Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / The Lion Roars-Netanyahu’s War on Iran’s Nuclear Threat
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: In recent months, Iran has taken steps that it has
- 0:05Speaker 1: never taken before, steps to weaponize this enriched Uradia. If
- 0:09Speaker 1: not stopped, Iuran could produce a nuclear weapon in a
- 0:12Speaker 1: very short time. It could be a year, it could
- 0:14Speaker 1: be within a few months, less than a year. This
- 0:17Speaker 1: is a clear and present danger. This will's Verius Vinment.
- 0:21Speaker 2: This is a forty seven Morning Update special edition with
- 0:24Speaker 2: Ben Fergus.
- 0:25Speaker 3: Good Friday morning. It's so nice to have you with
- 0:27Speaker 3: us on the forty seven Morning Update. And we have
- 0:29Speaker 3: one big major story that we're covering and all aspects
- 0:33Speaker 3: of it, and that is the strike on Iran from Israel.
- 0:37Speaker 3: So who was hit, who was killed, what sites were hit,
- 0:41Speaker 3: and what comes next. Will have all of that for you,
- 0:45Speaker 3: Plus you're gonna hear from the Israeli Prime Minister net Yahoo.
- 0:50Speaker 3: It's the forty seven Morning Update and it starts right now.
- 0:53Speaker 2: Story number one.
- 0:55Speaker 3: We start with the big breaking news and that is
- 0:58Speaker 3: coming out of Israel. Israel has struck Iran and Iran
- 1:03Speaker 3: is now confirming that the IRGC terar chief Salami has
- 1:09Speaker 3: also been eliminated. Benjamin Nettnahu announcing the operation as well,
- 1:15Speaker 3: talking about what this means and we also have found
- 1:18Speaker 3: out that not only did Iran state run Islamic Republic
- 1:22Speaker 3: News agency confirm in the early hours of Friday morning
- 1:26Speaker 3: that the Israeli airstrike on targets in the country eliminated
- 1:30Speaker 3: the Major General Slami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
- 1:36Speaker 3: Other arms of Iran state news apparatus also confirmed this
- 1:41Speaker 3: several high profile regime members, including not one, but two
- 1:46Speaker 3: of their top nuclear scientists. Now this is obviously massive
- 1:50Speaker 3: because if you want to take out their nuclear program,
- 1:54Speaker 3: taking out the scientists behind it is huge. It's very
- 1:58Speaker 3: hard to get nuclear scientists to effect and come to Iran,
- 2:01Speaker 3: so taking them out could put back their program literally years.
- 2:06Speaker 3: They were killed in these strikes, and that is again massive. Now,
- 2:12Speaker 3: Islami may be by far one of the highest ranking
- 2:17Speaker 3: Iranian regime officials who have been targeted successfully in the operation.
- 2:21Speaker 3: He is one of those that was important to take out,
- 2:24Speaker 3: and Israel had planned this for quite some time and
- 2:27Speaker 3: they were able to do it. Salami had to stay
- 2:30Speaker 3: in a place. As one of the most prominent and
- 2:32Speaker 3: also belligerent senior leaders in the Iranian Islamic regime. He
- 2:37Speaker 3: regularly threatened attacks on America and Israel, and what was
- 2:42Speaker 3: perhaps his final public appearance on Thursday, Salami declared that
- 2:47Speaker 3: his forces were quote war tested and experienced, prepared for
- 2:52Speaker 3: war against its enemies. Now that was just twenty four
- 2:55Speaker 3: hours ago. He said that publicly now, the IRGC is
- 3:00Speaker 3: both a US designated terrorist organization he was in charge
- 3:04Speaker 3: of it, and a formal wing of the Iranian Armed Forces.
