US deploys B-2 bombers as Trump plans to meet national security team

WASHINGTON – Multiple US Air Force B-2 bombers appeared to be airborne and heading west from the United States across the Pacific, and President Donald Trump returned to the White House on the evening of June 21 as he

deliberated whether to join Israel’s efforts

to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites.

Air traffic control communications indicated that several B-2 aircraft – planes that could be equipped to carry the 13,600kg bunker-buster bombs that Mr Trump is considering deploying against Iran’s underground nuclear facilities in Fordow – had taken off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

The B-2 flights were initially tracked on social media before 1am Eastern time on June 21. Some flight trackers said on social media that the destination of the aircraft is Guam, a US territory that has several military installations. The bombers appeared to be accompanied by refueling tankers for portions of the journey, flight tracking data showed.

Additional Air Force F-22, F-16 and F-35 fighter jets have crossed Europe and are now at bases in the Middle East, or are arriving there, a US official said on June 21. The jets could escort B-2 bombers that target Fordow, or protect US bases and troops in the region in the event of Iranian retaliatory strikes.

Moving planes does not mean a final decision has been made about whether to strike. It is not unusual to shift military assets into position to provide options to the US President and military commanders even if they are not ultimately deployed.

Mr Trump left his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and returned to the White House to confer with his national security team, which he was also scheduled to meet with June 22. Mr Trump typically spends both weekend days out of town at one of his properties.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment.

Mr Trump has made clear he is weighing whether to have the United States join Israel’s effort to curtail Iran’s ability to acquire a nuclear weapon, a line he has drawn repeatedly over the years.

But he also gave himself extra time to say what he intends to do. Ms Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters on June 18 that the US President would make a decision within the next two weeks as he gives Iran another chance to engage in talks.

The US President has been seeking a deal with Iran for months but has become frustrated at the refusal of Iranian officials to agree to a proposal to end uranium enrichment on Iranian soil. At the same time, the US intelligence community came to the conclusion in early June that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned to move forward with strikes against Iran, with or without US help.

Those strikes began June 12 and have continued since, killing multiple members of Iran’s military leadership and drawing retaliatory strikes from Iran against Israel.

Mr Trump has been torn between the opportunity to carry out what could be a devastating blow against Iran’s nuclear facilities at a moment when Iran’s defenses have been greatly weakened and the concern that doing so would risk the kind of protracted US military engagement in the region that he campaigned against in 2016 and 2024. That debate has also split his supporters.

On June 20, Mr Trump reiterated his time frame for a decision on military action “within two weeks”, saying the thinking behind it was “just time to see whether or not people come to their senses”.

As questions mounted about whether Mr Trump was preparing to enter the war, Israel stepped up attacks on nuclear sites that are part of the supply chain Iran has built up over the past two decades, enabling it to enrich uranium.

For the second time in eight days, Israel focused on sites in the mountains near the ancient capital of Isfahan. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN body that monitors nuclear production sites, reported that a “centrifuge manufacturing workshop” had been targeted. That is one of the workshops where Iran produces machines that spin at supersonic speeds to enrich uranium.

The same kind of machinery sits under the mountain at Fordow. The agency’s inspectors often visited the workshop, and IAEA monitoring cameras were installed there.

“We know this facility well,” said Mr Rafael Mariano Grossi, director-general of the agency. “There was no nuclear material at this site, and therefore the attack on it will have no radiological consequences.”

But by hitting the workshops, Israel is clearly seeking to impede Iran from rebuilding nuclear enrichment sites elsewhere, presumably in secret, if the Fordow plant is disabled or destroyed.

Still unknown, however, is whether Iranian scientists, many of whom have been killed in the past week, have replicated the Isfahan workshop in undeclared sites elsewhere in the country.

On June 18, the nuclear agency reported that Israel had also attacked the Tehran Research Centre, where the most delicate and complex parts of the centrifuges – the fast-spinning rotors – are produced and tested. NYTIMES