Pentagon chief defends US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites as ‘resounding success'
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities had been a 'resounding success', angrily pushing back against the 'fake news' media for questioning how effective the attacks were.
President Donald Trump and his administration are furious after a preliminary assessment of the strikes suggested they may not have fully destroyed Iran's nuclear facilities. The report was leaked to the press.
'President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history. And it was a resounding success, resulting in a ceasefire agreement, and the end of the 12-day war,' Mr Hegseth told Pentagon reporters.
He then lambasted the Pentagon press corps for reporting on the initial assessment.
'It's like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump,' he said. 'It's almost personal when we see the way in which leaks are used to try to disparage the outcome or muddy the waters about the impact of what happened.'
Gen Dan Caine, the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was also at the press conference. He said experts had spent 15 years developing the technology to attack Fordow and other Iranian nuclear sites.
He told reporters the GBU-57, the 30,000-pound (13.6-tonne) munition dropped from B-2 stealth bombers on Saturday, had been designed to burrow into the Fordow site and explode once deep underground.
Experts 'accomplished hundreds of test shots and dropped many full-scale weapons against extremely realistic targets for a single purpose, kill this target at the time and place of our nation's choosing,' he said.
The bombs don't leave a large crater as they explode far below the surface, he said, noting that the weapons had flown down three ventilation shafts and all exploded as planned.
Gen Caine also described how US troops at Al Udeid Air Base had defended against an Iranian missile attack on Sunday.
He said roughly 44 American service members responsible for defending the entire base were present as rounds of Patriot missiles were launched.
Gen Caine said Qatar joined in the successful defence of what he called the largest single Patriot engagement in US military history.
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