- 3:07Speaker 3: Among its chief operations is to sustain relations between the
- 3:12Speaker 3: Iranian terror state and its Jihadis proxies. Who does That
- 3:16Speaker 3: include the Huthis and Yemen, the Lebanese Hezbolah, and with
- 3:21Speaker 3: fellow rogue states such as Venezuela and Cuba. The IRNA
- 3:25Speaker 3: confirmed Solami's death and a brief message that offered no
- 3:29Speaker 3: details on the occurrence. It just confirmed that Salami died
- 3:33Speaker 3: in Tehran and claimed him a victim of assassination their
- 3:38Speaker 3: words now. Also in a separate report, the state news
- 3:41Speaker 3: outlet confirmed a barrage of air strikes over the capital
- 3:45Speaker 3: city by the Israeli Air Force. Another Iranian state media outlet,
- 3:49Speaker 3: press TV, reported early Friday that the strikes had martyred
- 3:55Speaker 3: several other senior IRGC commanders and new scientists. So we're
- 4:01Speaker 3: getting lots of confirmation about how deadly and how surgical
- 4:04Speaker 3: these strikes were on the top leadership in Iran veteran
- 4:09Speaker 3: nuclear scientists, two of them, in fact, they, as they
- 4:13Speaker 3: described it, were martyred in the attack. Press TV reported,
- 4:17Speaker 3: adding confirmation from now that at least one Iranian military leader,
- 4:21Speaker 3: the chief of the Iranian Armed Forces also a major
- 4:25Speaker 3: general bag Herring, is still alive and in Iran's war
- 4:30Speaker 3: room quote plotting the nation's response. Now, The Times of Israel,
- 4:36Speaker 3: citing Iranian state television, reported that Israel apparently also bombed
- 4:41Speaker 3: one of the most prominent uranium enrichment facilities in the country,
- 4:47Speaker 3: the facility known as the Natanz facility, and there was
- 4:52Speaker 3: several hits apparently on that facility. It was scattered among
- 4:57Speaker 3: anonymous reports as well on social media that this had
- 5:01Speaker 3: also happened, and we also been told that there was
- 5:04Speaker 3: disruptions and I ran by undercover MASAD agents. Have also
- 5:08Speaker 3: now surfaced that Israel has not confirmed that. I want
- 5:11Speaker 3: to be clear now. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nettna,
- 5:14Speaker 3: who also confirmed the airstrikes during a national address on
- 5:18Speaker 3: Friday morning, identifying the strikes as Operation Rising Lion. I
- 5:24Speaker 3: want you to hear what Netnya who had to say
- 5:27Speaker 3: as he addressed not only the people of Israel, but
- 5:29Speaker 3: also the people of the world.
- 5:32Speaker 1: Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military
- 5:37Speaker 1: operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival.
- 5:43Speaker 1: This operation will continue for as many days as it
- 5:46Speaker 1: takes to remove this threat. For decades, the tyrants of
- 5:51Speaker 1: Tehran have brazenly openly called for Israel's destruction. They've backed
- 5:56Speaker 1: up their genocidal rhetoric with a program to develop nuclear weapons.
- 6:01Speaker 1: In recent years, Iran is produced enough highly enriched uranium
- 6:06Speaker 1: for nine atom bombs. Nine In recent months, Iran has
- 6:12Speaker 1: taken steps that it has never taken before, steps to
- 6:15Speaker 1: weaponize this enriched uranium, and if not stopped, Iran could
- 6:20Speaker 1: produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It
- 6:23Speaker 1: could be a year, it could be within a few months,
- 6:26Speaker 1: less than a year. This is a clear and present
- 6:29Speaker 1: danger to Israel's very survival. Eighty years ago, the Jewish
- 6:34Speaker 1: people were the victims of a holocaust perpetrated by the
- 6:37Speaker 1: Nazi regime. Today, the Jewish state refuses to be a
- 6:42Speaker 1: victim of a nuclear holocaust perpetrated by the Uranian regime. Now,
- 6:47Speaker 1: as Prime Minister, I've made it clear time it again.
