During an interview with ABC News on Thursday, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) stated that “there was significant damage done” by American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and “Iran is the weakest that it’s been in my lifetime.” But, “we’re lucky” no American soldiers were killed as a result of the strikes.
Slotkin said the briefing on the Iran strikes “gave a picture of significant damage that was done, certainly, by the strikes. I think it’s way too early to know and I think that was born out in the meeting, that it’s way too…early to know the exact parameters of the battle damage. … But there was significant damage done.”
Later, host Linsey Davis asked, “Iran, one of America’s main adversaries, is certainly more crippled than they were this time last week. And now Iran and Israel have a ceasefire. Would you say this is job well done by the Trump administration?”
Slotkin responded, “I think it’s still too early to tell. I was at the Pentagon after I was at the CIA, and we worked on Iran planning back then, to think about these kinds of scenarios. It’s definitely the weakest I’ve seen Iran, I think, because of these strikes, but also, just the changes that have been happening in the region over the past two years. And — but I think my influence on this really comes from serving three tours in Iraq, right? Where the Iranians were not good actors, they were killing Americans, they were using ballistic missiles, they were using terrorism to achieve their goals, but I also was in Iraq to see how the administration back then thought, oh yeah, the operations in Iraq will be really easy, one and done, we’ll manage it all, and, meanwhile, 20 years later, we still have troops in the country. So, I am concerned about people like the secretary of defense and the president managing escalation. When the strike happened, we’re lucky that nothing — none of our soldiers were killed — and our bases in Qatar and Iraq and other places. But there’s no doubt about it that Iran is the weakest that it’s been in my lifetime.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
