Pentagon tells Congress no sign that Iran was going to attack US  first, sources say

ArmInfo.Trump administration officials acknowledged in closed-door briefings with congressional staff on Sunday that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran planned to attack U.S. forces first, Reuters reports quoting two people familiar with the matter as saying.

The United States and Israel launched their most ambitious attacks on  Iran in decades on Saturday, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali  Khamenei, sinking Iranian warships and hitting more than 1,000  targets so far, officials say.

But Sunday's remarks to Congress appeared to undercut one of the key  arguments for the war made by senior administration officials.

They told reporters the day before that President Donald Trump  decided to launch the attacks in part because of indicators that  Iranians might strike U.S. forces in the Middle East "perhaps  preemptively."

Trump, one of the officials said, was not going to "sit back and  allow American forces in the region to absorb attacks."

Pentagon officials briefed Democratic and Republican staff of several  national security committees in both the Senate and the House of  Representatives for more than 90 minutes on the unfolding U.S. attack  in Iran, White House spokesperson Dylan Johnson said earlier.

In the briefings, administration officials emphasized that Iran's  ballistic missiles and proxy forces in the region posed an imminent  threat to U.S. interests, but there was no intelligence about Tehran  attacking U.S. forces first, the two sources, speaking on condition  of anonymity, told Reuters.

Trump said the attack, which is expected to run for weeks, aimed to  ensure Iran could not have a nuclear weapon, contain its missile  program and eliminate threats to the United States and its allies.

He has urged Iranians to rise up and topple the government.

Still, Democrats have accused Trump of waging a war of choice and  have taken aim at his arguments for abandoning peace talks that  mediator Oman said still held promise.

Trump has argued, without presenting evidence, that Iran was on track  to soon secure the ability to strike the United States with a  ballistic missile.

His missile claim was not backed by U.S. intelligence reports, and  appeared to be exaggerated, sources familiar with the reports have  told Reuters.

Questions about the justification for the war come as the U.S.  military revealed on Sunday the first American casualties of the  conflict.