Transcript: Trump Bombs Iran! w/ Scott Ritter and Judge Napolitano

It’s a war crime. It’s not just a war crime. Judge Jackson from the Nuremberg trial period, lead prosecutor of the Nazi war criminals, you know, asserted that a war of aggression is the ultimate war crime because from this war of aggression, all other crimes emanate. This is what we did. I don’t know why Americans are proud of this.

This is an act of perfidy, a surprise attack, an undeclared act of aggression that had no foundation and justification. Again, to justify something like this, which is the equivalent of what we would say a preemptive act of self defense, there needs to be an imminent threat, an imminent threat that can only be dealt with through this act of aggression. Iran was in the process of negotiations that would resolve all of the issues that could be perceived as a threat. So there is no imminent threat.

Moreover, we know that the sites that had been targeted, three nuclear sites, Isfahan, Natanz and Fordo, were empty. These strikes would have zero impact on an Iranian nuclear program that had long since been evacuated from these sites and sent to other locations. It’s come out that this strike plan, which was done in cooperation with Israel, was something that had been planned more than a year ago and actually been practiced by the United States and Israel.

So this was a pre-planned strike against three designated sites that had no military value. This is purely an act of theater. And any military commander that put American lives at risk to carry out an act of political theater should literally have their commissions revoked and be drummed out of the service. There was no justification for this.

But moreover, the attacks didn’t even accomplish what they claimed to have accomplished. We had one B2 bomber drop two GBU 57s on the Natanz facility.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: What is that? What is the GBU 57? Is that one of these 32,000 pound monsters?

The Massive Ordnance Penetrator Weapons

SCOTT RITTER: Correct. They’re the massive ordnance penetrator weapon that only the B2 can carry. And it’s upon the shoulders of this weapon that the United States has based its hopes of interdicting Iran’s nuclear program. But Natanz had been struck at least twice and probably three times by the Israelis prior to this attack. And whatever was in the tank that, you know, centrifuges, et cetera, of value had long since been evacuated.

People should understand that Natanz is the principal home of centrifuge cascades of the oldest type, the IR1 centrifuge, which is a very inefficient centrifuge that Iran had long since replaced with these more modern centrifuges that are in Fordo. So to strike Natanz doesn’t put back the Iranian program at all. And anything of value in that program had been evacuated.

So we put a B2 bomber over a target to drop two very large bombs that accomplished nothing. They literally put two additional holes in the ground of a piece of terrain that had no military, scientific or meaningful value. It was purely a political act.

The same with Isfahan. We fired 30 cruise missiles into the Isfahan nuclear complex. It appears that even the US Government is admitting that these missiles didn’t accomplish the level of destruction that they were hoping to, that the Isfahan facility was deeper underground and more protected. So in normal circumstances, and this dates back to my time as a battle damage assessment officer during the first Gulf War, this would be immediate reattack which means that because we initiated this, that there was legitimate military purpose to this attack, we would have to re-attack to achieve those objectives.

It appears though that Donald Trump says, no, we’re done. We’re willing to be done with this. Which means again, this wasn’t about achieving anything meaningfully, militarily meaningful on the ground. This was an act of pure politics.

The Failed Attack on Fordo

And then we get to Fordo, the crown jewel of the three targets. A facility that’s 90 meters or 90 feet underground, 100 feet underground, but that’s street level measuring. What they’re not counting are the ridges above of the facility that make it even three or four times deeper than this. We struck with six B2 bombers, each of which carry two of these massive ordnance penetrators. And the best that we could accomplish is that we did damage to one entrance and one exit of a facility that has five exits. We didn’t damage the hall, we didn’t penetrate.

But even more critical is that we know the facility was evacuated. There is satellite imagery that shows on June 18th and 19th, the Iranians had brought up trucks to remove the high value centrifuges that were stored at Fordo. And these centrifuges have been moved to other facilities around Iran that we don’t know about. Together with the totality of Iran’s enriched uranium, you know, that 60% uranium that everybody says could be converted into a bomb in three to five days. We didn’t destroy that. That’s all moved.

So these attacks accomplished nothing in terms of retarding or limiting Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. These attacks were purely an act of political theater for a president who’s desperate to be seen as being a decisive leader. But all he showed was American impotence.

