Speaker 1: General Man, welcome wait debate.
Speaker 2: Well, good evening and welcome to the Late Debate. I'm
Speaker 2: James Macpherson with FREYE. Leitch and Caleb Bond. As you
Speaker 2: would have heard Paul Murray say, we're waiting at any
Speaker 2: moment to go live to the Pentagon, where US Defense
Speaker 2: Secretary Pete Hegseth is due to give a report, presumably
Speaker 2: about how those bombing raids in Iran went and the
Speaker 2: damage done to Iran's nuclear facilities, which of course has
Speaker 2: been a subject of great contention. Licks from the Pentagon
Speaker 2: suggesting that the damage was only minor and set Around's
Speaker 2: nuclear facilities back just a few months, of course, Donald
Speaker 2: Trump saying that they've absolutely obliterated it.
Speaker 3: So where did it go?
Speaker 2: There any moment you can see in the bottom of
Speaker 2: your screen there that the press are all assembled and
Speaker 2: waiting for the Defense Secretary to arrive. Just while we're
Speaker 2: waiting for him to appear, and will go there straight away, Caleb.
Speaker 2: This is a pretty important statement from him to clear
Speaker 2: up exactly what happened, what the US achieved, particularly in
Speaker 2: light of the fact, and we'll talk about it soon.
Speaker 2: The Ayatola has made a statement today explaining that the
Speaker 2: US have been defeated, that Israel have been smashed, and
Speaker 2: that Iran remains fully intact. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: different versions right now. Pete heg Seth will give some clarity.
Speaker 4: I presient the Ayatola has been drinking the kool aid.
Speaker 4: There's no I mean, he said, I offer my congratulations
Speaker 4: on the victory over the fallacious Sionist regime, amongst other things.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's acting like they've won the war. Mate,
Speaker 4: there's and you can you can that's in French there.
Speaker 4: I wonder if it's the Ietoller himself who bangs these
Speaker 4: things out online. But of course, you know he has
Speaker 4: to try and save face at home to some degree,
Speaker 4: dos Aniso. He has to look like that he's winning
Speaker 4: this war. Of course, the reason we have a ceasefire
Speaker 4: on the Iranian end anyway is because they bloody will
Speaker 4: needed one. I mean, as I said the other night,
Speaker 4: the only way that the regime can survive is if
Speaker 4: they have a cease fire, because otherwise, you know, eventually
Speaker 4: get punneled into the ground and then you'll have the uprising.
Speaker 5: That'll get rid of them.
Speaker 4: But as to this pressor that we are about to see,
Speaker 4: hopefully we will have answers to the questions that many
Speaker 4: of us have had, because, of course, as I was
Speaker 4: saying the other night, the data, the stuff that came
Speaker 4: out from the International Atomic Energy Agency was showing there
Speaker 4: was no radiation emitting from.
Speaker 5: The sites that were struck.
Speaker 4: You've had the reports in CNN and The New York
Speaker 4: Times that of course came from a leak within the
Speaker 4: defense community, suggesting that there was no real distruction of
Speaker 4: the three sites that were hit. So hopefully we get
Speaker 4: some real detail tonight, because even if you think that
Speaker 4: the reports out of CNN, etc. Were treasonous, as Donald
Speaker 4: Trump said, there are legitimate questions to be asked about
Speaker 4: how successful this was because we don't know, we've not
Speaker 4: been told to this point anyway, how much enriched uranium
Speaker 4: might have been removed from these sites before they were struck.
Speaker 4: We know that these bunker busting bombs, of course, can
Speaker 4: do a lot of damage underground, we don't know exactly
Speaker 4: how much damage they've been able to do. We've only
Speaker 4: been able to see the above ground aerial shots that
Speaker 4: show they've closed off intrigue points to these sites. But
Speaker 4: we don't know what's happened to the equipment, et cetera.
Speaker 4: So hopefully some of that stuff will be cleared up
Speaker 4: tonight because they are the questions that many people will
Speaker 4: be wanting to know exactly.
Speaker 6: And the CIA has also come out because that report
Speaker 6: was from the Defense, So what was the intelligence some
Speaker 6: intelligence agency which is different to the CIA.
Speaker 7: So I mean it is important to note.
Speaker 6: That there are generally different and conflicting reports coming from
Speaker 6: in different intelligence communities depending on this.
