The Pentagon Just Excoriated the Media for Its Coverage of Trump’s Iran Strikes

Meanwhile, the international debate over the whereabouts of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile (if it's not destroyed) continues to intensify—despite Trump’s insistence that it no longer exists.

This article originally appeared on ZeroHedge and was republished with permission.

Guest post by Tyler Durden

Summary: As expected Hegseth during the Thursday morning Pentagon press conference excoriated the mainstream media for its coverage of the Trump-ordered attacks on Iran's nuclear sites. This after repeatedly praising Trump's leadership at yesterday's NATO summit.

"I hope, with all the ink spilled, all of your outlets find the time to properly recognize this historic change in continental security that other presidents tried to do, other presidents talked about," Hegseth said. "President Trump accomplished it. It’s a huge deal." He strongly pushed back especially against CNN reporting that the strikes merely set back Iran's nuclear program by months, again, framing the avalanche of MSM skepticism as supposedly due merely to anti-Trump bias and not wanting to give him a 'win'.

"Again, it was preliminary, a day and a half after the actual strike, when it admits itself in writing that it requires weeks to accumulate the necessary data to make such an assessment," the defense secretary said. The president "created the conditions to end the war, decimating – choose your word – obliterating, destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities," he asserted, before reading aloud the assessments of various US and foreign intelligence heads.

Much of the press conference consisted of a highly detailed narrative of what it was like for troops - from officers to enlisted privates - in the Middle East as Iran's very brief retaliatory missile strike rained down on Qatar, and US-manned anti-air batteries intercepted the inbound projectiles. There was also a lot of focus on the pilots and crew of the B-2s and their marathon 37-hour bombing run all the way from Missouri to Tehran and back. The presser, especially while Hegseth was speaking, was charged with patriotism and emotion - much more than is normal for a Pentagon press briefing.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine emphasized in a detailed way the specs of the 30,000 pound bombs dropped on the Iranian sites, and they "functioned as designed, meaning they exploded."

"A point that I want to make here: the Joint Force does not do [battle damage assessments]," Caine told the press pool. "By design, we don’t grade our own homework. The intelligence community does. But here’s what we know following the attacks and the strikes on Fordow: First, that the weapons were built, tested and loaded properly. Two, the weapons were released on speed and on parameters. Three, the weapons all guided to their intended targets and to their intended aim points. Four, the weapons functioned as designed, meaning they exploded. We know this through other means intelligence means that we have that were visibly, we were visibly able to see them. And we know that the trailing jets saw the first weapons function." He actually cited one pilot's eyewitness account as saying the blast from the initial bombs was so big as it was like an overwhelming flash of daylight.

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Leavitt Dismantles CNN’s Narrative on Trump’s Iran Strikes Within Minutes

Among the more interesting assertions and revelations was that the Pentagon has been working intensely on the operation, particularly to take out the Fordow site, for-15 years. While the US military often spends a lot of time on various 'contingency' options to present to the Commander-in-Chief, Gen. Caine's description of two Pentagon analysts who devoted a decade-and-a-half of their lives to studying just Fordow strongly suggests the US long ago knew it would pull the trigger at some point.

"In the days preceding the attack against Fordow, the Iranians attempted to cover the shafts with concrete to try to prevent an attack. 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," Caine said. "The planners had to account for this, they accounted for everything. The cap was forcibly removed by the first weapon, and the main shaft was uncovered."

And President Trump soon after the Pentagon briefing ended, wrote the following on Truth Social:

Meanwhile, Fox is reporting that the Senate has finally received a delayed Iran briefing. This seems to continue a long GWOT era tradition of presidents across administrations bombing first, and then notifying Congress later.

Meanwhile, the international debate over just where Iran's enriched uranium stockpile is now located (if it's not destroyed) continues to intensify, despite the Trump denials that it remains:

• TRUMP: NOTHING WAS TAKEN OUT OF THE FACILITY

• IRAN LAW SUSPENDING IAEA COOPERATION COMES INTO EFFECT

Simultaneous to Trump issuing another statement rejecting the thesis that the uranium has been moved and hidden, Financial Times reports in a strangely worded headline ("Iran moved uranium from Fordow before US strikes, EU capitals believe") the following:

Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile remains largely intact following US strikes on its main nuclear sites, European capitals believe, calling into question President Donald Trump’s assertion that the bombing “obliterated” the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.

Two people briefed on preliminary intelligence assessments said European capitals believe Iran’s stockpile of 408kg of uranium enriched close to weapons-grade levels was not concentrated in Fordow, one of its two main enrichment sites, at the time of last weekend’s attack. It had been distributed to various other locations, the capitals believe.

This would indeed be an interesting twist - that the bulk of enriched uranium stockpiles were not even located at Fordow, which appeared to be the heaviest hit in the US operation. According to more:

The people said EU capitals were still awaiting a full intelligence report on the extent of the damage to Fordow — which was built deep beneath a mountain near the holy city of Qom — and that one initial report suggested “extensive damages, but not full structural destruction”. Iranian officials have suggested the enriched uranium stockpile was moved before the US bombing of the plant, which came after days of Israeli strikes on the country.

But again, the White House as well as Thursday Pentagon presser is sticking by the Trump claim of total and utter obliteration. Perhaps the world will learn the truth in the coming days and weeks, or possibly not at all, pending 'proof' and data from the ground, which the Iranians will likely not be willing to give. For some of our prior coverage on this pressing coverage, see--

Where Is Iran's Uranium? Top Secret Leaked US Intel Says Core Nuclear Components 'Intact'

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After blasting the 'fake news' and mainstream outlets NY Times and CNN in particular in Wednesday comments at the NATO summit, President Trump will continue 'setting the record straight' on the Iran bombings, as the Pentagon is set to hold an "irrefutable" press conference on Thursday morning, providing more details on last weekend's B-2 bomber raids on the Iranian nuclear sites of (per AI summary)--

• Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant: A heavily fortified, deeply buried uranium enrichment site near the northern city of Qom.

• Natanz Nuclear Facility: Iran's main uranium-enrichment complex, located near Isfahan in central Iran.

• Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center: A key conversion and research facility south of Isfahan city.

Very unusually, the US President claimed that 'fake news' reports upset the pilots who flew the bombs over Iran, by claiming that Iran's nuclear capability was not in fact completely destroyed.

"Secretary of Defense (War!) Pete Hegseth, together with Military Representatives, will be holding a Major News Conference tomorrow morning at 8 A.M. EST at The Pentagon, in order to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots," Trump posted to Truth Social.

"These Patriots were very upset! After 36 hours of dangerously flying through Enemy Territory, they landed, they knew the Success was LEGENDARY, and then, two days later, they started reading Fake News by CNN and The Failing New York Times. They felt terribly," he continued.

WATCH:

Hegseth is also expected to address a controversial leaked Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report, first revealed by CNN, which strongly suggested that the US strikes did not destroy Iran's nuclear capability:

Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” Another source said that the intelligence assessed enriched uranium was moved out of the sites prior to the US strikes.

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.

Most recently the CIA has since backed the Trump admin's claims, with CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday having sought to clarify in a statement that the agency had obtained "a body of credible evidence [that] indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged" by recent strikes. But then this too includes somewhat ambiguous language.

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