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The Trump administration is maintaining Iran’s main goal was building a nuclear weapon with which to threaten the United States.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is giving a media briefing and says Iran “refused to say yes to peace, and their refusal made clear that their number one priority was building a nuclear weapon”.

“Iran rejected the path of peace because the terrorists in charge of this regime wanted to build nuclear weapons to use against Americans and our allies,” she said.

The Iranian government has previously declared its nuclear program was about civil energy and it had no goals to develop a nuclear weapon.

Leavitt also says Trump ordered the military strikes off a “good feeling” that the Iranian regime was planning to attack the US.

“The president was faced with a choice: does the United States of American use our military and our capabilities to strike first to take out this threat that has been threatening our country and our people for 47 years, or is he going to – as commander in chief – sit back and watch as the rogue Iranian regime attacks our people in the region,” she said.