Speaker 2: All right, we're going to go live to the Pentagon
Speaker 2: now the US Defense Secretary about to address the media.
Speaker 1: Well, good morning, everybody.
Speaker 8: Just arrived last night back from NATO two days apart
Speaker 8: from my battle buddy.
Speaker 1: So it's good to see him this morning. Good to
Speaker 1: see him as chairman.
Speaker 9: Where there was a historic outcome. I want to start
Speaker 9: with that real quick.
Speaker 8: I think there's so much news, so many things happening,
Speaker 8: that oftentimes big momentous moments get missed. What President Trump
Speaker 8: accomplished in NATO yesterday was game changing and historic, a
Speaker 8: shift in burden sharing to European responsibility in NATO that
Speaker 8: most would have said was impossible at the beginning of
Speaker 8: his term, but he said NATO.
Speaker 1: Needs to pay up.
Speaker 8: They started in the first term, and here in his
Speaker 8: second term, we've accelerated that thirty two NATO countries committed
Speaker 8: to spending five percent of their GDP on defense, on
Speaker 8: actually investing in the NATO alliance.
Speaker 1: With all the ink spilled, all of your.
Speaker 8: Outlets, find the time to properly recognize this historic change
Speaker 8: in continental security that other presidents tried to do, other
Speaker 8: presidents talked about.
Speaker 1: President Trump accomplished it. It's a huge deal.
Speaker 8: I see we're here this morning because in hunting for
Speaker 8: scandals all the time, in trying to find wedges and
Speaker 8: spin stories, this press corps and the press corps miss
Speaker 8: historic moments. You miss historic moments like five percent at NATO,
Speaker 8: which when you hear I was in the closed door briefing,
Speaker 8: I wish there could have been cameras in there when
Speaker 8: you heard the prime ministers and presidents of other countries
Speaker 8: to a man and to a woman looking at President
Speaker 8: Trump and saying, this never could have happened, never would
Speaker 8: have happened, seemed impossible five years ago, two years ago,
Speaker 8: eight years ago. But here we are because of your leadership.
Speaker 8: If you ask them the question, I bet.
Speaker 1: They'd say the same thing. For scandals.
Speaker 8: You miss historic moments like recruiting at the Pentagon, historic
Speaker 8: levels in the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy.
Speaker 9: Yeah, maybe there'll be a little mention here or there.
Speaker 8: But because it was under President Trump's leadership, because it
Speaker 8: was because Americans are responding to him as commander in chief,
Speaker 8: the press corps doesn't want to write about it or
Speaker 8: bring us to the topic of the moment and the
Speaker 8: highly successful strikes in Iran. Let me read the bottom
Speaker 8: line here. President Trump directed the most complex and secretive
Speaker 8: military operation in history, and it was a resounding success,
Speaker 8: resulting in a ceasefire agreement and the end of.
Speaker 1: The Twelve Day War.
Speaker 8: There's been a lot of discussions about what happened to
Speaker 8: what didn't happen.
Speaker 1: Step back for a second.
Speaker 8: Because of decisive military action, President Trump created the conditions
Speaker 8: to end the war, decimating, choose your word, obliterating, destroying
Speaker 8: Iran's nuclear capabilities.
Speaker 1: I want to.
Speaker 8: Read some of the assessments that have been provided, because
Speaker 8: whether it's fake news, CNN, MSNBC, or The New York Times,
Speaker 8: there's been fawning coverage of a preliminary assessment.
Speaker 1: I've had a chance to read it.
Speaker 8: Every outlet has breathlessly reported on a preliminary assessment from DIA.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at it right now. Again.
Speaker 8: It was preliminary, a day and a half after the
Speaker 8: actual strike. When it admits itself in writing that it
Speaker 8: requires weeks to accumulate the necessary.
Speaker 9: Data to make such an assessment, it's preliminary.
Speaker 8: It points out that it's not been coordinated with the
Speaker 8: intelligence community at all.
Speaker 1: There's low confidence in this.
Speaker 9: Particular report, it says in the report. There are gaps
Speaker 9: in the information. It says in the report.
Speaker 8: Multiple lynchpin assumptions are what this assessment a lynchpin assumption?
Speaker 1: You know what that is.
Speaker 8: It means your entire premiss is predicated on a lynch pin.
