WASHINGTON — The United States is shifting military resources, including ships, in the Middle East in response to Israel’s strikes on Iran and the threat of a retaliatory attack by Tehran, U.S. officials said Friday.
President Donald Trump told Reuters in a phone interview on Friday that he and his team knew everything about Israel’s plan to attack Iran and that he had given Tehran fair warning it needed to make a deal on its nuclear program.
“We knew everything, and I tried to save Iran humiliation and death. I tried to save them very hard because I would have loved to have seen a deal worked out,” Trump said.
“They can still work out a deal, however, it’s not too late,” he added.
Trump said the U.S. still has nuclear talks planned with Iran on Sunday but that he was unsure they would take place.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is scheduled to meet an Iranian delegation in Oman on Sunday, but the Israeli attacks have raised doubts on whether the session will still take place.
“They’re not dead,” Trump said of the U.S.-Iran talks. “We have a meeting with them on Sunday. Now, I’m not sure if that meeting will take place, but we have a meeting with them on Sunday.”
The Navy has directed the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner, which is capable of defending against ballistic missiles, to begin sailing from the western Mediterranean Sea toward the eastern Mediterranean and has directed a second destroyer to begin moving forward so it can be available if requested by the White House.
American fighter jets also are patrolling the sky in the Middle East to protect personnel and installations, an official said. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public or to discuss ongoing operations.
Both Reuters and The New York Times reported that U.S. officials disclosed the shift in military assets.
Trump was meeting with his National Security Council principals Friday to discuss the situation.
Trump had repeatedly pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay an Israeli attack to give diplomacy more time, though the president himself had threatened to bomb the Gulf nation if nuclear talks failed.
Trump said he had given the Iranians 60 days to come to an agreement, “and today is 61.” Iran has balked at the U.S. insistence that it give up uranium enrichment.
“We knew just about everything,” he said. ”We knew enough that we gave Iran 60 days to make a deal and today is 61, right? So, you know, we knew everything.”
The forces in the region have been taking precautionary measures for days, including having military dependents voluntarily depart regional bases, in anticipation of the strikes and to protect those personnel from a large-scale response from Tehran.
Typically around 30,000 troops are based in the Middle East, and about 40,000 troops are in the region now, according to a U.S. official. That number surged as high as 43,000 last October amid the ongoing tensions between Israel and Iran as well as continuous attacks on commercial and military ships in the Red Sea by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.
The Navy has additional assets that it could surge to the Middle East if needed, particularly its aircraft carriers and the warships that sail with them. The USS Carl Vinson is in the Arabian Sea — the only aircraft carrier in the region.
The carrier USS Nimitz is in the Indo-Pacific and could be directed toward the Middle East if needed, and the USS George Washington just left its port in Japan and could be directed to the region if so ordered, one of the officials said.
Then-President Joe Biden initially surged ships to protect Israel following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas that launched the war in Gaza. It was seen as a deterrent against Hezbollah and Iran at the time.
On Oct. 1, 2024, U.S. Navy destroyers fired about a dozen interceptors in defense of Israel as the country came under attack by more than 200 missiles fired by Iran.
By TARA COPP, The Associated Press and Steve Holland, Reuters News Agency
AP writer Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.