A week of shifting descriptions of Iran attack spark ongoing questions
A week after President Donald Trump ordered a U.S. attack on three Iranian nuclear sites, the explanations and descriptions of what happened voiced by him, top aides and early intelligence reports paint contrasting pictures of the extent of the damage to Iran's nuclear program.
While the president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth repeatedly claimed that Iran's nuclear program has been "obliterated," preliminary assessments — including from the Pentagon's own intelligence wing — painted an evolving picture as the week went on.
Trump said he ordered the attack on June 21 to strike a uranium enrichment site located in 300 feet deep in a mountain in Fordo in northwestern Iran, an uranium enrichment site in Natanz and the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center following reports that Iranian officials failed to comply with international nuclear regulations.
And as those early damage assessments cast doubt on the extent to which Iran nuclear program was crippled, several of Trump's top aides and allied lawmakers also appeared to scale back the stated goals of the attack.
Here are some of the accounts and characterizations over the last week.
On Sunday morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed Trump's statement from Saturday night, just after the strikes, that the sites had been "obliterated."
MORE: 'Way too early' to know full damage done to Iran nuclear sites, Joint Chiefs chairman says
"It was clear we devastated the Iranian nuclear program," he added.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, however, declined to go as far, saying it would take more time to assess the extent of the damage done.
Hegseth acknowledged that damage assessment was ongoing but stuck by the description he and Trump were using.
"All of our precision munitions struck where we wanted them to strike and had the desired effect, which means especially the primary target here, we believe we achieved destruction of capabilities there," he said.
Officials and inspectors from outside Iran have not been able to gain direct access to the bombed sites to make a first-hand assessment.
MORE: Centrifuges at Fordow nuclear facility 'suffered a great deal,' IAEA director says
Trump officials had a more nuanced take after news reports surfaced Tuesday about an initial Defense Intelligence Agency assessment that said the attack set back Iran's nuclear program only by months.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the leaks of the military's report but did not go as far as to claim that the sites were obliterated.
Instead, he insisted that "very significant, substantial damage was done" to key components of Iran's nuclear program, "and we're just learning more about it."
At the same time, Rubio provided more details about the attack, including that the bunker-buster bombs were dropped on ventilation shafts leading deep inside Fordo's heavily fortified facility -- buried, officials and experts said, 200 to 300 feet inside a mountain.
He ultimately acknowledged that it was difficult to get a read on damage inflicted to Fordo at this point, but asserted "the bottom line is real damage was done."
That same day, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard claimed in a statement that the three facilities were destroyed.
The director general of the U.N.'s nuclear oversight agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said Wednesday that he believed some of Iran's enriched uranium had been moved from the sites before the attacks.
Trump refuted that analysis.
"It would have taken two weeks, maybe. But it's very hard to remove that kind of material, very hard and very dangerous. Plus, they knew we were coming, and if they know we're coming, they're not going to be down there," he said Wednesday.
Trump reiterated that the sites and the uranium were buried under rubble and inaccessible, adding that trucks seen in satellite images at the plant before the attack -- which some speculated could have been used to move the nuclear material -- were construction vehicles being used to cover the ventilation shaft openings with protective concrete.
According to the two people familiar with the DIA's classified report, the bombing sealed off the entrances to two of the three nuclear sites targeted in the attack but most of the damage was done to structures above ground, leaving the lower structures intact.
The assessment also found that at least some enriched uranium remained – possibly moved from the nuclear sites ahead of the blasts.
The next day, on Thursday, Hegseth held a news conference where he slammed the news media over reporting but did not make the same assessment on the nuclear materials.
Asked twice during the briefing if he could be more definitive about whether the enriched uranium was moved before the attack, Hegseth said the Pentagon was "watching every aspect."
At that same Thursday briefing, Caine noted it's not his job to assess the damage, saying, "We don't grade our own homework."
Hegseth also highlighted what appeared to be a different goal of the mission, arguing the attack had succeeded because it led to stopping the fighting between Iran and Israel — rather than the facilities' destruction because it destroyed Iran's nuclear program.
"We got that peace, that ceasefire, that option because of strength, because of [Trump's] willingness to use American military might that no one else on the planet can do with the kind of planners and operators that the chairman just laid out," he said.
Then, on Friday, Trump echoed that sentiment.
"They put out that fire once that happened, once those bombs got dropped out, that war was over," he said.
Still, the president claimed again that the sites were obliterated during a news conference.
MORE: Secrets on Iran nuclear strike spill into open as Pentagon defends bombing
"We finished them off," he said, adding, "I don't believe that they're going to go back into nuclear anytime soon."
Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister said on Iranian State TV Thursday, however, the facilities were not destroyed and his country will have leverage in negotiations.
On Capitol Hill on Thursday, after administration officials gave lawmakers a classified briefing on the strikes, Republican lawmakers acknowledged that the U.S. strikes may not have destroyed Iran's cache of enriched uranium. But they said that wasn't part of the mission.
"The purpose of the mission was to eliminate certain particular aspects of their nuclear program. Those were eliminated. To get rid of the nuclear material was not part of the mission,' Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., told CNN.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the "program was obliterated at those three sites," but added, "I don't know where the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium exists. But it wasn't part of the targets there."
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The Deloitte report says 'a different set of expectations' among millennial and Generation Z workers, many of whom were pushed to go to college instead of working in the trades, has made it difficult for manufacturers to attract and retain workers. 'The consensus among American manufacturers is this generation of Americans just don't want these jobs anymore," said Qian of Northwestern. Fear of lower wages may also be keeping workers away. Manufacturing work today can pay well, and some research finds it tends to pay better than other sectors that don't require college degrees. But as of 2018, the average hourly earnings for manufacturing employees fall short of average overall employee earnings, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What kind of jobs would more manufacturing create? There's a reason so many American companies rely on factories abroad; operating in the U.S. tends to be more expensive. For one, labor costs are higher. Take the average annual machine operator salary, which is nearly $45,000 in the U.S. compared to $15,000 in China and less than $5,000 in Vietnam, according to the Reshoring Institute, a nonprofit that supports expanded U.S. manufacturing. And tariffs are expected to hike production costs for many domestic manufacturers, since companies will need to pay more for inputs shipped in from other countries. That could leave manufacturers increasingly turning toward automation to trim costs. 'If you need to pay anyone you employ as a factory worker an average of $36 an hour with benefits, then you are inclined to hire very few of them and instead buy automated equipment and robots,' said Farok Contractor, a professor at Rutgers' management and global business department. Winton of Winton Machine said she's already seeing an increased demand for automation from her company, which designs and produces factory automation for manufacturers in HVAC, aerospace, construction and other industries. Winton still expects to see jobs created if manufacturing gets a boost through tariffs. She just believes automation will allow fewer, high-quality positions as opposed to a large influx of manual labor. Already, manufacturing is relying on more college-educated workers; nearly 32% of civilian manufacturing workers had at least a bachelor's degree in 2023, up from 22% in 2006, according to a USA TODAY analysis of the Census Bureau's American Community Survey data. 'I need the people to build all the parts and pieces and the engineers to design and the software to build this factory automation,' Winton said. 'I think we have the people. Do we have the skillset? That's the question.'
