Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 247 at Background Briefing.org. I'm Ian Masters,

and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with an assessment from a leading expert on nuclear proliferation on what damage

is being done to Iran's nuclear program by the US bombing of Iran in operation Midnight Hammer,

which involved 125 US aircraft, including B2 bombers that dropped 14 bunker buster bombs on Fordo and

Natanz, along with cruise missiles that struck Isfahan. Although Vice President Vance says, quote,

we are not at war with Iran. The Iranians say, quote, the US is crossing a very big red line.

Joining us to discuss the extent of Iran's secret nuclear program in terms of what we know

and what we don't know is David Albright, a physicist and founder and president of the

Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, D.C. He regularly conduct scientific research and has written

numerous assessments of secret nuclear weapons programs throughout the world. From 1992 to

1997, he cooperated actively with the IAEA action team and was the first non-governmental inspector

of the Iraqi nuclear program.

He has served as a consultant or contractor to the Environmental Policy Institute,

the Congressional Research Service, the International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism,

Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

And prior to that, he was a senior staff scientist at the American Federation of Scientists and a member of the Research Staff of Princeton University's Center for Energy and Environmental Studies.

And he's the author of Peddling Peril, How the Secret Nuclear Arms Trade,

how the secret nuclear trade arms America's enemies.

Then, with Trump triumphant, along with Netanyahu, and heading for the NATO summit in the Hague on Tuesday,

we'll examine how we already have a dictator's foreign policy with Trump governing today in the wake of

the near complete dismantling of checks and balances on the

...