Latest news with #GeneralDanCaine
Sky News
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Pete Hegseth's news conference made one thing clear – but two questions still need answering
Pete Hegseth's angry news conference, where the US defence secretary roundly abused those media outlets and individuals who didn't agree with him, certainly told us one thing. That when reliable information eventually emerges from the battle damage assessment of the US attack on Iran's Fordow nuclear plant, it won't be accepted by everyone. The whole issue has suddenly become politically toxic in Washington DC and will doubtless be fed into the spin dryer of vitriolic commentary and assertion that has been the most stand-out feature of this second Trump administration. But what we did find out from the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Dan Caine, was that the GBU-57 bunker buster bombs had been designed in some secrecy with exactly this sort of target in mind. 1:34 We also learned they all worked as per the test simulations, and that 12 were fired at six separate targets at Fordow and another two at a single target at the Natanz nuclear facility. But the fierce argument over how to characterise the damage done in these attacks is really just a semantic spat. The two key questions are rather different. Firstly, will the Iranians decide to give up their quest for a nuclear weapon as a result of this attack, as the Syrians did in 2007 when the Israelis destroyed their Al Kibar nuclear reactor? Or else will they go hell for leather for a nuclear weapon, as Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein did after the Israelis destroyed his nuclear reactor in 1981? And secondly, if the Iranians decide to go again for a nuclear weapon, how long will it be before they are back at the nuclear threshold, where they were less than a month ago? Will it be within a year? Or five years? Or longer? When we have an answer to those two questions, then we can put some real perspective on whether the US bombing has really been a success.
Sky News
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Trump-Iran live: 'Destroyed, obliterated… choose your word' - Hegseth defends Iran strikes
15:10:01 Key takeaways from Hegseth briefing During his news briefing earlier, Pete Hegseth applauded what he described to be successful US strikes on nuclear sites in Iran and repeatedly rallied against media. Alongside General Dan Caince, he packed a lot in across around 45 minutes - so to get you up to speed, here's a summary of what he said in seven bullet points: Hegseth said what Donald Trump achieved at the NATO summit was "game-changing" and "historic". It should be noted here that yesterday leaders agreed to a 5% of GDP spending target on defence; The defence secretary criticised mainstream US outlets and called reports about US strikes on Iran's nuclear capability failing untrue; Quizzed on whether he was certain none of the uranium at Iran's Fordow facility was moved, Hegseth said: "Of course, we're watching every single aspect"; US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine said Patriot missiles defended an Iranian attack on a US base in Qatar on Monday; He also said Operation Midnight Hammer was the "culmination of 15 years of incredible work"; He explained that a defence threat reduction agency officer was brought into a vault at an undisclosed location and briefed on something going on in Iran for security purposes in 2009; The army official said all six weapons hit Fordow nuclear site where the US wanted. 14:47:32 US strikes have 'broken the aura of invincibility' for Iran, expert says US strikes on Iran have "broken the aura of invincibility that the Iranian regime has enjoyed" for decades, an expert has said. Speaking to Sky's presenter Jayne Secker, research fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democrats, Hussain Abdul-Hussain, said the US victory in Iran "has been decisive". "I think this has forced Iran to step back," he said. "This has also broken the aura of invincibility that the Iranian regime has enjoyed for the past two decades at least." He said it was understood that the nuclear facilities had been "badly damaged". "It seems that there is almost a consensus that the weaponisation programme of Iran is no more," he said. He also said that the Iran's relations with its proxies, such as the Houthis and Hezbollah, had also been weakened in the attack. 14:30:01 Fordow centrifuges 'no longer operational', nuclear watchdog chief says The centrifuges at the Fordow nuclear site in Iran are "no longer operational" following the US strikes, Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has said. Grossi said his team could deduct on the basis of satellite images, the consequences of the bombing over the weekend. "Given the power of these bombs and technical characteristics of the centrifuges, we do know that they are no longer operational, simply because of the vibration, which causes considerable, important physical damage," the nuclear watchdog chief told French radio station Radio France Internationale. "I know the plant very well, it's a network of tunnels with different types of activity. "What we saw on the pictures corresponds more or less to the enrichment hall, that's what's been hit." We reported earlier that Iran had approved a bill to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (see post at 11.01am). That came after Grossi said getting inspectors back to Iran's nuclear facilities to assess the impact of US and Israeli military strikes was his "top priority". 