The Planning and Coordination with Israel

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: The Secretary of State referred to the planning of the operation as brilliant. Now, the plan must have begun in the Biden administration. Could something like this have been planned since Donald Trump became President and Pete Hegseth became Secretary of Defense?

SCOTT RITTER: I mean, in theory it could. But the fact is this attack has been rehearsed by the United States and Israel during the Biden administration. Indeed, in the summer of 2023, and I believe again in 2024, there were joint exercises carried out where the United States flew B2 bombers from Whitman Air Force Base into the theater of operations to carry out rehearsals with the Israelis.

It should be pointed out that according to the Iranian timeline, this was an attack that was not just coordinated with the Israelis, but the Israelis participated in this. Meaning that the Israelis had resources and assets that were linked to this. Drones and fighter aircraft were operated over parts of Iran in supporting operations. So this wasn’t a purely American attack. This was done in concert with the Israelis, part of a plan that had been conceived during the Biden administration and rehearsed at least twice during the Biden administration.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Was this brilliant, as Hegseth claimed? Was there anything brilliant about this?

Professional Execution, But No Legitimate Purpose

SCOTT RITTER: Well, I don’t want to ever denigrate the professionalism of the American personnel involved. I mean, to have a B2 bomber fly a mission of this length requires tremendous skill. The refueling operations are technically difficult. They accomplished these. The flight parameters, to get into Iran without being detected, to drop these bombs, all points to extreme professionalism.

But that doesn’t make this attack brilliant. Anytime you use American military power, there has to be a legitimate reason for the application of force. And here there is no legitimate reason. This cannot be called brilliance. This is the exact opposite. This is a disaster. This is a manifestation of all that’s wrong with America today, where the United States military allowed it to be used for an act of political violence, political terrorism, a war crime.

This is a war crime. There’s no doubting this. There’s no defending this. This is an act of aggression without any legitimacy, not only in terms of lacking domestic approval from the Congress, but also under international law. And people scoff at international law. But I do want to remind Judge, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but the United Nations Charter, an international treaty, was ratified by the United States Senate, and therefore, under our own Constitution, becomes the law of the land.

Violation of International Law

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Yes. And who wrote the United Nations Charter? We did.

SCOTT RITTER: We did.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: And we signed it. Israel signed it. Iran signed it. It prohibits this kind of an attack absolutely against a fellow signatory of the charter without going to the UN first. Trump went to no one. Trump sat in a windowless room and listened to a half dozen people tell him what they thought he wanted to hear. And that’s how he made the decision.

SCOTT RITTER: And this is again, this is a political act. This has, you know, you asked me to speak about the military aspects of this, but other than the application of force, there is no military value to this. In fact, the president has put at risk tens of thousands of Americans for this political act.

Americans at Risk Throughout the Region

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Where are the Americans who are at risk, Scott? And who are they?

SCOTT RITTER: Well, there’s tens of thousands of American service members who are deployed throughout the region. In Saudi Arabia, in Qatar, in United Arab Emirates, in Kuwait, in Bahrain. These are Americans who have taken an oath to serve their country, have been deployed abroad ostensibly to do that service, and now have had their lives put at risk.

There’s Americans in Iraq, Americans in Syria that also followed, Americans in Turkey. Basically anybody in the region, life is now at risk through a retaliation potential from Iran, a real potential. I mean, this isn’t theoretical. The Iranians have already demonstrated when they attacked Al Assad air Base after the assassination of Qasem Soleimani that they have the real potential of hitting bases decisively in a manner that can result in casualties, significant casualties.

So here the President has put American lives at risk so that he can stand before the American people and speak absurdly, pontificate about things that didn’t happen. This was not a decisive action. He did not destroy Fordo. This wasn’t a brilliant strike. This was a national embarrassment.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: What do you expect the international reaction would be? I’ll give you a menu and you can go wherever you want. Russia, China, India, Pakistan.

Iran’s Response Within International Law Framework

SCOTT RITTER: Well, first of all, we have to realize that the United States is a rogue nation right now, that we are operating outside the framework of international law. I want to remind people that back in February of February 4th of 2022, Vladimir Putin flew to Beijing to meet with Xi Jinping on the eve of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

And the two of them published a 5,000 word joint document in which they said that the rules based international order that serves as the foundation of how America interacts with the world is a problem and that Russia and China reject this and they are going to counter with the law based international order that’s premised on the Charter of the United Nations. And this is a major commitment by them.

