AP Sources: US Intelligence Found No Evidence Iran Was Planning Preemptive Strike Before US-Israeli Attacks Began

U.S. intelligence agencies did not assess that Iran was planning a preemptive military strike before the joint U.S.-Israeli attacks began, according to AP sources -- a revelation that undercuts the administration's narrative that Operation Epic Fury was a defensive response to an imminent threat. The report directly contradicts President Trump's earlier claim that Iran was 'two weeks from a nuclear weapon,' suggesting the justification for the war may have been built on a more aggressive interpretation of intelligence than the agencies themselves supported. The gap between what intelligence analysts assessed and what political leaders claimed echoes some of the most consequential intelligence disputes in American history, from the Gulf of Tonkin to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Whether this revelation gains political traction depends largely on a Congress that just voted overwhelmingly to let the war continue without constraint -- but for historians and voters, the question of why the United States went to war will outlast the war itself.