-On September 14th, targeted strikes
on two key Saudi oil facilities
knocked out half of the kingdom's oil output for days.
Yemen's Houthi rebels said they were responsible for the attack.
Both US and Saudi officials
quickly cast doubt on that claim.
-All of the initial indications and evidence [found that]
this was not from the Yemeni land
like the Houthis militias claim.
-Satellite imagery released two days
later revealed precision strikes.
During a news conference on September 18th,
the Saudi military said 18 drones
had attacked an oil-processing plant
while seven cruise missiles were fired at an oil field.
Iran provides financial backing
and military support to the Houthis,
who are fighting a devastating civil war
against the internationally recognized Yemeni government.
But their relationship is a complicated one.
-The Houthis are fiercely independent,
and the Iranians might be involved in training
and equipping them.
But they certainly do not have command and control over them.
-But I do think that Iran's leverage
over the Houthi missile force is so large that in the end
they can dictate terms if they want to.
-This isn't the first time the Houthis have claimed
to hit Saudi targets.
In May, drones attacked
oil-pumping stations near Riyadh.
In June, a missile attack on a Saudi airport wounded
more than two dozen people.
But the September attack was far more sophisticated.
-So, I think from day one, Yemen was definitely ruled out
almost immediately, at least to me,
given that I've basically been able to monitor
the way the Houthis have progressed
in terms of their weapon sophistication
over the last three years.
And they have yet to reach
this kind of coordinated precision attack.
-What we would expect from a Houthi attack would be
two drones crashing into their facility, perhaps a third.
Perhaps a tanker would burn.
But this level of sophistication,
really kicking the plant out of operation for a while,
that is something that would be such an insane quantum
leap from the Houthis.
-Mr President, have you seen the evidence proof
that Iran was behind the attack?
-Well, it's looking that way. We'll have some pretty good --
we're having some very strong studies done,
but it's certainly looking that way at this --
-In regards to the Iranians
and the developing of their technology,
they've shown that they are very competent
at developing their own weapon systems,
and not only just developing locally
but then basically equipping their proxies,
or people who are considered to be aligned with them,
with the same gear.
-These are the recovered pieces of a missile fired
by Houthi militants from Yemen into Saudi Arabia.
Unequivocally that these weapons were supplied
by the Iranian regime.
-So, the tracing that origin becomes incredibly difficult,
which is why we were all torn in the middle
between did this come from Yemen?
Did this come from Iraq?
-But the Houthis claim responsibility for something
in order to provide a smokescreen for Iran.
An attack that has been ordered by Iran
and has been conducted from a very different
staging area would not be without precedent.
-On September 18th, Saudi Arabia displayed remnants
of what it said were Iranian-made weapons
from attacks on the oil installations.
The location of the damage shown in the satellite images
suggests the attacks came from the north or northwest.
The kingdom released video it claimed shows
the strikes came from a northern direction.
-On the other hand, with cruise missiles and drones,
you can change the direction of flight quite easily.
So, it's not a very certain sign that these attacks
came from this direction.
-The Saudis also pointed to the range of the weapons
used as evidence of Iranian involvement.
The oil facilities were more than 500 miles away
from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.
-So, I'd be very skeptical about remnants.
Once again, it's one of those contexts where words
and documentation or charges,
and they do definitely light fires.
-But experts say drones
and missiles are part of Iran's security strategy.
While Saudi Arabia is a major purchaser of US arms,
the attack revealed its vulnerability
to asymmetric warfare.
-Cruise-missile defense is incredibly difficult.
In this particular incident,
what you have is a volley of attacks --
multiple missiles being fired at the same time
with a combination of drones.
What happens is the systems themselves become
incredibly overwhelmed.
-I think this is one of these attacks that will be studied
in military history,
ten years from now, twenty years from now,
as some kind of turning point when it comes to modern warfare.
-While Iran has denied any involvement,
the attack appears to be the most dramatic escalation
in a series of bold actions Iran has taken
since President Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Officials have stopped short of saying the attack
was launched from inside Iran.
-What would be the consequence of an American
or Saudi military strike on Iran now?
-An all-out war.
-We have just sanctioned the Iranian National Bank.
That is their central banking system.
-Look -- the Trump Administration
has been quick to blame Iran
for everything that goes wrong in the Middle East.
The Trump Administration continuously
and consistently has portrayed Iran as the source of all evil.
And the speed with which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
pointed the finger of blame at Iranians,
I think even reduced the credibility
of the Administration.
-However, if this did come from Iran,
I think this would be the first time
that you could distinctly see the Iranians pushing a button,
and that button being a US reaction.
I think they were trying to push the boundary
and see how far they could go with an attack like this
and whether it would warrant a reaction from both the Saudis
or the Americans or their allies.
But this is if it did come from Iran.
It is still incredibly difficult to say that it distinctly came
from Iran with the information that's available out there.