The Pentagon on Thursday released new details about how the US prepared for its marathon bombing mission against three Iranian nuclear sites, the crews that carried out the daring weekend raid, and how Iran tried fortifying one of the sites that held critical aspects of its nuclear program.
In a morning briefing, which President Donald Trump had promised ahead of time would be “interesting and irrefutable,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the US undertook “the most secret and most complex military operation in history,” without offering many specifics. It was Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine who laid out compelling details on how the the highly sophisticated mission was conducted.
The briefing, however, did not provide new intelligence supporting the president’s assertion that the strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program.
Caine revealed previously unpublicized details about the bombing crew that took part in the mission, as well as the extensive preparations undertaken for it across the military.
So many experts worked on designing the bombs that hit their target that they became the “biggest users of supercomputer hours within the United States of America” at one point, he said.
The crews who flew the 37-hour mission included both men and women and ranked from captain to colonel. They included active duty members of the Air Force and members of the Missouri Air National Guard. Most were graduates of the Air Force Weapons School – an elite academy in the Nevadan desert.
“When the crews went to work on Friday, they kissed their loved ones goodbye, not knowing when or if they’d be home,” Caine said. “Late on Saturday night, their families became aware of what was happening.”
When the bombers returned to Missouri, the crews’ “families were there, flags flying and tears flowing,” he added. “I have chills, literally talking about this.”
Days before the mission, Iran attempted to fortify the Fordow nuclear facility, which is embedded deep in a mountain, by covering with concrete the ventilation shafts through which the American bombs would penetrate.
“I won’t share the specific dimensions of the concrete cap,” Caine said. “But you should know that we know what the dimensions of those concrete caps were. The planners had to account for this. They accounted for everything.”
Despite those needed last-minute adjustments, Caine insisted the mission went as planned and that the massive 30,000 pound bunker-buster bombs functioned “as designed” during their first uses in combat.
“We know that the trailing jets saw the first weapons function,” the general said.
During the briefing, Caine played video that demonstrated how the massive bombs are meant to function. The slow-motion video showed a bomb penetrating what appeared to be a type of bunker. An orange glow emitted from an open passageway visible at the side of the facility, followed by a large fireball.
“Of course, nobody was down inside the target, so we don’t have video from the target,” Caine said.
About 44 soldiers and two Patriot missile batteries were tasked with defending a nearby base from potential Iranian retaliation.
While the military officials provided some new information about the planning of the strikes, they offered no new evidence of their effectiveness against Iran’s nuclear program. Both Caine and Hegseth referred questions about that to the intelligence agencies
The comments from both Caine and Hegseth focused on the Fordow nuclear facility. Two other facilities that were targeted, Natanz and Isfahan, went unmentioned.
The full extent of damage at the facilities remains unclear. At Fordow, Hegseth noted that someone would need “a big shovel” to fully assess the inside of the facility, adding “no one’s under there able to assess” the damage. Caine said the Joint Chiefs do not do battlefield damage assessments “by design” and referred specific questions about the extent of the strikes’ effectiveness to the US intelligence community.
“We don’t grade our own homework,” the general said. “The intelligence community does.”
An early assessment from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, reported on by CNN and numerous other outlets, suggested the strikes did not destroy the core components of Iran’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months. CIA Director John Ratcliffe later said his agency has learned the facilities were destroyed and “would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.”
The initial DIA assessment, Hegseth noted, said it could take weeks for a clearer picture to emerge about the efficacy of the strikes and their impact on Iran’s nuclear program. He said it was a “historically successful attack” but stated assessments of that success remain in progress.
Hegseth continued to defend Trump’s claim the Iranian nuclear program was “obliterated,” sidestepping questions about how the president reached that conclusion just hours after the bombs were dropped.
“I can assure you, the chairman and his staff, the intelligence community, our staff and others, are doing all the assessments necessary to make sure that mission was indeed successful,” Hegseth said.
While Caine’s account of the mission provided some of the most concrete details the US has given about the preparations to undertake the raid and included human elements that personalized the bombing crews and other service members who participated, Hegseth took a more pugilistic and political tone that criticized the media’s reporting on the aftermath of the mission.
It’s a familiar role for Hegseth, long known as a vociferous defender of Trump on camera.
On Thursday, it appeared his boss was watching: not long after reporters raised questions about whether vehicles seen outside one of the facilities before the attacks could signal Iran had preemptively moved enriched uranium from the site, Trump took to social media to downplay the idea.
“The cars and small trucks at the site were those of concrete workers trying to cover up the top of the shafts,” the president said on Truth Social. “Nothing was taken out of facility.”
CNN’s Zachary Cohen, Haley Britzky and Natasha Bertrand contributed reporting.
