Marco Rubio says Operation Epic Fury was 'proactive in a defensive way to prevent' Iran from 'inflicting higher damage'

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Monday that the Trump administration believed that Israel was imminently planning to strike Iran before the US authorized Operation Epic Fury. "Was there an imminent threat? Did you tell lawmakers there was an imminent threat?" A reporter asked.

"There absolutely was an imminent threat," Rubio said. "And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us. And we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded, because the Department of War assessed that if we did that, if we waited for them to hit us first, after they were attacked by someone else, [if] Israel attacked them, they hit us first, and we waited for them to hit us, we would suffer more casualties and more deaths," Rubio said.

"We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage," Rubio continued. "Had we not done so, there would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen and we didn't act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life."

"Was the US forced to strike because of an impending Israeli action?" Another reporter asked.

"Two things I would say," Rubio began, "number one is no matter what, ultimately this operation needed to happen, that's the question of 'why now,' but this operation needed to happen. Because Iran, in about a year, or a year and a half, would cross the line of immunity, meaning that they would have so many short-range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it because they could hold the whole world hostage."

"Look at the damage they're doing now, and this is a weakened Iran, imagine a year from now, so that had to happen. Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it, but this had to happen no matter what," Rubio said.

The United States and Israel teamed up to launch attacks on Iran on Saturday, March 1. Reports from the White House suggest that the entire command structure of Iran was taken out in the attacks, including those potential leaders that Trump had hoped would take over the government.

President Trump has said that he anticipates the operation lasting four to five weeks and that the attack is already ahead of schedule. On Monday, the US Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was attacked. This follows an attack carried out on the US Embassy in Karachi, Pakistan over the weekend that was thwarted by Marines guarding the Embassy. Thus far, six US service members were killed when Iran hit a fortified operations center in Kuwait. Trump has said that the American people should expect further casualties.