14:18:07 Analysis: 'Defensive secretary' furious at media and was right about one thing Pete Hegseth set out to scold the media and herald the US military for what he said were successful strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. The US defence secretary was taking issue with coverage of Saturday's operation, which a preliminary intel report suggested didn't cause the "obliteration" Donald Trump quickly described. "Was he the defence secretary or the defensive secretary? He was certainly angry, that much is true," our US correspondent Mark Stone said on air a short while ago. "Hegseth - former Fox News host now turned politician and a man who doesn't mince his words - he was very clear that his focus today was to blame the media for what he said was somehow them questioning the ability of the pilots and the crews that carried out that mission." Stone adds: "For what it's worth, I've not read a single bit of news from the US media that has been critical of those soldiers and airmen and women who carried out that strike on Saturday night." But what is also "definitely the case", he added, is the leaked report was incomplete. "And Hegseth pointed that out. It was a preliminary, low-confidence report," he said. "I think it's fair to say that was not necessarily made clear in the flurry of headlines that came out a couple of days ago when that report was leaked." Trump's NATO vibes One point that may have been missed through all this, Stone added, is Trump's apparent change following the NATO summit yesterday. "Donald Trump came away from that summit genuinely with a different vibe to him," he said. "He seems to now have recognised that Europe is prepared to pay its own way, is prepared to look after its own security. "I think it was sort of a change moment for Donald Trump. The only caveat is he does tend to change his mind quite a lot." 13:58:42 'We don't play your little games': Hegseth bats away question about female pilot A reporter at the Pentagon asks Pete Hegseth when he will acknowledge that one of the female pilots on the mission was a woman. "The early messages you sent out only congratulated the boys," the reporter says. Hegseth says "boys and bombers" is "a common phrase". "I will keep saying things like that whether they are men or women," he adds. "I am very proud of that female pilot, just like I am very proud of those male pilots. "I don't care if it is a male or female in that cockpit. And the American people don't care. "It's the obsession with race and gender. We don't do that anymore, we don't play your little games." 13:54:15 Hegseth rows with reporter over whether enriched uranium was moved before strike Taking questions still, defence secretary Pete Hegseth was repeatedly pressed over whether enriched uranium was moved from the Fordow facility before the US strikes. This came about because satellite images from before the US strike showed trucks lining up outside Fordow. Things got so heated that he ended up arguing with Jennifer Griffin, Fox News' chief national security correspondent. Asked initially about it by a first reporter, he said: "There's nothing that I've seen that suggests that what we didn't hit exactly what we wanted to hit, in those locations." Quizzed a second time if he was certain none of the uranium was moved by Griffin, he said: "Of course, we're watching every single aspect." However, he took issue with Griffin's previous reporting, saying: "You've been about the worst, the one who misrepresents the most intentionally what the president says." Griffin pushed back, defending her reporting and pointing out how accurately she was writing specifics of the attacks soon after the strike took place. She said: "I reported on the ventilation shafts, and in fact, I was first to describe the B-2 bombers, the refuelling, the entire mission with great accuracy." Then asked a third time about whether the enriched uranium was hit by another separate reporter, Hegseth said: "So I'm not aware of any intelligence that I've reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be moved or otherwise." Watch the full argument below: For context: Satellite images emerged on Saturday showing lines of trucks outside the Fordow facility, raising questions over whether Tehran knew the strikes were coming. Also, as General Caine said earlier, Iran did take some action to protect Fordow, putting concrete caps on the ventilation shafts ahead of time. 13:43:32 'When someone leaks something they do it with an agenda' After the US strikes, officials said it would take some time to comment on what may or may not still be at the site in Iran. Asked by a journalist what has now changed to make Washington provide more detail, Pete Hegseth says there was "irresponsible reporting based on leaks". "When someone leaks something, they do it with an agenda," he says. He says this then starts a "new cycle". "That is what has changed," he adds. 13:38:24 'All six weapons hit Fordow exactly where we wanted' - general explains method of US strikes General Dan Caine has detailed the specifics of the US attack on Fordow now, and how they penetrated into the nuclear site. Caine said that Washington targeted ventilation shafts. "All six weapons at each vent at Fordow went exactly where they were intended to go," he said. Caine said that Iran, seemingly aware of the coming attack, tried to cover the ventilation shafts with concrete. "I won't share the specific dimensions of the concrete cap, but you should know that we know what the dimensions of those concrete caps were," he said. The caps were destroyed by the first strikes, leaving the shaft uncovered for the following attacks. Caine went on: "The main shaft was uncovered for weapons two, three, four, five, and they were tasked to enter the main shaft, [and] moved down into the complex at greater than 1000ft per second and exploded in the mission space. "Weapon number six was designed as a flex weapon to allow us to cover if one of the preceding jets, or one of the preceding weapons, did not work." 