Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that Iran's ability to create a nuclear weapon has been "obliterated," countering several reports that the U.S. didn't do enough during its airstrike Saturday night to thwart the Islamic regime's nuclear ambitions.
"Based on everything we have seen, and I've seen it all, our bombing campaign obliterated Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons," Hegseth told reporters. "Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target and worked perfectly. The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran. So, anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the president and the successful mission."
CNN, The New York Times, and multiple other mainstream media outlets reported earlier Tuesday, citing unnamed sources who were briefed on an early U.S. intelligence assessment, that the attacks by a squadron of B-2 Spirit bombers weren't as effective as the Trump administration claimed. They reported the strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan were largely restricted to aboveground structures, including the sites' power infrastructure and some of the aboveground facilities used to turn uranium into metal for bomb-making.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that "this alleged assessment is flat-out wrong and was classified as 'top secret' but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community."
"The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President [Donald] Trump and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran's nuclear program," Leavitt said. "Everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration."
Trump told reporters Tuesday aboard Air Force One en route to a NATO summit at The Hague that the last thing Iran is thinking about now is a nuclear weapon.
"Our B-2 pilots made this all possible," Trump said. "They had a magnificent … in the dark of night, with no moon, no light, no nothing, they hit the target perfectly. Wiped it out. The press is very disrespectful. I saw CNN fake news going, well maybe it wasn't a perfect hit. It was perfect. … Everyone hit and it's very disrespectful [to] those great geniuses and patriots that flew those planes through tremendous danger. CNN and MSDNC [MSNBC] are a disgrace, and so are the others. They're pretty much all a disgrace."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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