“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity” ~llaw
Jul 02, 2025
LLAW’s NUCLEAR WORLD NEWS TODAY and the GLOBAL RISKS & CONSEQUENCES TOMORROW
In My Opinion:
The following article from “The Bulwark” provides additional evidence of Trump’s and his Whit6 House associates lying to the American — and the world’s — public citizens who rely on the media for accurate information about important “facts” that could affect their future welfare or the lack of it. The media also expects it from the various and sundry world leaders to tell the truth.
Here is an example of the negative importance of Trump’s lies taken from “The Bulwark” story below: The myth of total destruction was important because it underpinned Trump’s second lie: that no further negotiations or military operations were necessary to curtail the nuclear program. “I don’t care if I have an agreement or not” with Iran, the president told reporters at a NATO meeting on June 25. “We destroyed the nuclear,” he explained. “We blew it up. It’s blown up to kingdom come.”
And just a day or so later Trump was telling us that the Iran/U.S nuclear operations agreement would be back at the table before the end of the week, totally contradicting his previous two lies with a 3rd one, ending just two more days from now on July 4th. Iran said, “no”.
We have a president and a totally unqualified executive branch — as well as half of a congress — serving us here in the United States who are openly lying to the American public, including the media.
This must stop before Trump’s lies cause insurmountable concern and fear among the militaries and innocent citizens of our own and other countries — already severely divided — if for no other reason than Trump’s constant falsehoods being delivered by media and social networks to the leaders and citizens everywhere, irreparably threatening our lives as well as a world of innocent other species. ~llaw
Trump’s Team Is Lying About Iran’s WMD
He savaged Bush for distorting intelligence and overselling the military’s initial success in Iraq. Now Trump and his team are doing the same in Iran.
Jul 02, 2025
IN 2016, DONALD TRUMP REBUKED George W. Bush for peddling erroneous intelligence and false assurances about the war in Iraq. He accused Bush of deliberately misrepresenting Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, and he mocked Bush’s premature “Mission Accomplished” speech.
Bush and his administration “lied,” Trump charged at a Republican presidential debate in February 2016. “They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none. And they knew there were none.”
Two days after that debate, Trump derided the May 2003 speech in which Bush infamously proclaimed that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended” and “the United States and our allies have prevailed.” Trump recalled that Bush had stood on an “aircraft carrier saying all sorts of wonderful things, how the war was essentially over. Guess what? Not over.”
Nine years later, Trump is doing what he accused Bush of doing. He has launched a preemptive military strike, this time in Iran. He has defended the strike by misrepresenting intelligence. He has prematurely declared the mission a total victory. And he is impugning the patriotism of anyone who challenges his lies.
ON JUNE 21, AFTER A WEEK of war between Israel and Iran, the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear sites. Three hours later, Trump went on TV and announced that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” The claim was absurd—the damage couldn’t have been assessed that quickly, and the operation hadn’t even targeted most of Iran’s enriched uranium—but Trump repeated it on June 22, June 25, June 26, June 27, and June 29.
Trump’s senior officials joined him in the lie. “Iran’s nuclear program is obliterated,” said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on June 25. “This was complete and total obliteration,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “There’s no doubt that it was obliterated,” said Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, referring to Iran’s underground nuclear site at Fordo.
“Obliterate” wasn’t just rhetoric. Trump was literally insisting that the three sites and Iran’s whole program had been annihilated. “It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability,” he wrote in a Truth Social post on June 24. At the White House, he said of Fordo: “That place is gone. . . . That place is gone.”
The myth of total destruction was important because it underpinned Trump’s second lie: that no further negotiations or military operations were necessary to curtail the nuclear program. “I don’t care if I have an agreement or not” with Iran, the president told reporters at a NATO meeting on June 25. “We destroyed the nuclear,” he explained. “We blew it up. It’s blown up to kingdom come.”
Nor would America have to bomb Iran again. At a June 25 press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, a reporter asked Trump: “If the Iranians do rebuild, would the United States strike again?” Trump dismissed the question. “Sure,” he scoffed, “but I’m not going to have to worry about that. It’s gone for years.”
The basis of these assurances, Trump explained, wasn’t just the totality of the destruction. It was that Iran, according to Trump, was so devastated, exhausted, and demoralized that it no longer wanted to develop nuclear weapons. “They don’t even want to think about nuclear,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One on June 24. At the press conference with Rutte, the president added: “I don’t think they’ll ever do it again. . . . I think they’ve had it. The last thing they want to do is enrich.”
