Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks Thursday, June 26, 2025, at a Pentagon news conference about the attack on the nuclear sites in Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is standing to his right. (Kashif Basharat/Department of Defense)
WASHINGTON — Air Force Gen. Dan Caine said four days ago that it would be too early to comment on battle damage assessment about the U.S. attack on three nuclear facilities in Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth added the assessment was ongoing.
After a preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, a part of the Defense Department, assessed the airstrikes set Iran’s nuclear program back by months but did not eliminate it, the Pentagon’s top leaders came out Thursday morning to emphasize how effective the military mission was and show the destruction it caused.
“Ultimately, we’re here to clarify what these weapons are capable of, which anyone with ... two eyes, some ears and a brain can recognize that kind of firepower with that specificity at that location and others, is going to have a devastating effect,” Hegseth told reporters during a news conference at the Pentagon.
He berated reporters for bias reporting that relied on leaked information and preliminary reports based on limited details.
Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the origins of the strike on Iran began with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in 2009 when they began to study the nuclear facility at Fordo, one of three Iranian facilities attacked by the U.S. over the weekend. It was the work of two officers in that agency that led to the creation of a bomb that could penetrate and destroy the underground facility.
Caine provided greater details about the history behind the attack, the equipment and units used in the attack and displayed more information to show the bunker-buster bombs destroyed their targets.
He showed aerial images of Fordo’s main exhaust shaft with two additional ventilation shafts on either side.
“The United States decided to strike these two ventilation shafts ... as the primary point of entry into the mission space,” Caine said.
The attack targeted Iran’s three main nuclear facilities at Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz in a mission dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer. It began Friday and went into Saturday. More than a dozen bunker-buster bombs were used in the mission.
In the days preceding the attack, the Iranians attempted to cover the shafts at Fordo with concrete to try and prevent the attack. While Caine did not provide specific details of the concrete cap, planners had to account for this.
Six bunker-buster bombs, each weighing about 30,000 pounds, were used at Fordo. Caine showed a video of a simulated bomb test used as preparation for the operation in Fordo.
“This is one weapon. So, if you take a view, this is five additional. You’ll get a sense of what this looks like,” Caine said. “Unlike a normal surface bomb, you won’t see an impact crater because they’re designed to deeply bury and then function.”
Caine reassured all six bombs at Fordo went “exactly where they were intended to go.” But the chairman again did not provide his own assessment of the strike and referred questions to U.S. intelligence agencies.
“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 said.
A preliminary report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency on Monday contradicted statements from President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities after the U.S. strikes. The report found the strikes at the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites did significant damage but that the facilities were not destroyed.
The White House rejected the DIA assessment, calling it “flat-out wrong.” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Wednesday in a post on X that “new intelligence confirms” what Trump has stated: “Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed. If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do.”
John Ratcliffe, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said Wednesday in a statement that new intelligence showed “several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.”
“[The] CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s nuclear program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes,” he said.
At 6:40 p.m. EST Saturday, the lead B-2 stealth bomber launched two bunker-buster bombs at the Fordo site, Caine said Sunday. All three Iranian nuclear sites were hit between 6:40 p.m. and 7:05 p.m. EST.
More than 125 aircraft participated in the mission, including the B-2 bombers, fighter jets, refueling planes and surveillance aircraft.
Initial reports on the strike indicated Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed and intelligence suggested uranium was moved from sites prior to the U.S. strikes.
“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,” Hegseth said Thursday.
Trump provided additional posts on Truth Social following the conclusion of the Pentagon news conference. The president called it “one of the greatest, most professional and most ‘confirming’ new conferences I have ever seen!”