Speaker 8: If you're wrong, everything else is wrong. And yet still
Speaker 8: this report acknowledges it's likely severe damage. Again, this is preliminary,
Speaker 8: but leaked because someone had an agenda to try to
Speaker 8: muddy the waters and make it look like this historic
Speaker 8: strike I wasn't successful. I'm going to get to the
Speaker 8: chairman in a moment, because he's going to lay out
Speaker 8: the particulars for you based on his professional military experience.
Speaker 8: But here's what other folks are saying. THEDIA that put
Speaker 8: that report out says that this is a preliminary low
Speaker 8: confidence report and will continue to be refined as additional
Speaker 8: intelligence becomes available. How about the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission.
Speaker 8: The devastating US strikes on Fourdeaux destroyed the site's critical
Speaker 8: infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable.
Speaker 1: Have any of these quotes made their.
Speaker 8: Way into the New York Times or The Washington Post, MSNBC,
Speaker 8: CNN any of these quotes? How about this one? This
Speaker 8: is a new one from the UN. The United Nations
Speaker 8: no friend of the United States or certainly Israel.
Speaker 1: Often.
Speaker 8: Here's the head of the UN Atomic Energy Agency this morning,
Speaker 8: Raphael Grossi. US and Israeli strikes caused enormous damage to
Speaker 8: Iran's nuclear sites.
Speaker 1: Don't take my word for it.
Speaker 9: How about the IDF's chief of staff.
Speaker 8: I can say here that the assessment is that we
Speaker 8: significantly damage the nuclear program, setting.
Speaker 1: It back by years. I repeat years.
Speaker 8: The Iranian Foreign minister the spokesman, our nuclear instrations have
Speaker 8: been badly damaged, that's for sure.
Speaker 9: I'm sure that's an understatement.
Speaker 8: John Radcliffe, the director of the CIA, putting out a
Speaker 8: statement just last night, CIA can confirm that a body
Speaker 8: of credible intelligence indicates Iran's nuclear program has been severely
Speaker 8: damaged by recent targeted strikes. This includes new intelligence from
Speaker 8: a historically reliable, very different than preliminary assessment with low confidence.
Speaker 8: He's saying, historically reliable and accurate source of method that
Speaker 8: sever key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have
Speaker 8: to be rebuilt over the course of years. CIA continues
Speaker 8: to collect additional, reliably sourced information to keep appropriate decision
Speaker 8: makers fully informed.
Speaker 1: How about DNI.
Speaker 8: Telsea Gabbard Yesterday, she writes, and I quote, new intelligence
Speaker 8: confirms what POTUS has stated numerous times. Iran's nuclear facilities
Speaker 8: have been destroyed. Institute for Science and International Security President
Speaker 8: David Albright. Overall Israel and US attacks have effectively destroyed
Speaker 8: un Iran's centrifuge enrichment program time and time again. I
Speaker 8: can go down the list those that understand, those that see,
Speaker 8: those that do proper assessments recognize that what the United
Speaker 8: States military did was historic and again before I pass
Speaker 8: it to the chairman, because you, and I mean specifically
Speaker 8: you the press, specifically you the press core because you
Speaker 8: cheer against Trump so hard. It's like, in your DNA
Speaker 8: and in your blood cheer against Trump because you want
Speaker 8: him not to.
Speaker 1: Be successful so bad.
Speaker 8: You have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes.
Speaker 8: You have to hope maybe they weren't effective. Maybe the
Speaker 8: way the Trump administration is represented him isn't true. So
Speaker 8: let's take half truths, spun information, leaked information, and then
Speaker 8: spin it, spin it in every way we can to
Speaker 8: try to cause doubt and manipulate the mind, the public
Speaker 8: mind over whether or not are brave.
Speaker 1: Pilots were successful.
Speaker 8: How many stories have been written about how hard it
Speaker 8: is to, I don't know, fly a plane for thirty
Speaker 8: six hours. Has MSNBC done that story, as Fox? Have
Speaker 8: we done the story how hard that is? Have we
Speaker 8: done it two or three times so that American people understand?
Speaker 1: How about how difficult it is.
Speaker 8: To shoot a drone from an F fifteen or sixteen
Speaker 8: or F twenty two or F thirty five, or what
Speaker 8: it's like to man a Patriot battery, or how hard
Speaker 8: it is to refuel mid air, giving the American people
Speaker 8: an understanding of how complex and sophisticated this mission really was.