- 6:51Speaker 1: Israel will never allow those who call for our annihilation
- 6:55Speaker 1: to develop the means to achieve that goal. Tonight, Israel
- 6:59Speaker 1: backs those words with action. We struck at the heart
- 7:03Speaker 1: of Iran's nuclear enrichment program. We struck at the heart
- 7:06Speaker 1: of Iran's nuclear weaponization program. We targeted Iran's main enrichment
- 7:11Speaker 1: facility in Atans. We targeted Iran's leading nuclear scientists working
- 7:16Speaker 1: on the Iranian bomb. We also struck at the heart
- 7:19Speaker 1: of Iran's ballistic missile program. Last year, Iran fired three
- 7:24Speaker 1: hundred ballistic missiles at Israel. Each of these missiles carries
- 7:28Speaker 1: a ton of explosives and threatens the lives of hundreds
- 7:32Speaker 1: of people. Soon, those missiles could carry a nuclear payload,
- 7:37Speaker 1: threatening the lives not of hundreds, but of millions. Iran
- 7:41Speaker 1: is gearing up to produce ten thousands of those ballistic
- 7:45Speaker 1: missiles within three years. Now, just imagine imagine ten thousand
- 7:51Speaker 1: tons of T and T landing on a country the
- 7:55Speaker 1: size of New Jersey. This is an intolerable threat. It
- 7:59Speaker 1: too must be stopped Iran is now working on what
- 8:03Speaker 1: it calls the new plan to destroy Israel. You see,
- 8:07Speaker 1: the old plan failed. Iran and its proxies try to
- 8:10Speaker 1: encircle Israel with a ring of fire and to attack
- 8:14Speaker 1: us with the horrible attack of October seventh. But the
- 8:17Speaker 1: people of Israel, the soldiers of Israel, rose like lions
- 8:21Speaker 1: to defend our country. We crushed fromas we devastated Rizbalah,
- 8:25Speaker 1: We hid Iranian proxies in Syria and Yemen, and when
- 8:29Speaker 1: Iran directly attacked us twice last year, we struck back
- 8:33Speaker 1: inside Iran itself. Yet in defending ourselves, we also defend others.
- 8:38Speaker 1: We defend our Arab neighbors. They too have suffered from
- 8:41Speaker 1: Iran's campaign of chaos and carnage. Our actions against Iran's
- 8:46Speaker 1: proxy Hizballah led to the establishment of a new government
- 8:50Speaker 1: in Lebanon and the collapse of Asad's murderous regime in Syria.
- 8:55Speaker 1: The peoples of those two countries now have a chance
- 8:58Speaker 1: for different future, a better future. So too, to the
- 9:02Speaker 1: brave people of Iran, and I have a message for them.
- 9:06Speaker 1: Our fight is not with you. Our fight is with
- 9:09Speaker 1: the brutal dictatorship that has oppressed you for forty six years.
- 9:14Speaker 1: I believe that the day of your liberation is near,
- 9:18Speaker 1: and when that happens, the great friendship between our two
- 9:21Speaker 1: ancient peoples will flourish once again. I want to assure
- 9:25Speaker 1: the civilized world we will not let the world's most
- 9:29Speaker 1: dangerous regime get the world's most dangerous weapons. And Iran
- 9:34Speaker 1: plans to give those weapons nuclear weapons to its terrorist proxies.
- 9:38Speaker 1: That would make the nightmare of nuclear terrorism all too real.
- 9:43Speaker 1: The increasing range of Iran's ballistic missiles would bring that
- 9:46Speaker 1: nuclear nightmare to the cities of Europe and eventually to America.
