BOILING POINT
US officials: Attack on Saudi Arabia launched from Iran
US officials have told Saudi Arabia that a cruise missile and drone attack on a major oil field was staged from inside Iran, The Wall Street Journal reports. President Trump said he’s waiting for a final report before deciding on a response.
The United States has shared intelligence with Saudi Arabia that shows the devastating missile and drone attack on its oil fields was staged in Iran, according to reports Monday.
The assessment, which was shared with the Saudis but not released publicly, came as President Trump raised the prospect of the US and Saudi Arabia joining forces to target Iran with possible airstrikes, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Trump said Monday that while the attack was still under investigation it appeared Iran was to blame for launching drone and cruise-missile strikes on a major oil field in Saudi Arabia.
“Well, it’s looking that way,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about Iranian involvement in Saturday’s attacks. “We’ll let you know definitively . . . That’s being checked out right now.”
Asked if his administration had made a commitment to protect the kingdom, the president said, “No, I haven’t promised the Saudis that. We have to sit down with the Saudis and work something out.”
Saudi Arabia, he added, should make a “big deal” of their defense and take responsibility.
“The Saudis are going to have a lot of involvement in this if we decide to do something . . . and that includes payment, and they understand that fully,” Trump said.
He said the US was “more prepared” for a conflict than any other country in the history of the world, but added that “with all that being said, we’d certainly like to avoid it.”
Trump also said that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other US officials would soon travel to Saudi Arabia and that a diplomatic solution to the tensions with Iran was still possible.
“I know they want to make a deal,” he said. “At some point it will work out.”
Saudi officials, meanwhile, said they had not reached the same conclusion that Iran was the staging ground for the attacks and indicated the information shared by the Americans wasn’t definitive.
The Saudi-led coalition leading the fight in Yemen, in its first assessment of the weekend attacks, said the weapons used to hit the kingdom were Iranian.
The US had dismissed a claim by Houthi militants in Yemen that they sent 10 drones to attack the Saudi oil sites, which crippled the kingdom’s petroleum industry, sent energy markets reeling and threatened to spark more violence in the volatile region, where Iran, Saudi Arabia and their proxies were already at each other’s throats.
Iran has denied that it was behind the attacks, but the Iranianbacked Houthi rebels in Yemen have claimed responsibility.
Trump warned Sunday on Twitter that the US was “locked and loaded” and ready to strike when America and Saudi Arabia identified who was responsible.
The strikes on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure caused a production shutdown on a scale the world had not seen for decades and was expected to result in an increase in the price of gasoline.
On Monday, Trump tweeted about a June incident in which Iran brought down a US drone and noted that he had called off a planned retaliatory strike.
“Remember when Iran shot down a drone, saying knowingly that it was in their ‘airspace’ when, in fact, it was nowhere close,” he wrote. “They stuck strongly to that story knowing that it was a very big lie. Now they say they had nothing to do with the attack on Saudi Arabia. We’ll see?”
The attack Saturday morning on the Abqaiq refinery, the world's largest, and the Khurais oil field disrupted Saudi production by about 5.7 million barrels a day — or about half its output.
South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham — a reliable Trump backer — called for the US to put an attack on Iranian oil refineries “on the table.”
Others cautioned against military action that could lead to another war at a time when America is trying to extricate itself from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney warned on Twitter that any “direct engagement by US military in response to Iran’s attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure would be a grave mistake.”
Romney pointed out that America had sold weapons to Saudi Arabia so the country could defend itself.
If Saudi Arabia responded to the attacks, he said, “the U.S. should be ready to support in a non-kinetic role.”
Democrats were more direct in their warnings.
“The U.S. should never go to war to protect Saudi oil,” Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine tweeted.
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut on Monday called Iranian involvement in the attacks unacceptable, but criticized Trump’s Iran strategy as “blind unilateral escalation.”