Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) blamed President Donald Trump for leaving Americans unprotected after Iranian drones struck the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia.
In a video posted Monday on X, Murphy said he visited the embassy in Riyadh, received briefings from American officials, and inspected damage from the Iranian attack.
“I’m in Riyadh, and I spent part of the morning at the embassy getting briefed by our whole team here on the war with Iran, the Saudi conflict in Yemen,” Murphy said.
“But I also got the chance to see some significant damage that was done to our embassy here by two Iranian drones.”
Murphy acknowledged that Iran carried out the strike, then pointed to the damage as evidence that Trump had failed to prepare for the war.
“In the middle of the night early in the conflict, the Iranians hit our embassy here,” he said. “It hasn’t gotten a lot of attention, but I saw the damage, and it is extensive.”
The senator said the attack could have killed Americans if it had occurred during working hours.
“It happened in the middle of the night, but had those attacks happened during the workday, this would have likely been a mass casualty event,” Murphy said. “There would have been many Americans dead.”
He then accused President Trump and his administration of leaving diplomats and military personnel exposed.
“It’s just a reminder of how fundamentally unprepared Donald Trump and his administration were for this war,” Murphy said. “How unprotected they left our diplomats and our military personnel.”
Murphy did not identify a specific protection the administration had failed to provide or a security decision that allowed the drones to strike the embassy.
The March 3 attack hit the compound with two drones, according to Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry. Its initial assessment described a limited fire and some material damage. The strike came amid Iranian missile and drone attacks on Gulf states hosting U.S. bases following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.
Murphy also accused the administration of withholding information about damage to American facilities and delaying details about wounded personnel.
“We really don’t have a sense yet, a clear sense as to the scope of the casualties,” he said.
“The administration has hidden from view the full cost of the damage done to U.S. facilities but also has been slow walking information about the number of people wounded.”
He did not provide a casualty figure, identify a report the administration had withheld, or specify which information about wounded Americans had been delayed.
Murphy warned that American personnel throughout the region would remain at risk as long as the fighting continued.
“It’s just important to realize that for as long as this war persists, all of our people here, the thousands of Americans on the diplomatic and military side here in the region are at grave risk,” he said.