9 hours ago
Team Trump hits back as doubts linger over Iran's nuclear programme
President Trump's top general asserted the accuracy of the bombing raid on Iran as the administration fought back against reports that the US failed to destroy Tehran's nuclear programme.
Dan Caine, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, set out how B-2 stealth bombers destroyed concrete protective covers over two ventilation shafts at the Fordow enrichment facility before dropping five GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs down each one, causing underground explosions. Two more of the bombs were dropped on the Natanz nuclear site.
Seven B-2s were involved, with both male and female pilots.
Caine refused to be drawn into a row over the impact on Iran's nuclear programme. He left it to Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, to reinforce the president's assertion after the strikes on Saturday night that 'Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated'.
Hegseth, like Trump, portrayed any doubts about the impact of the mission, codenamed Operation Midnight Hammer, as 'undermining the success of incredible B-2 pilots'.
Caine and Hegseth gave a briefing at the Pentagon after the leak of an early Defence Intelligence Agency assessment that core parts of the nuclear programme escaped and it was likely to be set back by only months.
Several other intelligence assessments by different parts of the US intelligence community and Israel, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency, described the damage to the bombed sites as severe.
John Ratcliffe, the director of the CIA, hinted that he had intelligence not available to the DIA which painted a more favourable picture, though he did not go into details.
He cited 'new intelligence from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years'. However, he did not go beyond describing the programme as 'severely damaged'.
• Does Iran have nuclear weapons — and did US strikes destroy them?
Rafael Grossi, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, described the damage as 'very considerable'. He added: 'I think 'annihilated' is too much but it suffered enormous damage.'
He said that the extent of the damage to Natanz and Fordow meant the centrifuges used to enrich uranium could no longer be working.
Grossi said he had been in touch with Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, about resuming inspections, but had yet to receive a reply. The Iranian parliament voted on Thursday to end collaboration with the agency, though that vote has still to be ratified by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Trump said satellite pictures of lorries queuing at nuclear sites before the US airstrikes did not mean that Iran's stockpile of more than 400kg of enriched uranium had been removed. Hegseth acknowledged some doubt, saying that the Pentagon was 'looking at all aspects of intelligence and making sure we have a sense of what was where'.
Preliminary intelligence assessments for European governments suggested that Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium remained 'largely intact'.
Karoline Leavitt, Trump's press secretary, sought to redefine 'obliterated' in her White House briefing, suggesting this should be taken to mean ending Iran's war with Israel. 'So why did the president immediately turn to 'obliterating' after the Iranian nuclear strike?' she said. 'Securing peace. Within 48 hours of the devastating strike, President Trump and his team brokered a historic ceasefire between Israel and Iran and officially ended the 12-day war.'
Khamenei gave a different account of the air raids and the retaliatory action Iran took, firing missiles at Al Udeid military base in Qatar.
Iran's foreign ministry had said on Wednesday the nuclear programme had been 'badly damaged' but Khamenei said: 'The US attacked our nuclear facilities, but couldn't achieve anything significant.'
Speaking from a bunker for the first time since the US strikes, the Ayatollah claimed victory and repeated his defiant pledge to Trump that he would 'never surrender'. He said: 'The Islamic Republic slapped America in the face.'
His claims on the military exchanges contradict the harsh statistics. Iranian missiles killed 29 people in Israel, but the country's Iron Dome and other missile defence systems prevented more casualties. Iran's much sparser defence systems had been largely wiped out by Israeli raids last year, and more than 600 Iranian civilians were killed.
• 'If the bombing failed, people died for nothing'
Israel also killed a significant number of Iran's military chiefs and about a dozen of its leading nuclear scientists. More shocking, perhaps, was the intelligence which allowed Israel to pinpoint them with uncanny accuracy.
Scientists say the question of how long it would take for Iran to rebuild its nuclear programme depends on the survival of its stocks of 60 per cent enriched uranium which, with the right equipment, would take only a few weeks to enrich further to the 90 per cent needed for a practical warhead.
It is known to have other sites, including a third underground facility under 'Pickaxe Mountain' near Natanz, which were not struck at the weekend.
If the regime attempted to put new centrifuges there, it would raise the question of whether US and Israel were prepared to return to military operations.
