The White House is coming under fire after attacking as “fake news” a CNN report that indicated the administration failed to plan for Iran shutting down the economically critical Strait of Hormuz, which has now been deemed impassable amid Iranian threats of bombing which have helped push the price of oil at times over $100 per barrel despite despite emergency reserve releases.
“The Pentagon and National Security Council significantly underestimated Iran’s willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to US military strikes while planning the ongoing operation, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter,” CNN reported on Friday.
Calling the report “garbage,” Leavitt specifically pointed to this portion of CNN’s report in her harsh criticism:
“Top Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers during recent classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the strait in response to strikes, according to three sources familiar with the closed-door session.”
Leavitt insisted that President Donald Trump had been briefed on the possibility that Iran could effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, and noted that the Pentagon had been planning for that possibility for decades.
“The Pentagon has been planning for Iran’s desperate and reckless closure of the Strait of Hormuz for DECADES, and it has been part of the Trump Administration’s planning well before Operation Epic Fury was ever launched,” Leavitt wrote on social media.
She went on to suggest that it is not Iran that has shut down the strait, but rather, “rogue Iranian terrorists.”
“The President was fully briefed on it, and a goal of the Operation itself, to annihilate the terrorist Iranian regime’s navy, missiles, drone production infrastructure, and other threat capabilities is quite literally intended to deprive them of their ability to close the Strait,” she wrote, despite the Strait is now effectively closed as little commercial traffic is crossing it for fear of being attacked.
“President Trump will not allow rogue Iranian terrorists to stop the freedom of navigation and the free flow of energy,” Leavitt claimed.
But some critics asked why, if President Trump had been briefed on the possibility that the Strait could be closed, he attacked Iran without an apparent plan to keep the Strait open.
Political commentator Dan Hodges wrote of Leavitt’s remarks: “Not sure why they continue to peddle this line when the whole world has just seen the US Defence Secretary state that he believes the Strait is open, save for the fact Iran keeps firing missiles at vessels trying to transit it…”
“So then what was the plan?” asked Navy veteran Jared Ryan Sears, who writes at The Progressive Capitalist. “Let it happen, let oil and gas prices soar, use up 40% of our oil reserves, help Russia sell their oil, and then tell the American people to suck it up and deal with it? Great plan…”
Award-winning investigative journalist Mike ‘Thomas Paine’ Moore remarked, “Thank you for admitting that you decided to proceed regardless. Thereby jacking up oil prices. You basically just admitted you did this on purpose.”
Some critics pointed to a Wall Street Journal article that noted, “U.S. officials said Wednesday that Iran had laid mines in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries 20% of the world’s oil exports from the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world. The U.S. Institute for the Study of War estimated that 10 mines had been laid, though President Trump cast doubt on such reports and encouraged shippers to traverse the strait.”
Earlier this week The New York Times reported that “In the lead-up to the U.S.-Israeli attack, President Trump downplayed the risks to the energy markets as a short-term concern that should not overshadow the mission to decapitate the Iranian regime.”
Political commentator Robert Elisberg remarked, “given the administration’s lack of credibility, even if others were briefed on your plans doesn’t mean those WERE the plans. And even if they were – man, were Trump/Hegseth’s plans terrible.”
Commenting on CNN’s report, foreign policy analyst Jimmy Rushton noted: “To my knowledge, every war-game that has ever attempted to simulate a full-scale war between Iran and the U.S. has assumed the Iranians would attempt to close Strait of Hormuz. It is amazing they didn’t understand or predict this.”
Also commenting on CNN’s report, Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) commented, “I worked at Pentagon, State and White House on Middle East and every assessment about possible conflict with Iran started with the real possibility of closing Strait of Hormuz. I guarantee Trump leaders were warned. They just thought they were better than the experts.”