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Missiles Fired From Iran Toward U.S. Bases in Qatar and Iraq; Trump Administration Was Anticipating Iran's Retaliation, Hopes for No Further Military Engagement in Region; Qatar Says Missile Attack Intercepted, No Deaths or Injuries Report. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 23, 2025 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:00:00]

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Under it and move on. And so the hope now, I think, for many in the region will be like, OK, maybe now we can hit the pause button, see where this goes, allow diplomacy to play out, though obviously a lot of that will depend on what Israel's plans are.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CO-HOST OF "ANDERSON COOPER 360": Jeremy?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and I've been speaking with Israeli officials tonight. I can tell you that they are at a heightened state of alert right now, just waiting to see the possibility of another wave of ballistic missiles aimed at Israel, or whether this will simply be limited to these attacks on this American base in Qatar. But, those sources are also telling me that there is a sense of a possibility of an off-ramp here, a pathway for de- escalation. And that's because of the combination, not only of that carefully telegraphed attack on this base, seemingly informing the Qataris in advance who were able to give the United States some kind of advance warning. But in addition to that, the fact that Israelis are also increasingly talking about having achieved the majority of their goals in Iran.

And so, the kind of week of stunning successes that we've seen from the Israeli military in Iran, the Israeli prime minister even the other day saying that Israel is "very, very close to achieving its goals there." I just spoke with an Israeli official who told me that, it seems Israel is running out of its kind of target bank in Iran and may even run out in the coming days. And then after that, the question of course is what is the diplomatic pathway to actually be able to de- escalate? And of course, that will depend on future Israeli attacks in Iran over the coming days. And also, Iranian ballistic missile attacks here in Israel, which have of course come down in terms of the pacing that we saw in the early days.

COOPER: It also -- Israel remains to have the ability, even if they stop offensive operations right now, they have the ability to strike at will in the skies over Iran.

DIAMOND: It's a great point. And it is also similar to what we have seen in Lebanon, for example, right? There was a ceasefire that was brokered between Israel and Hezbollah many months ago, and I can't tell you how many, but there have been numerous Israeli attacks in Lebanon since then. Israelis of course, say that they are enforcing that ceasefire, but what they're really doing is preventing Hezbollah from being able to regroup and regain its capacities in southern Lebanon in particular.

And so, I think you could see a very similar scenario in Iran where perhaps there is some kind of a ceasefire or an understanding at least, that the attacks will stop between the two sides. But the Israelis will still maintain that air supremacy over Western and central Iran for a lot -- some time to come. And that will give them the ability to strike at targets if they believe Iran is reconstituting its nuclear program, or its ballistic missile program as well, which we know has been a major target of the Israelis.

COOPER: If in fact, this is the Iranian response to the Trump administration's attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, what does that tell you? That, again, we don't know if this is it, but if, as in the Soleimani case, this is it, what does it tell you about the next steps with Iran and the United States?

WARD: Well, I think largely that will depend on what President Trump's response is. I think it's a very clear signal that Iran has been drastically degraded, that it wants to take a beat to regroup, reconstitute, figure out a long-term path ahead. And the Iranians have traditionally always been very good at playing the long game, and diplomacy will be a key part of that. What does that diplomacy look like? Who will be driving that? Will it be U.S. Envoy, Steve Witkoff? Will it be the Europeans, who have traditionally been heavily involved in this?

I don't think we know yet what the contours of that are. But certainly, from the Iranian perspective, the desire, if I'm, and I'm speculating here, obviously is to put a line under it now and move on to the next phase.

COOPER: Yeah. I want to check in with Fred Pleitgen. He is on the phone from Tehran. Fred, you've been monitoring Iranian State Media, also the skies over Iran. Have you continued -- have there been any attacks from Israel in the skies? And also, what are you hearing from Iranian officials on whether, through the media or directly?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Yeah, there's actually -- there's actually -- Hi, Anderson. Hi, Anderson. Yeah, there's actually ongoing attacks, it seems, from the Israelis in the skies, at least Iranian anti-aircraft guns shooting. I can see that, it's like fireworks in the sky above us. There's a lot of outgoing anti-aircraft fire that we're seeing in the skies over Tehran right now. We're also hearing, once in a while, I'm just hearing also the rattle from those anti-aircraft guns firing into the air.

Meanwhile, we've been monitoring Iranian space --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: -- tell our viewers that that's not the images we're seeing. We're seeing images from Doha just for our viewers. Go ahead. Go ahead, Fred.

