'HISTORICALLY SUCCESSFUL MISSION', says Pete Hegseth on Iran strikes

United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addressed the media on Thursday morning (June 26) at the Pentagon on the strikes on Iran. Speaking to the reporters, Hegseth said, “Strikes in Iran were highly successful, it was a resounding success and brought the end of the war. Trump created the conditions to end war destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities. What other presidents talked about, President Trump achieved. This is a historic moment."

“Leaked preliminary report is based on lynchpin assumptions. Rafael Grossi also said that US strikes caused enormous damage. This is a historically successful mission." “32 NATO countries committed to spending 5%, historic change in continental security. What President Trump achieved at NATO yesterday was groundbreaking,” he further added.

Meanwhile, Gen. Dan Caine said, “We received intel on Monday that Iran intended to attack US bases in the region. Patriot cruise were deployed from Korea and Japan. We were joined in this engagement with Qatari Patriot cruise. In the days preceding the fordo attacks Iranians tried to cover the shafts with concrete."

The Trump administration has been resolute that its strikes on three nuclear facilities on Saturday (June 21 ) in Iran were a success. Several media outlets have reported that a preliminary intelligence assessment found the bombings delayed Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months. President Trump and his cabinet have insisted the sites were “obliterated” and “destroyed”.

Donald Trump's two top executives, on Wednesday (Jun 25) at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in The Hague, confirmed that a bombshell US intelligence report on Iran airstrikes was, in fact, leaked. They then quickly pivoted to denouncing the people behind the leak, calling the move politically motivated and demanding accountability. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio assumed an aggressive counteroffensive against the leaked preliminary Pentagon report that said that US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites only set the nation's nuclear programme back by a few months.

Confirming the bombshell leak, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking at a NATO summit in the Netherlands alongside US President Donald Trump, sought to downplay the contents of the preliminary Pentagon assessment.

While Trump continues to insist that the strikes caused a "total obliteration" of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, the leak, first reported by CNN and The New York Times, suggested that the underground facilities had survived the attack, with entrances sealed but no collapse of the critical subterranean infrastructure. Furthermore, the intel estimated that the damage had only caused a few months' setback to Iran's programme and not years, as Trump claimed.

At the press conference, Hegseth accused unnamed insiders of leaking the report for political purposes and revealed that an FBI-led investigation was underway. "We are doing a leak investigation with the FBI now because this information is for internal purposes—battle damage investigation—and CNN and others are trying to spin it to try and make the president look bad when this was an overwhelming success," he said.

He defended the precision and power of the operation, saying that "When you talk to the people who built the bombs, understand what those bombs can do, and deliver those bombs, they landed precisely where they were supposed to." Hegseth claimed the Fordow facility, buried deep within a mountain, suffered "devastation," thanks to the "30,000 pounds of explosives", even as early assessments described the damage as "moderate to severe."

Trump also conceded that the report was "correct" but lashed out at the press over the leaked report, singling out outlets by name. "CNN is scum, MSDNC is scum, the New York Times is scum," he told reporters. "They're bad people, they’re sick."

“What they've done is they’ve tried to make this unbelievable victory into something less,” he said, insisting that the report's interpretation was off. Painting the reports as a way to get ratings, he added, ”The generals and all of the people who did a good job, they get demeaned by these idiots at CNN, who can't get ratings. The place is dying, nobody even wants to waste their time going on any of their shows, so they form what [sic] The New York Times, which is dying also. Without Trump, you wouldn't have a New York Times."