I guess I would ask CENTCOM why those targets even exist - why they weren't serviced in prior attacks.
Was the target list intentionally (politically?) trimmed, leaving known active targets without attention?
Hope that stops now. Let's get it done.
“I guess I would ask CENTCOM why those targets even exist”
Kinda wondering that myself.
I was under the impression all that was gone way back.
“Let’s get it done”
Agreed....get on with it Mr. President
FTA——Iran struck commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz
prompting American forces to strike more than 80 Iranian targets, including:
<><>air defense systems,
<><>radar sites
<><>Revolutionary Guard vessels used to threaten shipping.
Iran responded with strikes targeting US military installations.
But....but Israel and its “all-seeing, all knowing”
Mossad reassured the trusting, helpful Donald:
<><>10,000 bombing sorties was “all” that was needed
<><>Iran’s ballistic missile program would be “destroyed” in weeks.
<><>The Iran regime would be “too weak” to close the Strait of Hormuz.
<><>Street protests — with Mossad help — would “trigger a western-leaning uprising.”
<><>Kurdish fighters from Iraq could “open a ground front” in the northwest.
<><>Iran would be practically begging for mercy.
(None of which happened.)
Yes, and why the target redundancies.❓
EXACTLY!
Having worked in the NMCC during the first Gulf War and other battle staffs and intelligence operations, I can say that some targets are more valuable alive than dead, for example: SIGINT nodes, C2 relays, uplink/downlink sites, coastal radar networks, command hubs, and cyber/EW platforms.
If you kill them immediately, you lose traffic, patterns, network mapping, leadership signatures and operational behavior under stress. CENTCOM often leaves certain nodes intact until they’ve squeezed all the intelligence value out of them. This is especially true for mobile SIGINT platforms, coastal radar sites, and small boat command networks.
But you’re right to question them leaving them alone for so long. THAT decision was political. I hope that’s all over!
Another issue is Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) uncertainty. Some targets were believed to be destroyed, degraded, abandoned or relocated, but Iran has a habit of rapidly reconstituting, moving equipment at night, hiding assets in civilian ports, dispersing missile launchers into fishing harbors and using decoys.
Again, I hope that is now over and we’re going to finish the job.
If you remember, we got the point where we were going after the bridges and power plants, and the Iranians started to force citizens—old, people, women, kids—to stand on those bridges and in the power plants. That’s when the media starting licking their chops about being able to show Trump as a war criminal. So we stopped. I disagree with that decision but it was based on real, USA politics and the news media.
How can we fight a war when all the democrats have such bad TDS they will let such a brutal regime continue to exist because it’s Trump trying to destroy them, and then at least half of the Republicans and MAGA people are complaining that he promised no new wars?
It’s politically untenable.
“I guess I would ask CENTCOM why those targets even exist - why they weren’t serviced in prior attacks.”
i was wondering that myself, but have read that the Chinese were resupplying them ...
Just like Vance told him before the attack commenced, and for which Trump publicy questioned his loyalty and qulifications for 2028, it will take boots on the ground to locate and destroy enough of these to keep Hormuz open.