IN ONE VENUE AFTER ANOTHER, reporters pressed Trump about evidence that his assurances were false or baseless. He refused to listen. For example, after the bombing, Iran’s foreign ministry reaffirmed that its nuclear enrichment program would continue. But on June 25, when a reporter asked Trump about those statements, he dismissed them. “The last thing they want to do is enrich anything right now,” he repeated. “No, they won’t do that.”
On June 27, in a Fox News interview, Maria Bartiromo questioned Trump about reports, apparently sourced to Israeli intelligence, that Iran had moved nearly 900 pounds of enriched uranium out of Fordo before the bombing. Trump waved off that possibility. “They didn’t move anything,” he insisted. Two days later, when a reporter asked about Pickaxe Mountain, another of the sites where satellite imagery suggested enriched uranium might be stored, Trump returned to his mantra that Iran had no interest in continuing such work: “The last thing they’re thinking about right now is enriched uranium. They’re not thinking about it.”
Meanwhile, the president made up stories about various damage assessments. On June 25, at a press conference with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, Trump declared that “the high commission of Iran just said it [Fordo] was totally demolished.” No such commission exists, and statements from Iran’s government have said no such thing.
On Truth Social, Trump announced, “Israel just stated that the Nuclear Sites were OBLITERATED!” But Israel’s actual assessments, quoted in a White House fact sheet, made no such boast. Officially, the Israel Atomic Energy Commission said Israeli and American strikes had “set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.” Unofficially, Israeli officials told reporters that the extent of damage at the three targeted sites was unknown.
As Trump spewed his fictions and embellishments, he blithely contradicted himself. In the press conference with Rutte, he said of Fordo: “Iran went down to the site afterwards. They said it’s so devastated. . . . Two Iranians went down to see it, and they called back, and they said, ‘This place is gone.’” But two minutes later, Trump mentioned that “nobody can get in to see” the facility’s underground chambers, because “the tunnels are totally collapsed.”
In his interview with Bartiromo, Trump said Iran wouldn’t have moved enriched uranium out of Fordo before the bombing, because it hadn’t expected the site to be attacked. “Nobody thought we’d go after that site, because everybody said that site is impenetrable,” he explained. But seconds later—apparently forgetting or not caring that he had just brushed off the idea of Iranian preparations—he claimed that vehicles spotted at Fordo in the days before the strike were there “to seal up the entrance” with concrete.
Trump also alluded to unspecified intelligence that supposedly vindicated his boasts. At the NATO meeting, he said of Fordo: “We’ve collected additional intelligence. We’ve also spoken to people [who] have seen the site. And the site is obliterated.” He posted the same statement, again without evidence, on Truth Social. The next day, at a White House event, he asserted that “the target has now been proven to be obliterated, just as we said.”
TRUMP IS LYING. A week and a half after the bombing, he has offered no such proof. Instead, his flunkies have issued empty statements claiming, with zero discernible evidence, that “new intelligence” or “credible intelligence” backs him up. The charlatan who accused Bush of politicizing intelligence and lying about weapons of mass destruction is politicizing intelligence and lying about weapons of mass destruction.
But that’s not the worst of it. The worst part is that Trump, like Bush, is suggesting that anyone who disputes the president’s statements about a war is sabotaging America’s armed forces.
In 2005, as the Iraq war soured and the purported Iraqi nukes failed to turn up, Democrats accused Bush of having manipulated intelligence to justify the war. Bush responded by challenging his opponents’ patriotism. Their accusations of manipulation “send the wrong signal to our troops,” the president warned. “As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them.”
Vice President Dick Cheney joined Bush in this flag-waving counterattack. “American soldiers and Marines are out there every day in dangerous conditions,” he fumed, while “back home, a few opportunists are suggesting they were sent into battle for a lie.” One could argue, said Cheney—pretending not to endorse this argument himself—that the “untruthful charges against the commander-in-chief have an insidious effect on the war effort.”
Trump, having rebuked Bush and Cheney, is now copying their tactic of hiding behind the troops. At the NATO meeting, he called journalists “scum” for reporting, accurately, that according to a preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment, the damage from the Iran strike was limited. He accused the press of “hurting” the mission’s pilots by “trying to minimize the attack.” And he said CNN’s Natasha Bertrand, one of the first reporters to reveal the assessment, “should be FIRED” for denying the truth—“TOTAL OBLITERATION!”—and for “attempting to destroy our Patriot Pilots by making them look bad.”