And much of the rest of the world seeks to adhere to the United Nations Charter, this framework of international law. So all of the nations that you mentioned, I believe will be working to ensure that America’s gross act of irresponsibility and illegality doesn’t destroy this framework of international law.

And I think you’ll be seeing the Russians and the Chinese moving to isolate the United States at the Security Council, at the United Nations, Pakistan doing the same thing. This doesn’t mean that they can’t provide assistance to Iran and they are going to provide assistance to Iran. But I believe that all of these nations will be working to prevent an escalation, a dangerous escalation of this conflict.

I think the goal right now is to isolate the United States and keep the United States from re engaging militarily while allowing Iran to continue its lawful retaliation against Israel. Remember, Israel initiated this by carrying out an unlawful, illegal surprise attack with no justification.

Israel hasn’t even tried to make cognizable an argument under Article 51 preeminent self defense. They haven’t done that because they can’t do that. Right. Because any imminent threat was nullified by the fact that the Iranians were actively in negotiations dealing with the very issue at hand.

Iran, however, has gone to the United Nations, has said that they will defend themselves and Iran’s legitimacy of carrying out these strikes against Israel continue until which time Israel stops striking Iran. It is literally the more Israel bombs Iran, the more legitimate Iran’s retaliation becomes.

So I think what we’re going to see is the international community working to contain this problem. Already you see the United States reaching out to China, asking for Chinese intervention to keep the Iranians from shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. Whether or not China acts on that, I don’t know.

But the point is, you see the Iranian Foreign Minister flying to Russia, to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. I think the Iranians will hold off on any precipitous act until they have touched base with all of their supporters.

And I do believe that Iran will remain consistent to international law and not seek to act in a manner which, while maybe justifiable from an emotional standpoint, would not be allowed under international law. For instance, for Iran to strike Saudi Arabia today is not something that would be permitted because the American forces deployed in Saudi Arabia did not participate in this attack and Saudi Arabia has condemned this.

So I don’t, for the people that think that Iran’s going to come out and lash out irresponsibly, I don’t see that happening. What I believe Iran will do is continue to operate within the framework of international law, working to isolate the United States and keep the focus on where it belongs, which is the criminal actions of Israel.

Assessing Iran’s Military Damage to Israel

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: What is the extent of damage that Iran has caused in Israel which the Netanyahu regime is keeping from the west and from all media?

SCOTT RITTER: The fact is we don’t know exactly because of…

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Right, because they’re keeping it from us. What do you think though, just from the nature of your understanding of the destructive power of the projectiles that have been launched and of the weakening power of their so called Iron Dome?

SCOTT RITTER: Well, we also have to emphasize the accuracy of these missiles, meaning that when you launch a missile with destructive power. There’s a difference between landing in a civilian population area and hitting a target of military or economic value. And the Iranians are using weapons that have a high degree of accuracy. They’re targeting military targets.

This isn’t me speaking. I mean, I know people are out there going, well, Scott, you’re just a tool of this, that and the other thing. This statement actually comes from the former head of an Israeli intelligence unit, Unit 8200, who has said that the Israelis are trying to paint the Iranians as animals, as beasts.

But he said, the fact is they’re a very capable modern state who’s behaving properly in the targeting of Israel, that their targets are exclusively military in nature or related to legitimate national security targetable sites. This is a senior Israeli official saying this.

And that’s the reality. Iran is doing horrific damage to the Israelis. These strikes are very accurate. They’re inflicting a tremendous amount of damage on Israel. And Israel is a small nation unable to absorb this damage.

And so if this conflict continues, you’re going to see Israel face the reality that its ability to sustain functionality as a viable nation state is being eroded by an Iranian retaliatory capacity that doesn’t seem to have a bottom.

Moreover, you speak of the Iron Dome. You know, I hear people say, well, Israel will become defenseless in several days when they run out of interceptor missiles. Judge, Israel is defenseless now. They have all the interceptor missiles they need right now on a daily basis, and they’re backed up by the United States. They haven’t run out of missiles yet. They’re firing.

The Failure of Missile Defense Systems

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Why are they defenseless if they have not run out of missiles? Explain, please.

SCOTT RITTER: Because the Iron Dome doesn’t work, it can’t defend against a modern missile threat. I mean, and I say this not only to point out the fact that Iron Dome isn’t working, but those Americans who listen to the president when he briefs on the Golden Dome, an American ballistic missile defense shield.

