{"id":624310,"date":"2026-03-01T09:56:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T09:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/624310\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T09:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T09:56:17","slug":"us-officials-reveal-the-urgency-behind-operation-epic-fury-attack-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/624310\/","title":{"rendered":"US officials reveal the urgency behind ‘Operation Epic Fury’ attack on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran posed an \u201cintolerable risk\u201d to the U.S. with its missile threat and, during negotiations<\/a>, wouldn\u2019t accept \u201cfree nuclear fuel forever\u201d \u2013 all of which led up to Saturday\u2019s attack on Tehran.<\/p>\n

Follow The Post\u2019s live coverage of the United States\u2019 airstrikes on Iran<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Senior administration officials briefed reporters on the hours leading up to \u201cOperation Epic Fury.\u201d<\/p>\n

One official described Iran\u2019s missile inventory and said it posed \u201can intolerable risk to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Donald J. Trump Monitors U.S. Military Operations in Iran: Operation Epic Fury, February 28, 2026 The White House<\/p>\n

The US had \u201cindicators\u201d that Tehran was going to launch a preemptive strike against American assets in the region, pointing to Iran\u2019s retaliatory strikes<\/a> on US bases in the region, including ones in Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, as proof.<\/p>\n

Jared Larson \/ NY Post Design<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president decided he was not going to sit back and allow American forces in the region to absorb attacks from conventional missiles. We had analysis that basically told us, if we sat back and waited to get hit first, the amount of casualties and damage would be substantially higher than if we acted in a preemptive, defensive way to prevent those launches from occurring,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n

This video grab taken from UGC images posted on social media on February 28, 2026 and verified by AFPTV teams in Paris shows people inspecting the damage at an impact site following US and Israeli strikes on Tehran. UGC\/UNKNOWN\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

A satellite image shows black smoke rising and heavy damage at Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei\u2019s compound, following strikes by the United States and Israel against Iran, in Tehran, Iran February 28, 2026. via REUTERS<\/p>\n

Another senior administration official described the final talks in Geneva<\/a> with Iranian officials and revealed the astonishing offer the Americans made.<\/p>\n

A US warship fires a missile towards Iran during Operation Epic Fury. U.S. Central Command<\/p>\n

Follow The Post\u2019s coverage of the United States\u2019 airstrikes on Iran:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we offered \u2013 we said, we will give you free nuclear fuel forever,\u201d the official said. \u201cAnd they basically said that didn\u2019t work for them. They needed to enrich uranium.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration said Iran\u2019s nuclear capabilities were destroyed in Operation Midnight Hammer last year, but were concerned Tehran was preparing to ramp them up again.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran posed an \u201cintolerable risk\u201d to the U.S. with its missile threat and, during negotiations, wouldn\u2019t accept \u201cfree…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":624311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[3356,5229,266825,372,69,83,99,3097,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,2053,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-624310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-airstrikes","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-ayatollah-khamenei","11":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-iran","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-middle-east","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-newyork","19":"tag-newyorkcity","20":"tag-ny","21":"tag-nyc","22":"tag-politics","23":"tag-tehran","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-united-states-of-america","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-us-news","30":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116153325024449879","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}