Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (L) and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, (R) attend press conference at Pentagon June 22. Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images hide caption
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Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that Iran’s nuclear ambitions were “obliterated” after President Trump ordered strikes on three nuclear sites across the country Saturday.
“The order we received from our commander in chief was focused, it was powerful, and it was clear,” Hegseth said Sunday morning at a press conference at the Pentagon. “We devastated the Iranian nuclear program. But it’s worth noting the operation did not target Iranian troops or the Iranian people.”
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The U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear sites involved seven B-2 stealth bombers and also included at least one submarine, according to Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon press conference.
Caine said the mission, dubbed “Operation Midnight Hammer,” represented the largest B-2 strike in U.S. history, involving more than 125 aircraft — including decoy flights — and saw 75 precision guided weapons dropped on the sites. “Final battle damage will take some time, but initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction,” Caine said.
Very few people knew details of the mission, Caine said, which began midnight Friday with B-2 bombers leaving from Kansas City, Mo. Some of the bombers flew west into the Pacific as a decoy, while the main set of bombers flew 18 hours into Iran to carry out the attack.” Once over land, the B-2s linked up with escort and support aircraft in a complex, tightly timed maneuver requiring exact synchronization across multiple platforms in a narrow piece of airspace, all done with minimal communications,” Caine said.
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Around 5 p.m. Eastern time Saturday, a submarine launched more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles at a nuclear site in Isfahan as the bombers entered Iranian airspace. From approximately 6:40 p.m. to 7:05 p.m. Eastern time, the B-2s dropped 14 bunker-buster bombs on multiple targets at the Fordo and Natanz nuclear sites. The planes did not come under fire before, during or after the attack, Caine said.
Caine said the U.S. increased force protection ahead of the strikes, but U.S. troops in the region got no advance warning in order to “minimize the risk to us.” Congressional leaders were notified of the operation after U.S. aircraft were out of Iranian airspace, Hegseth said. A U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly told NPR that senior Democratic leadership was notified of the strike right before Trump announced the strikes on social media Saturday night.
Those are some of the details emerging hours after the first U.S. offensive operation in war between Israel and Iran.
Trump described Saturday’s attacks as a “spectacular success” though it will take some time before a detailed damage assessment is possible.
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“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” he said in an address from the White House Saturday night. “Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.”
When asked on NBC News’ Meet the Press about the status of Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites, Vice President Vance said he was “very confident that we have substantially delayed their development of a nuclear weapon and that was the goal of this attack.”
“We got in, we’ve done the job of setting their nuclear program back. We’re going to now work to permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years and that is what the president has set out to do,” Vance said.
Republican congressional leaders have generally praised the president’s actions, while Democratic leaders said the president violated the Constitution by not seeking congressional authorization and put American servicemembers and other personnel abroad at risk.
Vance countered the claim that Trump should not have acted unilaterally on Sunday morning.
“The president has clear authority to act to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the worst weapon of mass destruction of them all is nuclear,” Vance said. He also said that he empathized with Americans who are “exhausted” by years-long U.S. involvement in the Middle East — but the difference, he argued, is that “now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives. So this is not going to be some long-drawn out thing.”
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Responding to news of the strikes Saturday night, House Speaker Mike Johnson said Trump “gave Iran’s leader every opportunity to make a deal, but Iran refused to commit to a nuclear disarmament agreement. President Trump has been consistent and clear that a nuclear-armed Iran will not be tolerated. That posture has now been enforced with strength, precision, and clarity.”
Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., noted that Trump has repeatedly vowed to end foreign wars but said that his actions in Iran risk starting a new one.
“The American people deserve more than vague rhetoric and unilateral decisions that could set off a wider war,” Warner said in a statement. “The president must come before Congress immediately to articulate clear strategic objectives and lay out how he plans to protect American lives and ensure we are not once again drawn into a costly, unnecessary, and avoidable conflict.”
In his announcement of the airstrikes on his Truth Social platform, Trump also declared, “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!” and threated Iran against any retaliation.
