles
Simeon Woods Richardson recovers from early challenges in loss
Twins quieted in loss to Brewers: “It’s embarrassing”
Jacob Misiorowoski takes no-hitter into seventh as Brewers rock Twins
Twins have some torrid June hitters, but it hasn’t helped in standings
Byron Buxton hits two homers as Twins snap losing skid in Cincinnati
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Saturday that the U.S. military struck three sites in Iran, directly joining Israel ’s effort to decapitate the country’s nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict.
The decision to directly involve the U.S. comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that have moved to systematically eradicate the country’s air defenses and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities. But U.S. and Israeli officials have said that American stealth bombers and a 30,000-lb. bunker buster bomb they alone can carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily-fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground.
“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” Trump said in a post on social media. “All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home.”
Related Articles
Today in History: June 21, US Constitution becomes law
A woman tried to call her mom in Iran. A robotic voice answered the phone
Music streaming service Deezer adds AI song tags in fight against fraud
Internet and phone outage in much of Gaza disrupts humanitarian operations and deepens isolation
Mexico assesses damage from Hurricane Erick as rising rivers leave at least 1 dead
Trump said B-2 stealth bombers were used but did not specify which types of bombs were dropped. The White House and Pentagon did not immediately elaborate on the operation.
The strikes are a perilous decision for the U.S. as Iran has pledged to retaliate if it joined the Israeli assault, and for Trump personally, having won the White House on the promise of keeping America out of costly foreign conflicts and scoffed at the value of American interventionism.
Trump told reporters on Friday that he was not interested in sending ground forces into Iran. He had previously indicated that he would make a final choice over the course of two weeks, a timeline that seemed drawn out as the situation was evolving quickly.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Wednesday the United States that strikes targeting the Islamic Republic will “result in irreparable damage for them.” And Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei declared “any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region.”
Trump has vowed that he would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and he had initially hoped that the threat of force would bring the country’s leaders to give up its nuclear program peacefully.
Israel ’s military said Saturday it was preparing for the possibility of a lengthy war, while Iran’s foreign minister warned before the U.S. attack that American military involvement “would be very, very dangerous for everyone.”
The prospect of a wider war threatened, too. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said they would resume attacks on U.S. vessels in the Red Sea if the Trump administration joins Israel’s military campaign. The Houthis paused such attacks in May under a deal with the U.S.
The U.S. ambassador to Israel announced the U.S. had begun “assisted departure flights,” the first from Israel since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza.
Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
But Trump appears to have made the calculation — at the prodding of Israeli officials and many Republican lawmakers — that Israel’s operation had softened the ground and presented a perhaps unparalleled opportunity to set back Iran’s nuclear program, perhaps permanently.
The Israelis say their offensive has already crippled Iran’s air defenses, allowing them to already significantly degrade multiple Iranian nuclear sites.
Parnia Rahmanian, 13, lies unconscious in a hospital bed following Israeli strike that targeted her neighborhood, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People shout slogans during an anti Israel protest in Istanbul, Turkey, Saturday, June 21, 2025. The board on the left reads in Turkish: “Get out of Palestine”. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A protester holds a portrait of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a rally to show solidarity with Iran in the Shi’ite district of Kazimiyah, in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, June 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Children play in a public bomb shelter in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Saturday, June 21, 2025, amid concerns over potential Iranian missile attacks. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
1 of 4
Parnia Rahmanian, 13, lies unconscious in a hospital bed following Israeli strike that targeted her neighborhood, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
But to destroy the Fordo nuclear fuel enrichment plant, Israel has appealed to Trump for U.S. bunker-busting bombs, the 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which uses its weight and sheer kinetic force to reach deeply buried targets and then explode. The penetrator is currently only delivered by the B-2 stealth bomber, which is only found in the American arsenal.
The bomb carries a conventional warhead, and is believed to be able to penetrate about 200 feet (61 meters) below the surface before exploding, and the bombs can be dropped one after another, effectively drilling deeper and deeper with each successive blast.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran is producing highly enriched uranium at Fordo, raising the possibility that nuclear material could be released into the area if the GBU-57 A/B were used to hit the facility.
Previous Israeli strikes at another Iranian nuclear site, Natanz, on a centrifuge site have caused contamination only at the site itself, not the surrounding area, the IAEA has said.
Trump’s decision for direct U.S. military intervention comes after his administration made an unsuccessful two-month push — including with high-level, direct negotiations with the Iranians — aimed at persuading Tehran to curb its nuclear program.
For months, Trump said he was dedicated to a diplomatic push to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. And he twice — in April and again in late May — persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on military action against Iran and give diplomacy more time.
The U.S. in recent days has been shifting military aircraft and warships into and around the Middle East to protect Israel and U.S. bases from Iranian attacks.
All the while, Trump has gone from publicly expressing hope that the moment could be a “second chance” for Iran to make a deal to delivering explicit threats on Khamenei and making calls for Tehran’s unconditional surrender.
“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump said in a social media posting. “He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”
The military showdown with Iran comes seven years after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Obama-administration brokered agreement in 2018, calling it the “worst deal ever.”
The 2015 deal, signed by Iran, U.S. and other world powers, created a long-term, comprehensive nuclear agreement that limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Trump decried the Obama-era deal for giving Iran too much in return for too little, because the agreement did not cover Iran’s non-nuclear malign behavior.
Trump has bristled at criticism from some of his MAGA faithful, including conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, who have suggested that further U.S. involvement would be a betrayal to supporters who were drawn to his promise to end U.S. involvement in expensive and endless wars.
Rising reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Mehmet Guzel in Istanbul; Josef Federman in Jerusalem; Samy Magdy in Cairo; Matthew Lee and Josh Boak in Washington, D.C.; and Farnoush Amiri and Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed to this report.