Speaker 8: There are so many aspects of what our brave men
Speaker 8: and women did that because of.
Speaker 1: The hatred of this press.
Speaker 8: Corps are undermined because your people are trying to leak
Speaker 8: and spin that it wasn't successful. It's irresponsible, and folks
Speaker 8: in this room are privy to that information because of
Speaker 8: the proximity here in the Pentagon. It's an important responsibility.
Speaker 8: And time and time again, classified information is leaked or
Speaker 8: pedled for political purposes to try.
Speaker 1: To make the president look bad.
Speaker 8: And what's really happening is you're undermining the success of
Speaker 8: incredible B two pilots and incredible F thirty five pilots,
Speaker 8: and incredible refuelers and incredible air defenders who pomplish their
Speaker 8: mission set back a nuclear program in ways that other
Speaker 8: presidents would have dreamed.
Speaker 1: How about we celebrate that.
Speaker 8: How about we talked about how special America is that
Speaker 8: we only we have these capabilities.
Speaker 1: I think it's too much to ask.
Speaker 8: Unfortunately for the fake news, so we're used to that,
Speaker 8: but we also have an opportunity to stand at the
Speaker 8: podium and read the truth of what's really happening. And
Speaker 8: the reality is you want to call it destroyed, you
Speaker 8: want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated.
Speaker 1: Choose your word.
Speaker 9: This was an historically successful attack and we should celebrate
Speaker 9: it as Americans.
Speaker 8: And it gives us a chance to have peace, chance
Speaker 8: to have a deal, and an opportunity to prevent a
Speaker 8: nuclear Iran, which is something President Trump talked about for
Speaker 8: twenty years and no other presidents had the courage to
Speaker 8: actually do so. With that, I want to hand it
Speaker 8: over to the Chairman of Joint Chiefs. They've done technical
Speaker 8: analysis on this, not just on the strike, but also
Speaker 8: on our patriot defenders, on all you did, and mister
Speaker 8: Chairman will hand it over to you.
Speaker 10: Good morning, Thank you, Man Strictery, and good morning and
Speaker 10: all of you. Thank you, thank you for being here.
Speaker 10: As a follow up to my comments on Sunday's press conference,
Speaker 10: I wanted to give you a few updates this morning
Speaker 10: on something I'm honored to do as a chairman, and
Speaker 10: that's a chance to get to talk about some of
Speaker 10: our service members and the incredible things.
Speaker 1: That they do on behalf of our nation.
Speaker 10: And I apologize ahead of time for the length and
Speaker 10: the detail. Today I'm going to brief you on a
Speaker 10: couple of things. First, I'm going to talk about our
Speaker 10: air defenders at Aludd in Katar and their actions on Monday.
Speaker 10: Then I'm going to walk you through a little bit
Speaker 10: about the academics that went into the attack against four dah,
Speaker 10: the massive ordnance penetrator weapon, and we're going to show
Speaker 10: a video that highlights the effects that that weapon has.
Speaker 10: Of course, nobody was down inside the target, so we
Speaker 10: don't have video from the target first. On Monday, as
Speaker 10: the President has stated, on Monday morning, we began to
Speaker 10: receive indications and warnings that Iran intended to attack US
Speaker 10: bases in the region that morning. Building on the work
Speaker 10: that Sencom Commander Eric Carilla had done and on the
Speaker 10: orders of the President, al at Alude'd Airbase and Katar
Speaker 10: and around the region, we assumed a minimum force posture.
Speaker 1: Most folks had moved off.
Speaker 10: The base to extend the security perimeter out away from
Speaker 10: what we assessed might be a target zone. Except for
Speaker 10: a very few Army soldiers at Aluded at that point,
Speaker 10: only two Patriot batteries remained on base. Roughly forty four
Speaker 10: American soldiers responsible for defending the entire base to include
Speaker 10: Sencom's forward headquarters in the Middle East, an entire air base,
Speaker 10: and all the US forces there. The oldest soldier was
Speaker 10: a twenty eight year old captain. The youngest was a
Speaker 10: twenty one year old private who'd been in the military
Speaker 10: for less than two years. So let's put ourselves out
Speaker 10: there for a second. Imagine you're that young first lieutenant.
Speaker 10: You're twenty five or twenty six years old, and you've
Speaker 10: been assigned as the tactical director inside the command and
Speaker 10: Control element.
Speaker 1: You at that age.