I’m here to tell you right now, many of the technologies that would be incorporated in that are incorporated by the United States into Israel’s ballistic missile defense shield, and they aren’t stopping this.

And the Iranian missiles, while they’re very good, don’t compete with Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles in terms of technology, lethality. This missile defense is a sham. It’s a joke. It’s a scam. And it’s played out daily by the Iranians firing missiles specifically designed to defeat the missile shield that Israel and the United States have erected. Wow.

The Cost of Military Failure

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: I have to stop for just a moment and point out that nearly 49,000 people are watching us live. Putting that in perspective. That’s more people than could fit inside of Yankee Stadium here in New York City. Thank you very much for that. We’re going to continue but thank you very much for the size of this audience. Thank you for watching us. Please subscribe.

And please like how wrong headed, how boneheaded from a military perspective was it to do all of this and what do you think it cost? They sent some very heavy planes flying westward outside of California as a decoy. They had all this military equipment bombing Iran. According to you and your sources. All they did was make some holes in the desert. What did it cost?

SCOTT RITTER: I mean something like this. I can’t give you the exact figure Judge, because I don’t have it at my fingertips and I’m not smart enough to retain that in my brain housing group on a permanent basis. But they burn gas. There’s every flight hour of a B2 bomber has a price tag attached to it. This was a very lengthy flight, so we’re talking about something, we know that they fired 30 cruise missiles.

The price tag of a cruise missile is different, remember because you have to think about just about the cost of the missile that we fired but the replacement cost. And this is like buying gold. You could buy gold a year ago and pay 2,000 something for an ounce. But if you buy it today, you’re paying 3,400. It costs more, right?

So we’re throwing around golden coins and we have to rebuy them to replenish the stocks. This is a strike that I believe when the total price tag is farmed out will touch upon 100 million for just this strike, maybe more. But again it accomplished nothing. It actually did worse than accomplished nothing. It’s pushed America in a bind.

As I mentioned Judge, militarily speaking, failure to achieve the desired destruction at a given site requires a restrike. Here’s the problem. When the President who has announced that Fordow was destroyed…I can’t remember the exact words he used.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: He used the word totally obliterated.

SCOTT RITTER: That was obliterated. Now I may be a simple marine and obliterated has one too many syllables for me to normally process. But the fact is, to me it means that you’ve sort of taken it out.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Right.

The Dangerous Path Forward

SCOTT RITTER: It doesn’t exist anymore. In fact Fordow is the exact opposite of that. It is not obliterated. What happens when this reality becomes clear? What happens when the Iranians take TV crews in there and show the world that the President’s words are empty? That his headset has failed to deliver on his promise that Marco Rubio’s brilliant plan has collapsed?

What does this narcissist egomaniac do then? Does he restrike? Does he say, we’re going to bomb again knowing that the weapon, the best weapon, he had six B2 bombers with 12 massive ordinance penetrators didn’t do the job? Does he use nuclear weapons now?

I mean, this is literally one of…we’re in a very dangerous situation. And now what happens when the reality that his claims he made about destroying the Iranian nuclear program, he hasn’t destroyed anything. It’s been evacuated. It is in hiding and we don’t know where it is and we don’t know how to find it.

What does he do now? Does he say, I’m going to bomb you into oblivion until you declare the totality of your program and subject it to international inspections? And what weapons does he use? We don’t have an infinite number of these weapons.

At what point in time does this become a nuclear problem for the United States? We have crossed the Rubicon. This is a very dangerous, dangerous path that we are undertaking. And we don’t have good leaders. We don’t have good leaders making sound decisions. And the proof of that is the decision they make to support this act of insanity.

Iran’s Next Moves

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Last question. What do you think Iran will do in the next week or so?

SCOTT RITTER: Iran so far has behaved responsibly. They’ve acted within the four corners of international law, and they haven’t done anything precipitously. Iran has a campaign plan that has been in the works for decades that they’re implementing right now to break the back of Israel.

So logically speaking, you would expect Iran to stay with this plan, not to allow themselves to be deviated. Much like we talk about Russia and Ukraine, how there are acts that the Ukrainians carry out, acts that are designed to get Russia to overreact. I believe there’s a temptation now for the Iranians to overreact.