'We don't grade our own homework' Later, asked if he would share Hegseth's description of "obliterated", Caine dodged the question, saying: "We don't grade our own homework." Instead, earlier in the news conference, Caine said that trailing jets saw the first weapons explode and the pilots said: "This was the brightest explosion I've ever seen. It literally looked like daylight." 13:34:01 'Operation Midnight Hammer was culmination of 15 years of work' General Dan Caine says that Operation Midnight Hammer was the "culmination of 15 years of incredible work". Talking about the weapons used, he says in the case of Fordow, the US team understood with a high degree of confidence the elements of the target required to kill its functions. "Weapons were planned, designed and delivered to ensure they achieved the effects in the mission space," he says. He also explains that in 2009, a defence threat reduction agency officer was brought into a vault at an undisclosed location and briefed on something going on in Iran for security purposes. "He was shown some photos and some highly classified intelligence of what looks like a major construction project in the mountains of Iran," he says. "He was tasked to study this facility, work with the intelligence community to understand it, and he was soon joined by an additional teammate for more than 15 years. "This officer and his teammate lived and breathed this single target - Fordow." He also says the agent "watched the construction, the weather, the discard material, the geology and the construction materials".
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump says ‘monumental damage' was done to Iran's nuclear program. But can he be certain?
Just hours after a fleet of U.S. B-2 stealth bombers touched down in Missouri on Sunday evening, Donald Trump once again touted the destruction inflicted on Iran's nuclear capabilities. 'Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran, as shown by satellite images. Obliteration is an accurate term!' the president wrote on Truth Social. The most significant damage, he said, took place 'far below ground level,' before adding: 'Bullseye!!!' Despite Trump's claims, the true scale of the fallout from the mission, code-named Operation Midnight Hammer, remains unclear. Tehran has so far downplayed the attacks on the major uranium enrichment sites, Fordo and Natanz, along with the significant research base of Isfahan, following Saturday evening's barrage of U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile strikes and bunker-buster bombs fired at the facilities. Meanwhile, ahead of Trump's latest declaration of destruction, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine said in a news briefing Sunday that the initial battle damage assessment indicated that all three sites had sustained 'severe damage,' but did not go as far to state whether they had been destroyed. 'Final battle damage will take some time,' he said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also struck a more cautious tone and said that 'all of our precision munitions struck where we wanted them to strike and had the desired effect.' Satellite images of Fordo, situated deep underground about 60 miles southwest of Tehran, showed several holes caused by the dozen 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators dropped on the facility. A senior U.S. official, however, told The New York Times that while the attack on Fordo had severely damaged the heavily armored site, it had not been destroyed. An initial analysis conducted by the Israeli military also concluded that the site sustained serious damage but was not fully destroyed. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement Sunday evening that it had found no increase in off-site radiation at either of the three Iranian nuclear locations. Vice President JD Vance signaled that a batch of near-weapons-grade uranium, which could make nine of 10 atomic weapons, is still intact and in Iranian hands. He told ABC News' This Week that Washington is 'going to work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel.' Two Israeli officials with knowledge of the intelligence told The Times that Iran had moved about 400kg of enriched uranium, just below the level used in nuclear weapons, from the Fordo in recent days. Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, stated that he believed the stockpile had been moved. The uranium is believed to be stored in special casks small enough to fit in the trunks of about 10 cars. Speaking to CNN Sunday, Grossi said: 'Iran has made no secret that they have protected this material.' Another U.S. official told The Times that it would have been unrealistic for Iranians to have moved equipment from Fordo, including giant centrifuges used for purifying Uranium, before the U.S. strikes. Meanwhile, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev claimed that several countries are ready to supply Iran with nuclear weapons. 'A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their nuclear weapons,' he said in a statement on Telegram Sunday, while also heavily downplaying the amount of damage caused by the weekend's strikes.
