Hegseth defends Iran strike amid doubts over Trump's ‘obliteration' claims

The Guardian

5 hours ago

The US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has defended the US strikes on Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities and said that Donald Trump had 'decimated … obliterated' the country's nuclear program despite initial intelligence assessments that last week's strikes had failed to destroy key enrichment facilities and they could resume operations within just months.
But he and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, largely based that assessment on AI modeling, showing test videos of the 'bunker buster' bombs used in the strikes and referred questions on a battle damage assessment of Fordow to the intelligence community.
Speaking from the Pentagon briefing room, Hegseth cast doubt on an initial assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency, noting it was 'preliminary' and 'leaked because someone had an agenda to try to muddy the waters and make it look like this historic strike wasn't successful'.
Hegseth also said he was unaware of any intelligence suggesting Iran had moved any of its highly enriched uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that Iran's 400kg stock of 60% enriched uranium could no longer be accounted for.
'I'm not aware of any intelligence … that says things were not where they were supposed to be, moved or otherwise,' Hegseth said.
Hegseth also targeted the press for using leaked information in reports, as the Trump administration has indicated that it could target or even depose individual reporters for publishing the results of the initial assessment.
'Time and time again, classified information is leaked or peddled for political purposes to try to make the president look bad, and what's really happening is you're undermining the success of our incredible pilots,' Hegseth said.
Caine said the strikes were successful insofar as the attack matched a model developed by the Pentagon that he said predicted the destruction of the Fordow site.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claimed that the US strikes on Iran's nuclear sites 'did not achieve anything' and Donald Trump had 'exaggerated' their impact, in his first public comments since the ceasefire with Israel was declared.
The country's foreign minister later called the damage 'serious' but added that a detailed assessment was under way. Abbas Araghchi also shut down what he said was 'speculation' that Tehran would come to the table for new talks with the US and said it 'should not be taken seriously'. He also said a bill suspending cooperation with the IAEA was now 'binding' after being passed by Iranian lawmakers and approved by a top vetting body.
During the US briefing on Thursday, Caine said that the strikes targeted two ventilation shafts leading into the Fordow underground complex. The first weapons were used to demolish concrete caps designed to prevent a similar attack, and then successive 'bunker buster' bombs were aimed down the shafts on each side in order to target the 'mission space', where Iranian centrifuges were located.
The weapons were 'built, tested, and loaded properly'; they were 'released on speed and on parameters'; and the 'weapons all guided to their intended targets and to their intended aim points for the weapons function as designed, meaning they exploded'.
'The majority of the damage we assess based on our extensive modeling of the blast,' Caine said. 'The primary kill mechanism in the Mission Space was a mix of over-pressure and blast ripping through the open tunnels and destroying critical hardware.'
Hegseth and Caine's appearance came one day after Trump faced questions over the strike at a Nato summit at The Hague and lashed out at reporters for publishing the results of the initial intelligence assessment that he claimed had denigrated the pilots of the B-2 bombers that led the attack.
The report, which was published by the Defense Intelligence Agency, said that the US strike using 14 30,000lb 'bunker buster' GBU-57 bombs did not destroy the key components at the nuclear enrichment sites and probably only set back the Iranian nuclear program by a few months.
Senior Trump intelligence officials on Wednesday claimed that there was 'new evidence' that showed the sites had been destroyed.
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The CIA director, John Ratcliffe, in a statement said that new intelligence from a 'historically reliable' source indicated that 'several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.' The director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, also said that 'new intelligence' showed that three nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan would take years to rebuild.
Trump announced that Hegseth would give the press briefing to 'fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots'.
'These Patriots were very upset!' Trump wrote on Truth Social. 'After 36 hours of dangerously flying through Enemy Territory, they landed, they knew the Success was LEGENDARY, and then, two days later, they started reading Fake News by CNN and The Failing New York Times. They felt terribly!'
Caine called operation Midnight Hammer, the codename for the strike against the Iranian nuclear sites, the 'culmination of 15 years of incredible work' by officers at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
'In the case of Fordow, the Dtra team understood with a high degree of confidence the elements of the target required to kill its functions, and the weapons were designed, planned and delivered to ensure that they achieve the effects in the mission space,' Caine said.
Yet the Guardian has previously reported that Dtra had briefed senior Pentagon officials that using conventional bombs, even as part of a wider strike package of several GBU-57s, would not penetrate deep enough underground and that it would only do enough damage to collapse tunnels and bury the Fordow enrichment site under rubble.