But I can’t say that they’re not going to do that, but the fact that their foreign minister is flying to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin is indicative of the reality that they are looking to craft an international coalition to isolate the United States and that their best vehicle for this is international law.

So I see Iran not striking out against American bases. Now of course we’re going to end this program and we’ll see that the Iranians have hit the American bases and everybody will say that Scott Ritter’s an idiot. This is the danger of doing a prognosis live on TV with incomplete information.

But my gut feeling is that Iran knows that they’re playing a winning hand against Israel and that ultimately they will want to continue to play that hand and they will work with their allies to take care of the American problem to get America away from this.

And I’ll say something that gives me some hope. I believe Iran understands the consequences of their actions, that if they do something that the United States is capable of hitting them very hard. So they want to prevent that. But Iran also understands that Israel’s nuclear program is a long term threat.

One of the things that came out of this action is that Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian President, former Russian Prime Minister, current Deputy of the National Security Council in Russia, has talked about for the first time publicly Israel’s nuclear program and the incompatibility of that program with international norms and standards.

By attacking Iran’s nuclear sites the way the United States did, there will be, there should be a massive backlash in terms of the damage the United States has done to the nuclear non proliferation regime. I believe the International Atomic Energy Agency will have no choice but to issue statements condemning the American action.

And what we could see if, especially if Israel’s back is broken, is that one of the results of this tragic set of events is that when the dust settles, Israel will be compelled to turn its program over to international inspections because Israel will have been identified as being incompatible with the very international law that Russia, China and others have said is the foundation of how they want to go forward in a global geopolitical sense.

Iran’s Strategic Independence from Military Alliances

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Did you detect in former Russian President Medvedev’s tone and do you conclude from that and the arrival of the Iranian Foreign Minister in Moscow a feeling that Moscow is going to provide some kind of military aid to Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: The Iranians have been very careful here. If you remember, Vladimir Putin has spoken about this just a few days ago where he spoke about the security framework agreement that had been signed between the two nations. He said there’s no military treaty obligations here. And that was because of Iran.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Right.

SCOTT RITTER: The reason why they did that, let me just make it clear. Had Iran signed a military agreement with the Russians, this war would be over. Because as Vladimir Putin said yesterday, Israel said a significant percentage of the population speak Russian. He said Israel in many extents is an extension of Russia.

So imagine now that you’re the Russian president, you have a military agreement with Iran, Israel has attacked Iran and now Iran is retaliating, as it’s allowed to do, but doing significant harm to a nation that Russia identifies as an extension of Russia. There would be immediate Russian diplomatic intervention and the Iranians would never be able to complete their mission.

So this is why the Iranians didn’t get involved in an entangling alliance. Because some people say, well, that would strengthen Iran’s hands. From the Iranian perspective, it actually weakens their hand. They are free now, they have freedom of action to continue this operation without any treaty linked obligation to respect Russian diplomacy, Russian diplomatic interventions, etc. A security alliance with Russia would have been very limiting to Iran. Right now Iran is actually a stronger nation because they don’t have such an alliance. Wow.

Congressional Authority and Constitutional Obligations

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Scott, I want you to know that there are 62,000 people watching us right now. This is far and away the largest live audience that Judging Freedom has ever had. I realize it’s Sunday at lunchtime here in the east coast of the United States, but to all of you watching now, thank you very much.

You’ve just seen a terrific military geopolitical analysis of the mess that the United States has commenced in Iran. Write and call your member of Congress. Tell Congress to reassert itself under the Constitution. Only Congress can declare war. Only Congress can initiate and authorize this kind of an attack. The President can’t do it on its own.

Whether you’re represented by a liberal Democrat, a conservative Republican, a progressive, a libertarian, whatever they may be, remind them of Congress’s role under the Constitution. Scotty, thank you very much. We look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow afternoon. Deeply appreciate it. I hope you can go back and enjoy Sunday afternoon with your family. Thank you, Scott.

SCOTT RITTER: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Of course. And again, my dear friends, thank you so much for watching. Please like and please subscribe and like like and subscribe. I’m not sure in what order you do that.

Coming up tomorrow, Monday on all of this, at 8 in the morning, Alistair Crook. At 10 in the morning, Ray McGovern. At 11:30 in the morning, Larry Johnson. And in the afternoon, watch for the Times, Scott Ritter and Pepe Escobar. Pepe from Moscow. Just Napolitano for judging Freedom Sam.

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