News.com.au
24-06-2025
- Politics
- News.com.au
‘Far too confident': Nuclear experts dispute Donald Trump's claim that Iran's weapons program has been fatally crippled
Donald Trump claims to have fatally crippled Iran's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. But doubts remain about the true extent of the damage wrought on its nuclear program. The US President announced a tentative ceasefire between Iran and Israel today, saying he expected it to endure 'forever'. The two countries had been bombing each other sporadically since Israel's initial air strikes, targeting Iran's nuclear facilities, on June 13. 'There will be a complete and total ceasefire,' Mr Trump said, adding that he expected both sides to remain 'peaceful and respectful'. So, the doomsday scenario of a full-scale conflagration in the Middle East appears to have been averted. But have the Israeli and American strikes actually achieved their goal? Has the Iranian regime's capacity to develop nuclear weapons really been kneecapped? Or is Mr Trump being a touch too optimistic? 'Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,' the President said in his speech immediately after America bombed three different sites in Iran, including the Fordow facility deep underground. According to General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the targets all sustained 'extremely severe damage and destruction'. Though Gen Caine did stress that a full assessment of the operation's effectiveness would 'take some time'. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the strikes 'took away Iran's ability to create a nuclear bomb'. 'They no longer have the capability to build this nuclear weapon,' she said. And Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed 'Iran's nuclear ambitions have been obliterated'. Not much ambiguity there. The extent to which the strikes actually set back Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, however, is nowhere near as clear as Ms Leavitt or her boss suggested. James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the claims from Mr Trump and other officials in the US government were 'far too confident'. 'In reality, Iran can likely reconstitute its program rapidly, perhaps in a year or so,' Dr Acton wrote for Politico. 'What's more: after the US strikes, there is also now a real danger that Tehran will make the decision to go further than enriching and amassing uranium and actually build a bomb. 'Iran probably retains highly enriched uranium, centrifuge components and expertise – a triad that will allow it to reconstitute its program rapidly.' Dr Acton pointed to an assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran had amassed 900 pounds of uranium, enriched to 60 per cent, in mid-May. 'That's enough for a handful of nuclear weapons after further enrichment,' he said, adding that 'some or all of this material' seemed to have been moved away from the locations struck by America and Israel. 'Iran has a decent shot at keeping that highly enriched uranium safe and secret,' he said. In addition, Iran likely retains the equipment, scientists and technicians it would need to develop a bomb. 'Starting with uranium enriched to 60 per cent and just 100 or 200 operating centrifuges, they could likely produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb in just a few weeks.' Dr Acton went on to speculate that the attacks on Iran 'may have increased' the regime's 'resolve' to seek nuclear weapons. 'I want to be wrong. I hope that Iran will now accept a comprehensive, verifiable and permanent denuclearisation agreement. Better still, I hope that the current regime is replaced by a liberal, transparent, Western-oriented democracy,' he wrote. 'Yet these outcomes seem unlikely ... President Trump's declaration of victory risks becoming a 'mission accomplished' moment.' That is a reference to then-president George W. Bush's infamous speech aboard an American aircraft carrier in May of 2003, under a banner which read: 'Mission Accomplished.' 'Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed,' Mr Bush said at the time. The Iraq War was, of course, far from over, and US forces remained mired there for another eight years before being withdrawn in the early 2010s. Nuclear non-proliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, voiced similar fears during an interview with SiriuxXM radio host Dan Abrams in the United States. 'If Iran were to further enrich (its existing) material, which would not take very long – a month, or two, or three, depending on how many centrifuges they have left available to them – that would be enough for about ten weapons,' Dr Lewis said. 'So if everything goes badly, if Iran has retained as much capability as I worry they might, you could see Iran with an arsenal of something like ten weapons inside a year. 