Speaker 10: Are the sole person responsible to defend this base. Listening
Speaker 10: next to you is your early warning operator, whose job
Speaker 10: is to notify you of imminent attack. There's five people
Speaker 10: inside a vehicle and five people outside of a vehicle
Speaker 10: around these a total of, as I said, forty four.
Speaker 10: By the way, you've sat in the Middle East for years,
Speaker 10: deployed over and over again, extended multiple times, always being prepared,
Speaker 10: but unsure of when that particular day will come that
Speaker 10: you must execute your mission and not fail at doing it.
Speaker 10: In this case, these Patriot Cares were deployed from Korea
Speaker 10: and Japan as part of our US forces there to
Speaker 10: ensure that we had the most capable missiles in the
Speaker 10: Sencom area of responsibility.
Speaker 1: As the day.
Speaker 10: Continues, you start to hear more and more chatter in
Speaker 10: the information space about an appending attack, and as the
Speaker 10: sun starts to set in the west, you get orders
Speaker 10: from your higher headquarters to make sure that your missile
Speaker 10: batteries are pointed to the north. There are just a
Speaker 10: few other teammates. It's hot, you're getting nervous, and you
Speaker 10: expect an attack outside of those Patriot vehicles. Your hot crew,
Speaker 10: which is one NCO and four additional soldiers, turns a
Speaker 10: key and relinquishes control of those missiles to that young
Speaker 10: lieutenant inside the vehicle, and you wait. You know that
Speaker 10: you're going to have approximately two minutes, one hundred and
Speaker 10: twenty seconds to either succeed or fail. And then at
Speaker 10: approximately twelve thirty pm on Monday, that's seven thirty pm
Speaker 10: in Katar, as the sun sets in.
Speaker 1: The west, Iran attacks.
Speaker 10: As the targets were detected, Round after round of Patriot
Speaker 10: missiles are ejected from their canisters by an initial launch charge.
Speaker 10: Then the main solid rocket motor ignites. You can feel
Speaker 10: this in your body if you've ever been around a
Speaker 10: Patriot taking a shot, and round after round goes out
Speaker 10: and guides against those missiles coming inbound. We believe that
Speaker 10: this is the largest single patriot engagement in US military history,
Speaker 10: and we were enjoy We were joined in this engagement
Speaker 10: by the Katari patriot crews. I'm not going to tell
Speaker 10: you how many rounds were shot, but it was a
Speaker 10: bunch because of classified purposes, and we're aware that something
Speaker 10: there's reports of something getting through. What we do know,
Speaker 10: there was a lot of metal flying around between attacking
Speaker 10: missiles being hit by patriots, boosters from attacking missiles being
Speaker 10: hit by patriots, the patriots themselves flying around in the
Speaker 10: debris from those patriots hitting the ground. There was a
Speaker 10: lot of metal flying around, and yet our US air
Speaker 10: defenders had only seconds to make complex decisions with strategic impact.
Speaker 10: These awesome humans, along with their Katari brothers and sisters
Speaker 10: and arms, stood between a salvo of Iranian missiles and
Speaker 10: the safety of value. Deed, they are the unsung heroes
Speaker 10: of the twenty first century United States Army. And I
Speaker 10: know a lot of you have seen the videos online
Speaker 10: and the excitement as those Patriots departed their launchers and
Speaker 10: went up and guided. This really demonstrates the combat capability
Speaker 10: and capacity of our Army. Air defenders simply stated, they
Speaker 10: absolutely crushed it if you'd flip this over, thanks. Let
Speaker 10: me Let me next move to a walkthrough of the
Speaker 10: GBU fifty seven Massive Ordnance Penetrator weapon and share a
Speaker 10: little bit about the planners who did this and their
Speaker 10: work on the weapon. First, let me set the stage
Speaker 10: for you. There's an organization in the US called the
Speaker 10: Defense Threat Reduction Agency DITRA. DITRA does a lot of
Speaker 10: things for our nation, but DITRA is the world's leading
Speaker 10: expert on deeply buried underground targets. In two thousand and nine,
Speaker 10: a Defense Threat Reduction Agency officer was brought into a
Speaker 10: vault at an undisclosed location and briefed on something going
Speaker 10: on in Iran. For security purposes, I'm not going to
Speaker 10: share his name. He was shown some photos and some
Speaker 10: highly classified intelligence of what looked like a major can
Speaker 10: instruction project in the mountains of Iran. He was tasked
Speaker 10: to study this facility, work with the intelligence community to
Speaker 10: understand it, and he was soon joined by an additional teammate.