PLEITGEN (via telephone): Yeah -- yeah, exactly. So right now, we're seeing a lot of anti-aircraft fire here over Tehran outgoing. We're hearing it as well. You can see those bursts going into the air, here from those surface-to-air batteries that they have on the ground here. But at the same time, we're also, of course, keeping an eye on what officials here are saying and also what the military is saying here as well. State TV now claiming that six Iranian missiles impacted at the Al Udeid Air Base. That's coming from State Media, IRIB.

[14:05:00]

But then also, of course, the Supreme National Security Council of Iran also came out and said that this attack had taken place, that they'd taken -- that they had attacked the Al Udeid Air Base and again, saying that they were using the exact same amount of missiles as the amount of bombs that had been thrown on their nuclear facilities by the United States Air Force.

So obviously, already in the statement, kind of hinting that this could be a tit-for-tat response by the Iranians. Also, making clear that this air base is nowhere near any sort of urban areas in Qatar. One of the things they're trying to make clear is that this is not an attack by Iran on Qatar itself, which it says is a friendly nation, but at the same time, of course, saying that they did want to strike back at the United States.

There's also some semi-official news agencies, Anderson, saying that the Iranians also attacked a base in Iraq, an American based in Iraq with several missiles as well. But that's sort of coming from semi- official media, semiofficial news agencies here in Iran. So clearly, they're saying that this was a full-on response by the Iranian military. They call this response destructive and also say that the Iranian nation, as they put it, will not leave without an answer any sort of aggression against its territories and against its facilities, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Fred, appreciate it. Stay safe. I want to go to CNN White House Reporter Alayna Treene, she joins us now. Alayna, I understand you have some new reporting about what's been going on in the White House and what are you hearing?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, Anderson, I mean, when I just caught up with some White House officials and one of them was telling me that essentially they had been expecting this. They knew that Iran was going to retaliate. One of them actually argued that they had a similar response, the Iranians, after the killing of Iranian Commander Qasem Soleimani back in 2020. They say what they've seen so far from these initial assessments, it looks like a similar type of retaliation.

And essentially, they argued as well that their initial assessments, again, we know that the president is currently in the West Wing meeting with his national security team, but their initial assessments is that these missiles did not hit their intended targets, kind of echoing now what we have heard from the Qataris. And one thing I want to make clear as well, and this came up again in my conversations after we've seen this response from the Iranians, is that the president has made clear to his team here at the White House that he does not want further U.S. military action in the region as of this point.

Of course, this could all be changing now as we're seeing this response, this retaliation from the Iranians. But prior to this attack, his posture was that he does not want to have more U.S. intervention in the Middle East. Again, we'll see if that changes now that we've seen this. But they argued that depending on how this goes and seeing as of now that they do not believe that the Iranian missiles had hit any -- hit their targets, they believe he may maintain that posture. I will say that they of course, said that the president is reserving the right to escalate U.S. military involvement if necessary, but that's his current posture at the moment, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Alayna, thanks very much for that. I want to go to CNN's Jeff Zeleny, who's standing by as well. Jeff, it is interesting to hear Alayna's reporting. I mean, if this is -- if the Iranian regime has telegraphed that this is the only response they are going to have to the decimation or the destruction that the U.S. wrought on their nuclear capabilities, their nuclear facilities, and again, we don't know the full impact of those bomb damage assessments. Take time.

If the U.S. chooses not to respond to this, that's sort of a military mic drop. I mean, if the U.S. chooses that, OK, we know that this was a symbolic move by Iran, essentially, there's no need to respond. That's very telling.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It certainly will be telling. And look, the White House is not certainly taking the word and the view of Iran that this is the only response. I mean, the U.S. is on high alert. Of course, throughout the region, there is 40,000 American troops, but specifically the Al Udeid Air Base, this is where President Trump visited just one month ago. I was with the president that day as he was addressing troops, as he spent a couple of hours there during his trip through the Middle East.

So, this is something that's very much on his mind. He met with several service members. And this, of course, is a base that has such history over the last two decades of the war in Iraq. Most of the flights were based from there. There's -- so, there's no question that this is something that is on the president's mind. But in terms of retaliation, this is definitely the view of the White House, that they are on high alert here on the homeland as well as in air force bases and things throughout the region.

So we shall see. The White House is not a telegraphing if there will be return retaliation, if you will. And the president as of now, is still scheduled to go to NATO tomorrow.

