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US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has called last weekend's US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities a "historic turning point" in global security. At a Pentagon news conference, he defended the Trump administration's decision and criticized the media for downplaying the impact of the strikes.
" I hope that, with all the paint spilled, all of your media outlets will take the time to properly recognize this historic shift in continental security that other presidents tried to make, that other presidents talked about. President Trump achieved this. It's a big deal ," Hegseth said.
He criticized media reports of a preliminary US intelligence assessment, which suggested that the attack did not destroy key components of Iran's nuclear program, but instead delayed it by several months.
"Again, it was preliminary, a day and a half after the actual attack, when she acknowledges in writing that it takes weeks to gather the data necessary to make such an assessment ," the defense secretary said.
But, speaking five days after the attack, Hegseth stressed that the president created the conditions to end the war by eliminating and destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities.
Then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, took the floor, who emphasized on Thursday that the operation against Iran's nuclear facilities went according to plan and the 30,000-pound bombs dropped functioned as designed, meaning they exploded.
“ One point I want to make here: The Joint Force does not do battle damage assessments. We intentionally do not assess our tasks. The intelligence community does. But here’s what we know after the attacks and the strikes at Fordow: First, that the weapons were built, tested and loaded properly. Second, the weapons were fired at the proper rate and parameters. Third, all the weapons were directed at their intended targets and at their intended points. Fourth, the weapons operated as designed, which means they detonated. We know this through other intelligence tools that we have, which were visible, we were able to see them visibly. And we know that the aircraft that were coming in behind saw the first weapons operate,” Caine told reporters at the Pentagon.
The general, along with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, highlighted the success of the pilots who carried out the mission. Caine added that in the days before the US attack, Iran attempted to cover the main shafts of the facilities with concrete.
“In the days leading up to the attack on Fordow, the Iranians tried to cover the shafts with concrete to prevent an attack. I won’t share the specific dimensions of the concrete cap, but you should know that we know the dimensions of those concrete caps. The planners had to account for that, they took everything into account. The cap was forcibly removed by the first weapon and the main shaft was exposed ,” Caine said.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Army, among other things, rejected claims that he was pressured by President Donald Trump or Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to provide a different intelligence assessment on the US military operation against Iran's nuclear facilities.
“No, no, I didn’t. And no, I wouldn’t. My job as chairman is to present a range of options to the president and the National Command Authority to address the risks associated with each of them and then take the orders of the National Command Authority and go and execute them. That — I’ve never been pressured by the president or the secretary to do anything other than tell them exactly what I think, and that’s exactly what I’ve done, ” Caine said when asked if he had been pressured to give a different intelligence assessment and if he would do so.
Caine also dismissed a question about what had changed in the U.S. ability to assess the damage of its strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, after the president said just days earlier that a final assessment would take time. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth indicated that the administration’s claims that the sites had been “disappeared” were based on the capability of the weapons used.
" Ultimately, we're here to explain what these weapons are capable of. No one is down there in a position to assess and everyone is using reflections of what they see. That's why the Israelis, the Iranians, the IAEA, the UN, for one man and one woman who recognized the capability of this weapons system, are acknowledging how devastating it has been ," Hegseth said after opening statements that doubled down on the effectiveness of US strikes on Iran.
Caine was asked about his comments on Sunday, when he said that "the final damage of the battle will take some time" and that the assessment of the battle damage was "still pending, and it would be too early for me to comment on what may or may not still be there." He was also asked if he would describe the sites as "gone."
The defense secretary argued that what had changed was a huge amount of irresponsible reporting based on leaks. Hegseth added that Caine "doesn't deal with politics."
" This is my way of understanding, translating and talking about these kinds of things. So I can use the word lost. He could use lost, destroyed, valued, all of these things ," Hegseth concluded.
Caine again said that the intelligence community's report should be awaited after Hegseth's lengthy response.
"The Intelligence Committee should be able to help you answer that question. They look at a number of things, as the secretary alluded to, they look at a number of things. I don't do that. They deal with all, all the different sources of information, which I would refer to them for clarification ," he said.
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