'Minutes before the bombs dropped': Vance on Trump’s Iran strike decision

US President Donald Trump gave the go-ahead to attack on Iranian nuclear facilities ‘minutes before the bombs dropped’, Vice President JD Vance was quoted saying to NBC's "Meet the Press" on Saturday, CNN reported. Vance added that Trump "had the power to call off this attack until the very last minute" and chose to go ahead.

Large ‘bunker buster’ bombs were dropped on two of the nuclear facilities around 6:40 pm ET on Saturday in the US, timing the attack approximately 2:10 a.m. local time Sunday in Iran, per a timeline released by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, CNN said.

Trump has been weighing US involvement for days and has instructed his press secretary to provide a two-week deadline from the briefing room in recent days. But he had already been inclined to participate in Israel's military campaign in private meetings with senior aides as his representative Steve Witkoff was still pursuing diplomatic attempts, CNN reported. "President Donald Trump made the final order for the US to strike Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday," CNN reported, quoting a senior White House official. Trump made the final call on Saturday and directed Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to go ahead, this official said.

The US is also closely observing whether Iran will attack American forces or resume its nuclear weapons program, Vance added, describing the situation as ‘a very delicate moment’, according to CNN. Iran's next move would be apparent within the next 24 hours, he said. Until now, the US has ‘gotten some indirect messages from the Iranians’, Vance stated. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier on Sunday said that "both public and private messages are being directly communicated to the Iranians through several channels."

Reiterating the administration's position, Vance said that the US has "no interest in boots on the ground" and rejected suggestions that the US intervention would escalate. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged direct negotiations between the United States and Iran after Saturday's military attacks and said that America is "prepared to talk to them tomorrow." The US top diplomat repeated that Iran would be able to have a civilian nuclear program but no enrichment of uranium, CNN reported.

"The Iranian regime should wake up and say, 'Okay, if we really want nuclear energy in our country, there's a way to do it.' That offer is still there. We're prepared to talk to them tomorrow and start working on that," Rubio said. "Steve Witkoff has traveled extensively around the world trying to reach that deal with them, but they play too many games. They play way too many games. And now they found out."

He added that Iran "tried to play" in negotiations, so "the president had to take action as a response." Iran rejected the US proposal, "wouldn't respond" to American offers and "disappeared for 10 days" ahead of the military operation, he said.

US enters Iran-Israel war

In a major escalation of tensions in West Asia, the US bombed three nuclear sites - Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan - in Iran and warned the Islamic Republic of more "precision strikes" if it did not end its conflict with Israel. This came days after the US president said that he would decide within ‘two weeks’ if he needs to bomb Iran. The US strike came on the ninth day of Operation Rising Lion, under which Israel hit several nuclear facilities inside Iran, killing top military officials and nuclear scientists. The Israel Defence Forces said that US strikes “were in coordination with the IDF” and it was a “crucial step stopping the Iranian regime's aggression.”

As America entered the war, Donald Trump said that ‘there will either be peace or tragedy.’ "This cannot continue. There will either be peace or tragedy for Iran, far greater than what we have witnessed over the last eight days," Trump told a press briefing at the Oval Office. He also conveyed the goal of the US' strikes, saying, "Our Objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity, and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”