[14:10:00]

We will see if that meeting continues, but that -- the NATO Summit is on the agenda. He's scheduled to go to the Hague. But there's no question, even as there's a meeting in the situation room at this hour, we believe the president has been in the Oval Office talking to his advisors. But again, Anderson, that base, so interesting because he visited there, the first American president to visit there since 2003. Anderson?

ZELENY: Yeah. Jeff Zeleny, thanks very much. CNN's National Security Analyst, Peter Bergen, joins me now. Peter, you've been to this base. I'm wondering what you make of what we have witnessed over the last hour or more.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, first of all, this base -- Qatar is a small country. But this base is in a very remote part of the country. It's a big base. It's the biggest U.S. base in the Middle East. It's -- up to 10,000 service members can live there. As Jeff was referring to, this is where the war against ISIS was conducted. This is where the war in Iraq was sort of conducted because it's the forward headquarters of Central Command. This is where the Afghan war was conducted and also the withdrawal.

But it is, as I say, very isolated. On the other hand, there are a lot of American service members who are, generally speaking, living there. It's also interesting, Anderson, Qatar and Iran share the world's largest gas field. And you can see from the Qatari government responses, I mean, they're not thrilled that this happened because their relations with Iran are actually, while not necessarily warm, they share a pretty big common interest, which is the world's largest gas field.

So, Iran also took a bit of a gamble here. We've seen plenty of Iranian activity against American targets in Iraq. As far as I know, this has never happened in Qatar, which is somewhat closely aligned to Iran, Anderson.

COOPER: Peter, just in terms of the levers the Iran regime could have pulled and may still, if they choose to, this seems like a -- I mean this is certainly, a limited -- a limited strike. I mean, again, they are telegraphing. They were making public statements detailing the number of missiles fired and that that had parody with the number of bombs dropped by the United States. Given, yes, Iran's proxy forces, Hamas, Hezbollah, others are weakened, there could have been other things they did. This is what they've chosen to do. And so far, we have no word of anything else being hit.

BERGEN: Yeah. And as you've been discussing, I mean, the Qasem Soleimani response by Iran in January 2020 was pretty limited. Now, there were no American fatalities when they responded, but there were dozens of American soldiers who had traumatic brain injuries, we later learned. We may learn something like that in this case. I think it's interesting, Anderson, on Sunday, the Houthis who are -- have been armed by Iran for many years now and had actually had a ceasefire with the United States over the last several weeks, started talking about how they might respond.

If you combine the fact that they control the approaches to the Red Sea, and also these threats to mind the Strait of Hormuz, that could have a pretty big effect on oil markets. On the other hand, this may be it. It would be wonderful if it was. That said, look at the Salman Rushdie attack. In 1989, Iran put a multimillion dollar reward on Salman Rushdie's head because of a novel he wrote they found blasphemous. And it was decades later that he was assaulted and very seriously attacked in New York State.

So the point is, this may be it for the moment, and don't forget that John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Brian Hook, who was the Senior State Department official working on Iran, and President Trump himself are all under the threat of some form of assassination because of the Qasem Soleimani hit, which happened back five years ago. So this may be it for the interregnum, but that doesn't mean that the Iranian regime is somehow going to suddenly decide that they don't plan to take any kind of action as a result of what has happened.

COOPER: Yeah, Peter Bergen, thanks very much. Stay with CNN. Our breaking news coverage continues right after this.

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[14:19:05]

COOPER: Video coming out of people running in the mall in Doha, Qatar after Iran fired missiles at the U.S. base there. CNN's Clarissa Ward and Jeremy Diamond are with me now. Again, no reports of any impacts of note, any casualties?

WARD No reports of any impact, any casualties or anything like that still for Qataris, ordinary people, as you can see in that video. This is terrifying.

COOPER: Yeah.

WARD: Right? This may have been carefully calibrated and telegraphed behind the scenes, but for ordinary people and particularly Qataris who have not experienced or seen something like that, who enjoy a good relationship with Iran, I think you can get the feel that it was pretty, pretty scary. One other thing I wanted to note, because we've been talking a lot about this alleged missile going to Iraq as well, pouring through the sort of Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps statement. There's nothing about it.

[14:20:00]

And I've been talking to an Iraqi official who also says that he does not believe that any missile was hit or aimed at Iraq at all. So, it's possible that that was some kind of a confusion early on. It seems that Al Udeid, this air base, the largest in the region, up to 10,000 U.S. personnel, the linchpin of the war against ISIS, but also most recently, played a huge role in the withdrawal from Afghanistan, right? As the U.S. was preparing to pull out all of its people and equipment. And it's a significant symbolic target.

