Pentagon Waiting for Saudi Arabia's Assessment

Pentagon officials say they will await Saudi Arabia's assessment of attacks on that country's oil facilities before explicitly placing blame.

"We're not going to get ahead of the Saudi investigation in their assessment of this," Defense Department spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told reporters at the Pentagon.

"We're supporting their investigation, we have teams on the ground working with them, but we're not going to get ahead of their conclusions."

Hoffman's comments were detailed in a report by The Hill.

He did say "as of this time, all indications are . . . that Iran is in some way responsible for the attack on the Saudi refineries."

And he said, regardless of whether this was a direct attack by Iran or a proxy attack, "this has been a dramatic escalation" of prior incidents involving Iran.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has described the attack as "an act of war" against Saudi Arabia.

He said Thursday it was "abundantly clear" Iran had launched the attacks, according to The Hill.

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