Due to President Donald Trump’s social media activity ahead of the U.S. bombing in Iran in support of Israel, military officials devised a plan to bypass him and mislead his own team, according to a report by The New York Times.
The Trump administration was planning its nuclear attack on Iran while the president was pushing the “two week” narrative.
While Trump publicly claimed he was still weighing a decision on whether to bomb Iran, pushing a two-week narrative of deliberation, he was, behind the scenes, actively involved in planning the strike, The Times revealed.
Although military officials conducted the preparations in secret, Trump’s social media posts and public comments gradually revealed enough details to signal to many observers that an attack was imminent. Six days before the strike, he wrote, “Everyone should evacuate Tehran!” in a Truth Social post. The next day, he revealed he left the G7 meeting in Canada for something “much bigger” than a ceasefire in the Middle East.
A military official told The Times that Trump was considered the “biggest threat to opsec,” or operational security, due to his unpredictable social media activity, a concern shared by both the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command. Military planners feared the president was giving Iran too much advance warning of the forthcoming strikes.
To prevent a potential leak, the military launched two groups of B-2 bombers from Missouri on the day of the attack. Only one group was actually headed for Iran, flying undetected, while the other flew toward Guam as a diversion.
General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, later confirmed that the Guam-bound group was a “decoy.”
Although Trump later claimed the strike “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities, his administration has since walked back that assertion. Iranian officials reported that the sites sustained damage, but nothing that could not be repaired.
Originally published on Latin Times
