The Biden administration was shocked at the scale of Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone barrage into Israel on April 13, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The scale of Tehran’s first direct attack on Israel "matched worst-case scenarios," US officials were quoted as admitting.
“This was on the high end, I think, of what we were—what we were anticipating,” said one unnamed senior official.
As US President Joe Biden and his national security team huddled in the White House Situation Room watching the projectiles hurtling towards targets in Israel, they feared the NATO-bolstered defenses would not be enough to repel the assault. There had never before been an attempt to intercept so many drones, cruise and ballistic missiles at once, the report stressed.
Throughout the Iranian attack, the US, Britain, France and Jordan joined Israel in shooting down incoming drones and missiles, with Tel Aviv’s anti-ballistic missile systems reinforced by US anti-missile and counter drone deployments carried out ahead of the anticipated operation.
“The results of the defenses were unclear until all was said and done,” a senior Biden administration official present in the Situation Room at the time was quoted as saying.
Although the Israeli side gave the US a heads-up minutes before the Iranian strike, there was no clarification about the targeted locations, US officials have claimed.
US intelligence agencies reportedly failed to predict the extent of Iran’s assault, with some reports indicating only Israeli diplomatic facilities or other sites outside Israel might be targeted.
It was only on April 12 that the White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Washington had received “better, firmer intelligence and information about the specific timing” of Iran’s looming attack.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said seven of its members had been killed in the Israeli bombing of its consulate on April 1, including Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in the Quds Force, and his deputy General Mohammad Hadi Hajriahimi. The Syrian Health Ministry said the next day that the attack had also killed four Syrians and injured 13 more.
At the time, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said it "reserves the right" to respond to the Israeli attack and "punish the aggressor." Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi also vowed that Israel would pay a "heavy price" for the strike.
After Israel attacked the Iranian consulate, an infuriated US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is said to have taken his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant to task in a telephone call for failing to mention the planned attack, a US official said.
Another Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip on April 1 which killed seven aid workers with the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity made matters even worse.
Amid a torrent of condemnation, Biden reportedly made a call on April 4 to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging him to allow more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, increase efforts to reduce civilian casualties. But Biden also pledged to defend Israel in case of an Iranian response.
The US military set its classified plans for assisting Israel in motion, with a team dispatched to Tel Avid to co-ordinate the effort. Besides the destroyer USS Carney joining the USS Arleigh Burke in the eastern Mediterranean and gearing up to shoot down Iranian missiles, F-15E fighter jets arrived to help in the defense.
When several days passed without an Iranian response, the prevailing assessment by US and Israeli intelligence agencies was that Iran was planning its first-ever massive direct attack on Israeli territory, said the WSJ report.
After Tehran had concluded its self-defense strike on Israel, Biden reportedly told Netanyahu in an “intense” telephone to “take the win.”
The anticipated Israeli retaliation triggered a flurry of shuttle and backroom diplomacy to stop further escalation of the Middle East tensions.
Concerns were also raised that a retaliatory strike by Tel Aviv on Tehran might provoke a spiral of attacks by Iran's regional allies against US bases in Iraq and Syria.
For all the US bluster about wanting to avoid an all-stops-out regional war in the Middle East, the most recent move out of Washington has been the House passage of legislation to provide for $26.38 billion in Israel-related aid, amid the country’s conflict with Palestinian organization Hamas and Iran.
Netanyahu appears hell-bent on prolonging the war to ward off any political or legal challenges, as pundits have told Sputnik.