Trump must win this intelligence row — or Maga will turn on him
For Trump and his loyalists, the truth about the Iran strikes does not seem to matter
Before Pete Hegseth was chosen to be Secretary of Defence, he spent 10 years as a host and contributor on Donald Trump’s favourite TV channel, Fox News.
Trump thought the 45-year-old, who’d served in Iraq and Afghanistan with the US Army, did a good job attacking “woke” policies such as transgender troops. Moreover, the square-jawed news anchor looked the part.
Despite allegations Hegseth drank too much and had harassed women — claims he denied — Trump backed him for the job.
This week, Hegseth has again been paying Trump back in full, standing alongside him at Nato headquarters to attack reporters who asked about leaked intelligence reports about US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Those reports suggested Iran’s nuclear sites had not been “completely and fully obliterated” as the President told the world in a White House address; rather the nuclear programme had only been set back by a few months.
Speaking to reporters, Trump again insisted he was correct, saying: “This was a devastating attack, and it knocked them for a loop.” Yet he also conceded the intelligence about what happened “was very inconclusive”.
“The original word that I used – I guess it got us in trouble, because it’s a strong word — it was ‘obliteration’,” he said. “You’ll see that — it’s going to come out. Israel is doing a report on it, I understand. And I was told that they said it was total obliteration.”
Trump is not the first American president to have clashed with their intelligence community, which includes a total of 18 different bodies that we know about.
George W Bush pressured analysts to find evidence the dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), something he could use to justify an invasion of Iraq in 2003. The invasion resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of US, British and other Nato troops. No WMD were ever found.
Trump’s own issues date back to before he was first elected in 2016, when agents found evidence Russia interfered in the election to help him defeat Hillary Clinton.
During an infamous 2018 summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Trump told reporters he had asked the Russian leader about the claims and had accepted his assurances there had been no funny business. “President Putin says it’s not Russia,” Trump said. “I don’t see any reason why it would be.”:
It is not entirely clear why Trump is now insisting his attack led to “total obliteration”, while at the same time admitting the information he is making that claim on is just an early assessment.
One possible reason is that if it’s not the success he claims, it will be both a huge embarrassment and could put pressure on him to carry out more strikes. This could be factor particularly if the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also concludes Iran’s nuclear programme has been set back by just a matter of months. This could spell disaster for a man propped up by a Maga base intent on “American First” isolationism — which means keeping American troops out of foreign wars. Considering there have already been stirrings of dissent from some of his most vocal supporters, Trump must now be careful where he treads.
It is also important to remember how much Trump likes to be seen to pull off a big win, and these days there is no one around him who would tell him the contrary.
On Thursday, the Financial Times said early intelligence assessments provided to European governments “indicated Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile remains largely intact”, in large part because much of it had been moved before the main site of Fordo was hit.
At the Pentagon, Hegseth said he was not “aware of any intelligence that I’ve reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be, moved or otherwise”.
If it appeared that there was a certain theatricality to Hegseth’s performance, that’s because there was. As when White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, speaks to reporters, she knows her performance is being watched, and marked by Trump.
Hegseth may have personally enjoyed getting angry with reporters when he spoke, but as with Leavitt, and any other Trump administration official, they know they need to please just one viewer.
If there was any doubt about that, Trump even posted on social media urging people to “watch it”.
Afterwards, he wrote: “One of the greatest, most professional, and most “confirming” News Conferences I have ever seen! The Fake News should fire everyone involved in this Witch Hunt, and apologise to our great warriors, and everyone else.”
We may not be any closer to finding out the truth about what happened as a result of the US’s strikes on Iran. For Trump and his loyalists, that does not seem to matter.