'That may not happen, but it's plausible.' 'To be clear, you fear that Iran still, today, maintains the capability to create up to ten nuclear weapons within a year?' Mr Abrams asked. 'I don't fear it. I know it. I mean, it's just a fact,' said Dr Lewis. 'They have the material. They have at least one enrichment facility that we haven't bombed. And they have the underground production line to produce more centrifuges. 'So yes, these strikes have destroyed a number of centrifuges, and yes, (they) have killed something like a dozen nuclear scientists, but that is part of the program. It is not the whole program. 'And if you don't get the whole program, then what was the point of doing any of this? 'This is a pretty tough thing that the Israelis and US have embarked on.' Dr Lewis did acknowledge that destroying nuclear facilities would let Israel and the US 'buy time', setting back Iran's development of weapons by months or years. However Iran has the capacity to rebuild them, meaning similar strikes would be necessary in perpetuity. He described it as being 'like mowing the lawn'. In a separate interview with British newspaper The Independent, Dr Lewis stressed that 'technically (an Iranian nuke) is probably slightly further away, but politically it's much more imminent'. 'Iran has been a few months away from a nuclear weapon since about 2007. It's clear that the thing that keeps them a few months away is not their technical capacity, it's their political will. And I think whatever loss in technical capacity they have suffered, it is more than compensated for by an increase in political will,' he said. US officials, while acknowledging the uncertainty involved, have disputed the idea that Iran managed to move its enriched uranium stocks before the strikes on Saturday. 'I doubt they moved it,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio told NBC's current affairs show Meet the Press today. 'They can't move anything right now inside of Iran. I mean, the minute a truck starts driving somewhere, the Israelis have seen it, and they've targeted it and taken it out.' Mr Rubio suggested much of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was being held in the Isfahan facility when it was bombed. Meanwhile Brett McGurk, a top national security official under four previous presidents, including Mr Trump during his first term, has praised the President's handling of the situation in the Middle East. 'This is about the best place we can be,' Mr McGurk told CNN today. 'I give extremely high marks to this national security team and President Trump for managing this crisis and getting where we are. 'There's a chance for diplomacy here, not only on the Iran side, but also in Gaza. 'You can come out of this in a place that is far better than we would have anticipated ten nights ago.'
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Exclusive-Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces could come soon, U.S. officials say
By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States believes Iran could carry out retaliatory attacks targeting American forces in the Middle East soon, although the U.S. is still seeking a diplomatic resolution that would see Tehran forgo any attack, two U.S. officials said on Monday. One of the officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity to discuss the assessment, said Iran's retaliatory attack could happen within the next day or two. Iran has threatened to retaliate after U.S. bombed its nuclear sites over the weekend. U.S. officials have warned Iran against hitting back at the U.S. and President Donald Trump said after the strikes that any retaliation by Iran against the U.S. would be met with a force far greater than that used in the weekend U.S. attacks. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, said on Sunday that the U.S. military had increased protection of troops in the region, including in Iraq and Syria. The United States has a sizeable force deployed to the Middle East, with nearly 40,000 troops in the region. Some of them operate air defense systems, fighter aircraft and warships that can detect and shoot down incoming enemy missiles but their positions are vulnerable to attack. Reuters reported last week that the Pentagon had moved some aircraft and ships from bases in the Middle East that may be vulnerable to any potential Iranian attack. That included aircraft being removed from the 24-hectare Al Udeid Air Base, in the desert outside the capital Doha. It is Middle East's largest U.S. base and houses around 10,000 troops. Tehran has vowed to defend itself and retaliate. But, perhaps in an effort to avert all-out war with the United States, it had yet to target U.S. bases or choke off a quarter of the world's oil shipments that pass through its waters by closing the Strait of Hormuz.