- 9:53Speaker 3: Now, as you heard the Israeli Prime Minister say, this
- 9:56Speaker 3: strike was a part of quote Operation Rising Lion. Why
- 10:00Speaker 3: do I say it's part of an operation, because it's
- 10:03Speaker 3: very clear that this was not a one and done
- 10:06Speaker 3: hit on Iran. Quote from the Israeli Prime Minister, this
- 10:11Speaker 3: operation will continue for as many days as it takes,
- 10:16Speaker 3: stating that Iranian officials were actively taking steps to weaponize
- 10:20Speaker 3: it's enriched uranium stockpile, calling Tehran a clear and present
- 10:24Speaker 3: danger to Israel's survival, saying quote, we are defending the
- 10:28Speaker 3: free world from the terrorism and barbarism that Iran fosters
- 10:32Speaker 3: and exports across the globe. Many around the world, even
- 10:36Speaker 3: if they won't say so openly, know in their hearts
- 10:39Speaker 3: thanks to our determination and courage the citizens of Israel,
- 10:43Speaker 3: and thanks to the bravias of Israel's fighters, the world
- 10:46Speaker 3: will be safer place because of these actions. Now, Islami
- 10:50Speaker 3: was one of the most powerful people in Iran and
- 10:53Speaker 3: a top military leader. His loss will have significant damage
- 10:58Speaker 3: to Iran's military operations now. The general regularly threatened to
- 11:02Speaker 3: attack neighboring Israel and celebrated the deadly activities of Iranian
- 11:07Speaker 3: proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah, whose brutal terrorist free
- 11:12Speaker 3: against Israel in October the seventh prompted Israel to cleare
- 11:15Speaker 3: war against Amas in its enclave in Gaza. The enemy
- 11:20Speaker 3: sometimes threatens us with military action. We have always said
- 11:25Speaker 3: and we say today that we stand fully ready to
- 11:28Speaker 3: any scenarios, situations and circumstances. So Lemani that is his
- 11:34Speaker 3: exact words in a speech on Thursday, saying quote, we
- 11:38Speaker 3: are war tested and experience. We have built strength and
- 11:41Speaker 3: developed a strategy. In our plans, we monitor the death
- 11:44Speaker 3: of the enemy's army and have practiced our plans. That
- 11:49Speaker 3: was just twenty four hours ago from a man who's
- 11:51Speaker 3: now dead because Israel acted now. The general was responding,
- 11:56Speaker 3: by the way, when he said this to widespread reports
- 11:59Speaker 3: that is Tzel was in fact preparing an attack over
- 12:03Speaker 3: the Iranian territory. In response to alarming reports from the
- 12:07Speaker 3: International Atomic Energy Agency this week indicating that Iran was
- 12:13Speaker 3: rapidly nearing possession of enough materials to build a nuclear weapon, now,
- 12:19Speaker 3: the IAEA, a UN agency, declared Iran in violation of
- 12:26Speaker 3: several non proliferation commitments in a resolution that was passed
- 12:30Speaker 3: on Thursday, and again this is coming from a UN agency.
- 12:36Speaker 3: They expressed particular concern regarding evidence of rapidly accelerating uranium
- 12:42Speaker 3: enrichment activities. The resolution also followed a report by the
- 12:47Speaker 3: head of the agency on Monday that warned Iran was
- 12:51Speaker 3: maintaining illicit enrichment sites an attempted to sanitize them when caught,
- 12:57Speaker 3: meaning the IAEA could not credibly verify whether the activity
- 13:02Speaker 3: occurring there was consistent with the nation's nuclear commitments or not.
- 13:08Speaker 3: Now Finally, the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran responded to
- 13:13Speaker 3: the iia's condemnation on Thursday by announcing the debut of
- 13:17Speaker 3: yet another uranium enrichment facility to be built in the
- 13:20Speaker 3: near future. And that is exactly why Israel was forced
- 13:25Speaker 3: to act now, so make no mistake about it. This
- 13:30Speaker 3: was because of Iran's actions and Israel had no other
- 13:36Speaker 3: option but to respond. And let's be honest, the world
- 13:40Speaker 3: owes a debt of gratitude to Israel for standing up
- 13:44Speaker 3: to this terish regime.
- 13:45Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the forty seven Morning Update
- 13:48Speaker 2: with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever
- 13:52Speaker 2: you're listening to this podcast right now and for more
- 13:55Speaker 2: in depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson podcast
- 14:00Speaker 2: and we will see you back here tomorrow