Hegseth went further. At a Pentagon briefing, he lambasted journalists for challenging Trump’s tale of obliteration. “You, the press corps . . . It’s like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump,” the defense secretary raged. He accused reporters of trying “to cause doubt and manipulate the mind, the public mind, over whether or not our brave pilots were successful. . . . You’re undermining the success of incredible B-2 pilots.”
Spare us the sanctimony. These lectures about undermining America’s warriors aren’t patriotic. They’re cynical and dishonest. The only thing lower than lying about what you accomplished in a war is hiding behind the people who actually accomplished it.Subscribed
TODAY’s NUCLEAR WORLD’s NEWS DIGEST, Wednesday, (07/02/2025)
There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
- All Things Nuclear
- Nuclear Power
- Nuclear Power Emergencies
- Nuclear War Threats
- Nuclear War
- Yellowstone Caldera & Other Volcanoes (Note: There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available in today’s Post.)
- IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
TODAY’s NUCLEAR WORLD’s NEWS DIGEST, Tuesday, (07/01/2025)
All Things Nuclear
NEWS
Iran’s president approves law suspending cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog – CNN
CNN
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has approved a law to halt cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a move which will …
Trump’s Attack on Iran May Have Made the Nuclear Crisis Worse – Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Given outstanding questions about covert aspects of Iran’s nuclear … In the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from the plan — which was signed by all …
Trump’s Team Is Lying About Iran’s WMD – by Will Saletan – The Bulwark
The Bulwark
Trump was literally insisting that the three sites and Iran’s whole program had been annihilated. “It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear …
Nuclear Power
NEWS
Regulatory hurdles could jeopardize growth of nuclear energy
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Nuclear energy is produced through two scientific processes, fission and fusion. Nuclear fission is the process of splitting of a heavy atomic nucleus …
Smaller nuclear reactors spark renewed interest in a once-shunned energy source
SC Daily Gazette
By: David Montgomery – July 2, 2025 8:59 am. Constellation Energy, owner of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, above, …
“World’s Biggest Energy Gamble”: US to Launch Record-Breaking Nuclear, Solar, and Gas …
Sustainability Times
Illustration of the Hypergrid project integrating nuclear, solar, and wind power to support AI data centers. Image generated by AI.
Nuclear War Threats
NEWS
What Israel’s attack on Iran means for the future of war – Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
… nuclear weapon. … As drone surveillance and autonomous systems become embedded in everyday geopolitics, war risks becoming the default condition, and …
Hormuz threat shows Iran committed to continuing war with Israel, US | The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post
Zero tolerance for a nuclear weapon to be in the hands of the mullahs,” she said. Is Iran still a nuclear threat? Despite major accomplishments …
Trump lit a fire under NATO, but more needs to be done to contain the Russia-China axis
Fox News
… threat of nuclear war‘ · Brian … attack threats from drones. “We are going have armor on the modern …
Nuclear War
NEWS
Opinion | This is how a nuclear attack on the U.S. might unfold – The Washington Post
The Washington Post
It is difficult to imagine the devastation of a nuclear war. Our team at the Federation of American Scientists asked Sébastien Philippe, a …
The global implications of the US strikes on Iran – Brookings Institution
Brookings Institution
On June 21, the U.S. military carried out a series of coordinated strikes against several Iranian nuclear facilities. The attack marks a major …
Will the Bombing Stop Iran From Going Nuclear? – The New York Times
The New York Times
An axiom in the national security world says you cannot bomb a country into giving up its nuclear weapons programs. The attack itself only …
See more results | Edit this alertNuclear Power EmergenciesNEWS
IAEA aware of drone strike damaging vehicles near Zaporozhye NPP – Interfax
Interfax
… nuclear power plant,” Grossi said. “It … Armed conflict Attack Emergency Incidents IAEA international organisation Nuclear power Russia Znpp.
A wa world and geopolitical threats: heat, hostility and nuclear security
The Korea Times
… nuclear emergency response. Several governments in Southeast Asia are planning to build new nuclear reactors and small modular units. But policy …
Yellowstone Caldera
NEWS
Grand Prismatic Spring: Boiling, colorful & full of bacteria (Yellowstone Monthly Update, July 2025)
YouTube
… Yellowstone Volcano remains at normal, background levels of activity. For questions, email yvowebteam@usgs.gov Read Caldera Chronicles https …