“The operation was underway in its early stages when it was called off,” the Times quotes a senior administration official saying. “Planes were in the air and ships were in position, but no missiles had been fired when word came to stand down, the official said.”

More from the Times report: “It was not clear whether Mr. Trump simply changed his mind on the strikes or whether the administration altered course because of logistics or strategy. It was also not clear whether the attacks might still go forward. Asked about the plans for a strike and the decision to hold back, the White House declined to comment, as did Pentagon officials. No government officials asked The New York Times to withhold the article.”

WHERE WAS THE DRONE?: A key point of dispute is whether at any point the $130-million Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk surveillance drone veered into Iranian airspace as it flew over the Strait of Hormuz. The Pentagon was adamant that it did not.

“This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S. surveillance asset that had not violated Iranian airspace at any time during its mission,” said Lt. Gen. Joseph Guastella, commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, who read a statement to Pentagon reporters from his headquarters in Qatar. “Iranian reports that this aircraft was shot down over Iran are categorically false.”

Iran claims the spy drone came within 9 miles of its coast, but Guastella said it was 20 miles offshore when it was shot by an Iranaian surface-to-air missile. “The aircraft was over the Strait of Hormuz and fell into international waters.” A video posted by the Pentagon shows the smoke trail as the aircraft plunges into the sea.

Later the Pentagon released a graphic that it said depicted the exact flight path of the drone, showing it never flew over Iranian territorial waters.

IRAN STICKING TO ITS STORY: On Twitter, Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, posted his country’s depiction of the flight path, along coordinates that he said showed the plane was targeted in Iranian airspace.

“At 00:14 US drone took off from UAE in stealth mode & violated Iranian airspace. It was targeted at 04:05 at the coordinates (25°59’43″N 57°02’25″E) near Kouh-e Mobarak,” Zarif tweeted. “We’ve retrieved sections of the US military drone in OUR territorial waters where it was shot down.”

Good Friday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Kelly Jane Torrance (@kjtorrance). Email us here for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense.

Subscribe today to the Washington Examiner magazine and get Washington Briefing: politics and policy stories that will keep you up to date with what’s going on in Washington. SUBSCRIBE NOW: Just $1.00 an issue!

UNEASE IN CONGRESS: After briefings at the White House yesterday, members of Congress expressed worry that, in the words of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the United States might “bumble” into a war with Iran that could quickly spin out of control.

“We know that the high-tension wires are up there, and we must do everything we can not to escalate the situation, but also to make sure that our personnel in the region are safe,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “This is a dangerous situation,” she said. “We’re dealing with a country that is a bad actor in the region. We have no illusions about Iran.”

It wasn’t just Democrats who were urging restraint. Even some of the president’s most loyal supporters in Congress were warning against punishing retaliation that could trigger a broader conflict.

“Some response may be appropriate, but full engagement definitely is not going to get support,” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., one of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, told the Washington Examiner.

Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., a senior member of the Foreign Relations panel, resisted the idea of any military response at all. “I think Iran needs to know that there are people that are ready to do military action, but I don’t think this justifies it,” said Yoho. “That just is the beginning of escalation. I would wait until they did something more egregious but let them know. … Don’t do any more things like this to the United States because it’s going to lead to something you’re really not going to like.”

The strongest advocate of military force was Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “I would encourage forceful action to stop this behavior before it leads to a wider conflict. Doing nothing has its own consequence. If you do nothing, the Iranians see us as weak,” Graham said. “Here’s what Iran needs to get ready for: severe pain inside their country.”

SAUDI ARMS SALE: The Senate voted yesterday to block President Trump’s Saudi arms deal, but the vote totals did not reach the two-thirds threshold needed to override the veto promised by the president.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited the threat from Iran when he notified Congress last month that Trump would exercise emergency powers to expedite the $8 billion arms package to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

The White House argues the missile attacks on Saudi Arabia from Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen and the tensions in the region make the arms deal more urgent than ever.

“To reject these sales at this time and under these circumstances is to reward recent Iranian aggression and to encourage further Iranian escalation,” said Jim Risch, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, adding that blocking the sale would simply “encourage miscalculation on the part of Iranians, which will be disastrous.”

ESPER’S LEGAL QUANDARY: When Patrick Shanahan announced this week he was stepping down as acting defense secretary, President Trump promptly named Army Secretary Mark Esper to the post and said he would “most likely” make Esper his nominee for the permanent job. “That’s what I’m thinking about doing, most likely, pretty soon,” he told reporters Monday.

But veteran Associated Press Pentagon reporter Lolita Baldor points out it’s not that simple, writing that “because of limitations laid out in court decisions and legislation governing how top level vacancies are filled, [Esper] will only be allowed to serve for about six weeks in that temporary capacity.”

“Normally, senior leaders can be ‘acting’ for 210 days, but because Shanahan was never nominated the clock on Esper started ticking on January 1, when previous Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned. That would force Esper out of the acting role by July 30,” Baldor writes. “If he is nominated, he’ll have to step down and move to another job until the Senate votes on his confirmation. And anyone chosen to fill in temporarily — even for a short time while the confirmation process goes on — will have limited authorities and won’t have all of the decision-making power that a defense secretary needs when his nation is at war in several countries and conducting major military operations in dozens of others.”

ESPER’S FIRST CHALLENGE: Esper was among the advisers who huddled with Trump at the White House yesterday as the president mulled the response to the Iran situation. And the Pentagon has announced that with Shanahan departing at midnight Sunday, Esper will represent the United States at next week’s meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.

