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‘Historically successful attack’: Pentagon leaders double down on destruction from US attacks on Iran
The defence secretary said that the report by Defense Intelligence Agency was preliminary and it acknowledged there was low confidence and gaps in information.
The US administration doubled down on Thursday on how the destruction unfolded on Iran's nuclear facilities after the American attack and detailed the military tactics and explosives to bolster their argument.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a rare Pentagon news briefing, said that the attack on Iranian sites were historically successful.
“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated — choose your word. This was an historically successful attack,” Hegseth told reporters, according to the Associated Press.
The defence secretary said that the intelligence report by the Defense Intelligence Agency, released on Monday, was preliminary and that it acknowledged there was low confidence and gaps in information.
Also Read: ‘Nothing taken out of facility’: Trump on US strikes at Iran nuclear sites
The report had suggested that the US strikes had not "completely and fully obliterated" as President Donald Trump has said and that the Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months.
The US on Sunday struck three key Iranian enrichment facilities — Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan — in Iran. US President Donald Trump said that the US deployment of 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear program.
US bomb created the 'brightest explosion'
General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was also present at the briefing, said that the bomb that was deployed created "the brightest explosion" and that the bomb could penetrate the underground Fordow nuclear facility.
"The department had many people with PhDs working on the program, doing modeling and simulation that we were quietly and in a secret way the biggest users of supercomputer hours within the United States of America," Caine said.
Also Read: Did US strikes do any major damage to Iran nuclear sites? Trump's obliteration claims under dispute
The pilots of the bombers involved in the weekend strikes described the flash after the bomb drop as the brightest explosion they had ever seen, he added.
Responding to the question whether any of the nuclear material was moved out of the Iranian facilities, Hegseth said the Pentagon was "looking at all aspects of intelligence and making sure we have a sense of what was where."
"I'm not aware of any intelligence that says things were not where they were supposed to be or that they were moved," Hegseth said.
Meanwhile, Trump also denied intelligence reports that Iran moved its uranium to shield it from US strikes, saying that nothing was taken out of the Iran nuclear sites.
"The cars and small trucks at the site were those of concrete workers trying to cover up the top of the shafts. Nothing was taken out of facility. Would take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!" Trump said in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.