But the very fact, as we've been discussing, that it's been done in a seemingly very measured and telegraphed way is likely an indication that Iran is ready to put a line under it after this and move on to the next phase.

DIAMOND: And we're also now, more than an hour and a half in, I think, to this attack having taken place and we're standing here without any sirens going off. That was not a foregone conclusion. The Israeli officials had prepared for the possibility that this Iranian retaliation for those U.S. strikes in Iran, which again, would not have happened without a week of Israeli military operations prior to that, that there could be additional retaliation towards Israel as well.

Now, I was just messaging with an Israeli military official who told me that, listen, we're not aware of any kind of additional retaliation coming right now related to those nuclear strikes, but again, pointing out that every single day the Iranians have been firing what they can towards Israel again, in diminishing barrages, it would seem, and they have no indication that that is going to stop at this moment.

The question now is, again, as we look towards that diplomatic path, where are we heading? When does that actually start? How involved are the Israelis and the Americans? Do the Europeans kind of lead the way here? But, it does seem like there is at least a possibility, again, depending on how President Trump also reacts to all of this, there is a possibility for some real regional de-escalation right now.

COOPER: The White House clearly has wanted direct talks with, I mean, all the reporting that we've had is that the White House wanted direct talks with the Iranians. And I assume that would remain to be the case.

WARD: I think it would remain to be the case. And it was interesting because the Iranians were saying, we can't really have talks while we're under attack. And I do wonder now, if President Trump will start to put some pressure on the Israelis that like, listen, you've done what you needed to do. We've done what we wanted to do. And now, you need to back off to allow this to play out diplomatically. I mean, it remains to be seen.

I think we've seen from President Trump's post online that he is not planning to retaliate for this. And they've even been talking about the killing of Qasem Soleimani in 2020 and it looks like a very similar playbook and they hit Al Asad Air Base and no one retaliated, and everyone was able to move on. But what the future for diplomacy looks like when you still have ongoing Israeli strikes, although as Jeremy was saying earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying they're very, very close to finishing those strikes now, I think it is still an open question.

COOPER: I want to bring in Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss, Massachusetts. He served as a Marine as well in Afghanistan. Congressman, what do you make of what we have been witnessing over the last hour, hour and a half?

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS, (D-MA): Anderson, thanks for having me on. First and foremost, of course, concerned about any casualties to American forces at this forward operating base. Provided that there are no casualties of U.S. troops and if what this appears to be, which was a symbolic and telegraphed attack, is in fact the case, this is an on-ramp towards vigorous diplomacy. But it can't be diplomacy from a position of weakness.

If we're trying to get Iran to surrender its nuclear program and cease funding terrorist forces in the region, then we need to credibly signal that we will strike their oil and gas fields if necessary, that we would take out the Ayatollah if necessary, and that we will continue to provide support to the Iranian people for organizing labor strikes, freedom of communications, et cetera. We have to negotiate from strength.

COOPER: How likely do you think it is that the regime would do direct negotiations with the United States?

AUCHINCLOSS: What option do they have at this point? They are backed into a corner. For decades, Iran relied on its six terror armies in Gaza and Lebanon and Syria and Iraq and Yemen to basically be its proxy deterrent forces. Well, Israel has cut down four out of those six forces and severely neutralized the other two. And Israel and the United States together have achieved aerial dominance over Iran. The regime's legitimacy, I think, is on tender hooks right now at home.

They need an off-ramp from where they're at right now. United States should extend a hand, which should also have a closed fist.

[14:25:00]

COOPER: Some Democrats have been critical of the President for moving forward with military action without getting prior approval from Congress. Do you believe he should have? Do you believe he needed to? Many Republicans and others point to actions President Obama took to strike at Osama Bin Laden without getting prior congressional approval.

AUCHINCLOSS: I believe President Trump's actions were illegal, and that legal argument is a second dimension of debate from the strategic argument that we were just discussing. One can broadly agree with the thrust of strategy thus far and still disagree with the legality of the president's actions. The AUMF from 2001, his inherent powers as Commanders in Chief, any self-defense powers that he might claim, none of them are credible in this case. This was a proactive strike against a sovereign nation and he needed congressional authority for it. Congress now needs to act. We need to introduce new war powers resolutions that more tightly scope the Commander in Chief's latitude in the Middle East.

COOPER: Congressman, Jake Auchincloss, I appreciate your time. Thank you. Stay with CNN. Our breaking news coverage continues.

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