While Esper has two years of Pentagon experience under his belt, his job as Army secretary is very different from the responsibilities of defense secretary. The Army secretary is the civilian in charge of training and equipping the force so it’s ready when called upon by the commander in chief. Service secretaries play little role in policy and military strategy and are not in the chain of command. Working for Trump and implementing and defending his policies will involve a steep learning curve.

BOMBSHELL IN SEAL TRIAL: Surprise testimony in the trial of Special Warfare Chief Eddie Gallagher has thrown into question the charges that he killed a captured Islamic State fighter in Iraq in 2017.

Fellow Navy SEAL Corey Scott, who has been granted immunity, testified that he, not Gallagher, was responsible for the death of the man.

Scott said while Gallagher stabbed the fighter in the neck, the wound did not kill him. A trained combat medic, Scott said he put his thumb over a breathing tube that had been inserted into the ISIS fighter’s mouth until the fighter asphyxiated.

Gallagher’s attorneys are expected to ask for a motion of acquittal based on the testimony, but prosecutors have no intention of dropping murder charges, a spokesman for the military said Thursday.

WHAT DID THE PRESIDENT KNOW?: When a U.S. aircraft is downed by hostile fire in a world hot spot, normally the president is notified immediately.

But when President Trump called into Sean Hannity’s Fox News Channel show from the White House Wednesday night, he seemed uninformed or unconcerned about the downing earlier in the evening of a sophisticated, unmanned spy plane by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.

“Don’t worry about a thing. Everything is under control,” Trump said in response to a question from Hannity about how Trump planned to keep Iran from acquiring weapons.

“Would you say they never get nukes? They never get nuclear weapons?” Hannity asked.

“I would say, if I were you, don’t worry about a thing,” Trump replied.

U.S. Central Command said the U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk unmanned surveillance plane was shot down at approximately 11:35 p.m. GMT Wednesday, which was 7:35 p.m. EDT, or an hour and a half before the 9 p.m. start of Hannity’s show.

Trump either didn’t know about the incident or chose to keep the information to himself.

The Rundown

Washington Examiner: Missing the point on low-yield nukes

New York Times: Xi Starts Visit to Kim in North Korea, With Many Eyes on Trump

CNN: South China Sea: Satellite Image Shows Chinese Fighter Jets Deployed To Contested Island

Stars and Stripes: Canada Becomes Latest Nation To Sail Warships Through Taiwan Strait

The Diplomat: Report: 2 Russian Tu-95 Strategic Bombers Violate Japan’s Airspace

New York Times: Erdogan Says He Will Talk To Trump To Resolve Disagreement On Weapons

Defense News: Interim Air Force secretary: I’ve always supported the Space Force

Inside Defense: Navy Zeroing In On CVN-78 Lower Advanced Weapons Elevators

Military Times: Trump’s July 4th celebration to feature military in parade, demonstrations

Calendar

FRIDAY | JUNE 21

9 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Avenue N.W. Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion on “Russian Force Structure for Large Scale Combat Operations,” with Lester Grau, senior analyst and research director at FMSO; Charles Bartles, junior analyst and Russian linguist at FMSO; Michael Kofman, senior research scientist in the CNA Russia Studies Program; and Jeff Mankoff, senior fellow in the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program. www.csis.org

9 a.m. 2301 Constitution Avenue N.W. United States Institute of Peace discussion on “Addressing China’s Economic and Military Coercion in the Indo-Pacific,” with Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawaii; Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla.; and George Moose, vice chair of the board of directors of USIP. www.usip.org

11 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Avenue N.W. Center for Strategic and International Studies media briefing, “Preview of the 2019 G20 Summit,” which will be held June 28 and 29 in Osaka, Japan, with Heather Conley, senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia and the Arctic, and director of the CSIS Europe Program; Matthew Goodman, senior vice president and chair in political economy at CSIS; Michael Green, senior vice president for Asia and Japan chair at CSIS; and Andrew Schwartz, chief communications officer at CSIS. www.csis.org

11 a.m. 22nd and Constitution Avenue N.W. Organization of Iranian American Communities rally and march to urge “recognition of the Iranian people’s right for regime change.” Participants include former Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J.; former Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.; former Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. John “Jack” Keane; and Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

MONDAY | JUNE 24

12:30 p.m. 529 14th St. N.W. National Press Club Headliners Luncheon with acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper. www.press.org/events

TUESDAY | JUNE 25

8 a.m. 2201 G Street N.W. Defense Writers Group breakfast with Dana Deasy, DoD’s Chief Information Officer. nationalsecuritymedia.gwu.edu

WEDNESDAY | JUNE 26

Acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper attends a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Wednesday and Thursday. www.nato.int

6:30 a.m. 2425 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. Sgt. Major of the Army Daniel Dailey speaks at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare breakfast at AUSA headquarters. www.ausa.org/events

11:45 a.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Hudson Institute discussion, “Maritime Irregular Warfare: Preparing to Meet Hybrid Maritime Threats.” www.hudson.org/events

11:30 a.m. 1667 K Street N.W. Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments discussion of new book Revolution and Aftermath: Forging a New Strategy toward Iran, with coauthors Eric Edelman and Ray Takeyh of CSBA. csbaonline.org/about/events

THURSDAY | JUNE 27

7:30 a.m. 555 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. Defense One Tech Summit. Speakers include Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment; William Evanina, director of the national counterintelligence and security center, ODNI; Sue Gordon, principal deputy director of national intelligence, ODNI; Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio; and more. www.defenseone.com