- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine spoke about U.S. strikes on Iran.
- 15 years of study and preparation led to the development of the weapon that struck Iran's Fordow nuclear facility.
- The CIA and other agencies confirmed severe damages to Iran’s nuclear capabilities which would take years to rebuild.
- Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei spoke on Thursday discussing the attacks from Israel and the U.S.
Following much speculation and various reporting on how much damage the U.S. strikes against Iran’s nuclear facility actually did, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth held a press conference Thursday, along with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, to discuss the issue.
“What the United States military did was historic,” Hegseth said.
Caine described the preparation that went into the strike against Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility. He also detailed how soldiers on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar defended the base against strikes from Iran.
Hegseth also shared a number of statements made by different leaders and organizations about the damage done to Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Years of preparation led to the attack on Fordow
Caine shared that in 2009, two officers from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency were shown a major construction project in Iran, which would later become Fordow.
These agents spent the next 15 years studying the site; they “lived and breathed this single target,” Caine said. The target was known to be a critical element of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
As the officers studied the target, they realized that the U.S. did not have a weapon that could adequately strike the site. This led to the creation of the GB-U57.
Caine described how over multiple years hundreds of test shots were completed in order to develop the weapon.
The general also shared a video of one of those test shots.
The GBU-57 was created through weaponeering which is “determining the right weapon and fuse combination for the destruction of a target,” Caine said. It is a 30,000-pound bomb made of steel, explosives and a fuse that is dropped by B-2 bombers.
The weapon was specifically meant to “kill this target at the time and place of our nation’s choosing” according to Caine.
There were six weapons involved in the strike on Fordow. The first weapon removed the cap off of the main shaft which allowed the other weapons to be dropped down the shaft and explode in the mission space.
Caine and Hegseth both described the efforts put in by the pilots, engineers and others involved in the mission.
“I could not be more proud,” Caine said.
What Hegseth and Caine said about the success of the Fordow strike
Caine would not say anything definitive about the strike’s success, saying that members of the armed forces do not determine success, the intelligence community does.
He listed four things the military knows about the attack:
- The weapons were built, tested and loaded properly.
- The weapons were released on speed and on the correct parameters.
- The weapons all guided to their intended targets.
- The weapons functioned as designed and exploded.
Hegseth was more emphatic about the strike, using the words “decimating, obliterating and destroying” to describe what was done to the Fordow facility.
“President Trump directed the most complex and secret military operation in history and it was a resounding success,” Hegseth said.
Hegseth and Caine were responding in part to an earlier Defense Intelligence Agency report issued almost immediately after the strikes, and reportedly leaked to sources, that said the strikes only set Iran’s nuclear program back by months.
A senior DIA official told the Financial Times the report was a “preliminary, low confidence assessment.”
After the leaked report was covered broadly by the media, President Donald Trump pushed back on the assessment, and criticized the media for reporting on it.
What other organizations are saying about the damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities
On Wednesday, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe released a statement about the damage done to Iran’s nuclear program.
“CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes,” the statement said. “This includes 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.”
The statement continues saying that the CIA will continue to collect reliably sourced information to keep decision-makers and oversight bodies fully informed.
A statement was also released by the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission about Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted the statement on X.
“The devastating US strike on Fordow destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable,” the statement said. “We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, have set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years. This achievement will be maintained if Iran does not gain access to nuclear material.”
The chief of Israel Defense Forces, Eyal Zamir, also commented on Israel and the United States’ attacks on Iran.
“We’ve set Iran’s nuclear project back by years and the same applies to its missile program,” Zamir said according to an IDF post on X.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also weighed in on the situation in a post on X.
“Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed. If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do,” Gabbard wrote.
During an interview with CNBC, David Albright, the founder of the Institute for Science and International Security said “Iran’s dream of having a significant gas centrifuge enrichment program is over. It’ll take years to build back up.”
What Iran’s Imam Khamenei said in his Thursday message
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivered a televised message to his country on Thursday, discussing the attacks by Israel and the U.S.
In his speech Khamenei spoke about the U.S. strike on Fordow saying that the Americans “weren’t able to achieve anything significant,” and he accused Trump of using a “bizarre exaggeration in describing what happened.”
He also spoke about Iran’s strike on the U.S. base in Qatar.
“The fact that the Islamic Republic has access to key U.S. centers in the region and can take action whenever it deems necessary is a significant matter,” Khamenei said. “It’s quite significant. Such an action can be repeated in the future too. Should any aggression occur, the enemy — the aggressor — will definitely pay a heavy price.”
He also spoke about Trump wanting Iran to surrender.
“Needless to say, this statement is too big to come out of the U.S. president’s mouth,” the leader said.
Khamenei also said that Iran had achieved victory over Israel, which he referred to as the “fallacious Zionist regime.”
“The Iranian nation is victorious and will remain victorious, by the grace of God. We are hopeful that Almighty God will continuously protect this nation under His grace, preserving it with dignity and honor,” he concluded.
