National Security Council spokesman John Kirby heartily disputed reports Monday suggesting that Iran had planned its weekend strikes against Israel to “fail.”
Israel and the United States shot down more than 99% of the roughly 300 drones and missiles Iran launched against Israel on Saturday, according to Kirby, calling the attack a “spectacular and embarrassing failure” for Iran.
“I’ve also seen reports say that they provided early warning to help Israel prepare its defenses and limit any potential damage,” he continued during Monday’s White House press briefing. “All of this is categorically false. To coin the phrase from the president — steal a phrase from the president — it’s malarkey.”
Kirby claimed that Iran intended to cause “significant destruction and casualties” and denied receiving any advance notice from Iran on the “time frame” of the attack.
“The United States had no messages from Iran, or anybody else, as I said in my opening statement, that offered a specific time frame, or a specific set of targets, or the types of weapons that they were going to fire,” he claimed.
Multiple reports over the weekend claimed that Iran had passed along such a timeline to U.S. allies, including Turkey, who had then alerted the Pentagon of Iran’s plans.
“It kind of boggles my mind that anybody would believe that Iran would pick up the phone and tell the United States,” Kirby said, adding, “You can’t throw that much metal in the air, which they did in the time frame in which they did, and convince anybody realistically you weren’t trying to cause casualties and you weren’t calling trying to cause damage. They absolutely were.”
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You can watch Monday’s briefing in full below.
