White House denies reports Iran tai­lored strikes against Israel to ‘fail’

Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil spokesman John Kir­by hearti­ly dis­put­ed reports Mon­day sug­gest­ing that Iran had planned its week­end strikes against Israel to “fail.”
Israel and the Unit­ed States shot down more than 99% of the rough­ly 300 drones and mis­siles Iran launched against Israel on Sat­ur­day, accord­ing to Kir­by, call­ing the attack a “spec­tac­u­lar and embar­rass­ing fail­ure” for Iran.
“I’ve also seen reports say that they pro­vid­ed ear­ly warn­ing to help Israel pre­pare its defens­es and lim­it any poten­tial dam­age,” he con­tin­ued dur­ing Monday’s White House press brief­ing. “All of this is cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly false. To coin the phrase from the pres­i­dent — steal a phrase from the pres­i­dent — it’s malarkey.”
Kir­by claimed that Iran intend­ed to cause “sig­nif­i­cant destruc­tion and casu­al­ties” and den …