The Pentagon reveals that new details on us strike against Iran but leave key questions unanswered

The Pentagon published new details on Thursday on the way in which the United States has prepared for its marathon bombing mission against three Iranian nuclear sites, the crews that made the daring raid of the weekend and how Iran tried to strengthen one of the sites that held critical aspects of its nuclear program.

In a morning briefing, what President Donald Trump had promised in advance would be “interesting and irrefutable”, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, said that the United States had undertaken “the most secret and complex military operation in history”, without offering many details. It was the president of the chiefs of joint staff, General Dan Caine, who established convincing details on the way in which the very sophisticated mission was carried out.

The briefing, however, has not provided new information supporting the president’s assertion that the strikes “erased” the Iran’s nuclear program.

Caine revealed details previously not published on the bombing of bombings that participated in the mission, as well as in -depth preparations that undertook there in the military.

So many experts have worked on the design of bombs that have achieved their objective that they have become the “largest users of supercomputer in the United States of America” ​​at some point, he said.

The crews that piloted the 37 -hour mission included men and women and classified from Captain to Colonel. They included active members of Air Force and members of the Missouri National Air Guard. Most of them were Air Force Weapons School graduates – an elite academy in the Nevadan desert.

“When the crews went to work on Friday, they kissed their loved ones, not knowing when they are at home,” said Caine. “Late Saturday evening, their families became aware of what was going on.”

When the bombers returned to the Missouri, the “families of the crews were there, the flying flags and the tears flowing,” he added. “I have chills, literally speaking of that.”

A few days before the mission, Iran tried to fortify the nuclear installation of the Fordow, which is rooted deeply in a mountain, by covering concrete the ventilation wells through which the American bombs penetrate.

“I will not share the specific dimensions of the concrete cap,” said Caine. “But you should know that we know what were the dimensions of these concrete caps. Planners had to explain this. They explained everything. ”

Despite the last -minute last minute adjustments, Caine insisted that the mission took place as planned and that the massive bunker bunker bombs of 30,000 pounds operated “as designed” during their first combat uses.

“We know that flight planes saw the first function of weapons,” said the general.

During the briefing, Caine played a video that demonstrated how massive bombs are supposed to work. The idle video showed a penetrating bomb which seemed to be a type of bunker. An orange glow emitted by an open passage visible on the side of the installation, followed by a large ball of fire.

“Of course, no one was inside the target, so we don’t have a target video,” said Caine.

About 44 soldiers and two batteries of patriotic missiles were responsible for defending a base near the potential Iranian reprisals.

While military officials have provided new information on strike planning, they have offered no new proof of their effectiveness against the Iranian nuclear program. Caine and Hegseth have referred to questions about this to intelligence agencies

Caine and HegSeth’s comments focused on the Fordow nuclear installation. Two other targeted installations, Natanz and Isfahan, are not mentioned.

The complete extent of damage in the facilities is not clear. At Fordow, Hegseth noted that someone would need “large shovel” to fully assess the interior of the installation, adding “no one can assess” damage. Caine said that mixed chiefs are not assessing damage to the “design” battlefield and have returned specific issues about the extent of strike effectiveness to the American intelligence community.

“We are not nominating our own duties,” said the general. “The intelligence community does it.”

An early evaluation of the Pentagon Defense Intelligence Agency, reported by CNN and many other points of sale, suggested that strikes had not destroyed the central components of the Iranian nuclear program and probably did it only per month. CIA director John Ratcliffe later said that his agency had learned that the facilities had been destroyed and “should be rebuilt in the years”.

The initial evaluation of DIA, noted HegSeth, said that he could take weeks in a clearer image to emerge on the effectiveness of strikes and their impact on the Iranian nuclear program. He said it was a “historically successful attack” but said that the evaluations of this success remained in progress.

Hegseth continued to defend Trump’s claim that the Iranian nuclear program was “erased”, avoiding questions about how the president reached this conclusion just hours after the abolition of bombs.

“I can assure you that the president and its staff, the intelligence community, our staff and others, make all the necessary assessments to ensure that the mission has actually succeeded,” said Hegseth.

While Caine’s account on the mission provided some of the most concrete details that the United States has given on preparations to undertake the raid and included human elements that personalized the bombing teams and other soldiers who participated, Hegseth took a more pugilist and political tone that criticized the media reports on the suite of the mission.

It is a familiar role for Hegseth, known for a long time as a noisy defender of Trump on the camera.

Thursday, it seemed that his boss looked at: shortly after journalists have raised questions about the question of whether the vehicles seen outside one of the facilities before the attacks could point out that Iran had moved in a preventive manner enriched with Uranium on the site, Trump went to social networks to minimize the idea.

“Cars and small trucks on the site were those of concrete workers who were trying to cover the top of the trees,” said the president on Truth Social. “Nothing has been removed from the installation.”

Zachary Cohen de CNN, Haley Britzky and Natasha Bertrand contributed the reports.