Speaker 10: For more than fifteen years, this off cer and his
Speaker 10: teammate lived and breathed this single target four dough, a
Speaker 10: critical element of Iran's covert nuclear weapons program. He studied
Speaker 10: the geology. He watched the Iranians dig it out. He
Speaker 10: watched the construction, the weather, the discard material the geology,
Speaker 10: the construction materials, where the materials came from. He looked
Speaker 10: at the vent shaft, the exhaust shaft, the electrical systems,
Speaker 10: the environmental control systems, every nook, every crater, every piece
Speaker 10: of equipment going in and every piece of equipment going out.
Speaker 10: They literally dreamed about this target at night when they slept,
Speaker 10: They thought about it driving back and forth to work,
Speaker 10: and they knew from the very first day is what
Speaker 10: this was for. You do not build a multi layered
Speaker 10: underground bunker complex with centrifuges and other equipment in a
Speaker 10: mountain for any peaceful purpose. They weren't able to discuss
Speaker 10: this with their family, their wives, their kids, their friends,
Speaker 10: but they just kept grinding it out, and along the
Speaker 10: way they realized we did not have a weapon that
Speaker 10: could adequately strike and kill this target. So they began
Speaker 10: a journey to work with industry and other tacticians to
Speaker 10: develop the GBU fifty seven. They tested it over and
Speaker 10: over again, tried different options, tried more. After that, they
Speaker 10: accomplished hundreds of test shots and dropped many full scale
Speaker 10: weapons against extremely realistic targets for a single purpose, kill
Speaker 10: this target at the time and place of our nation's choosing.
Speaker 10: And then, on a day in June of only twenty five,
Speaker 10: more than fifteen years after they started their life's work,
Speaker 10: the phone rang and the President of the United States
Speaker 10: ordered the B two force that you've supported to go
Speaker 10: strike and kill this target.
Speaker 1: Yesterday.
Speaker 10: I had the incredible honor and privilege of spending time
Speaker 10: with these two Defense Threat Reduction Agency officers who've given
Speaker 10: so much. One of them said, quote, I can't even
Speaker 10: get my head around this. My heart is so filled
Speaker 10: with the pride of being a part of this team.
Speaker 10: I am so honored to be a part of this.
Speaker 10: To you both, thank you, and thank you to your families.
Speaker 10: Operation Midnight Hammer was the culmination of those fifteen years
Speaker 10: of incredible work. The air crews, the tanker crews, the
Speaker 10: weapons crews that built the weapons, the load crews that
Speaker 10: loaded it. Before I run through this video today, I
Speaker 10: want to talk a little bit about weaponeering and what
Speaker 10: goes into into an attack. Weaponeering is the science of
Speaker 10: evaluating a target. I mentioned all of those factors before
Speaker 10: that these two DITRA officers had thought about. Ultimately, weaponeering
Speaker 10: is determining the right weapon and fuse combination to achieve
Speaker 10: the desired effects and maximum destruction against a target. In
Speaker 10: the case of four DAH, the Dittri team understood with
Speaker 10: a high degree of confidence the elements of the target
Speaker 10: required to kill its functions, and the weapons were designed,
Speaker 10: planned and delivered to ensure that they achieved the effects
Speaker 10: in the mission space. By the way, in the beginning
Speaker 10: of its development, we had so many PhDs working on
Speaker 10: the MOP program doing modeling and simulation that we were
Speaker 10: quietly and in a secret way, the biggest users of
Speaker 10: supercomputer hours within the United States of America. So let
Speaker 10: me talk about Let me talk about the graphic a
Speaker 10: little bit. In the GBU fIF which all of you
Speaker 10: I know know, is a thirty thousand pound weapon dropped
Speaker 10: only by the B two.
Speaker 1: It's comprised of.
Speaker 10: Steel, explosive and a fuse programmed bespokely each weapon to
Speaker 10: achieve a particular effect inside the target. Each weapon had
Speaker 10: a unique desired impact, angle, arrival, final heading, and a
Speaker 10: fuse setting. The fuse is effectively what tells the bomb
Speaker 10: when to function. A longer delay in a fuse, the
Speaker 10: deeper the weapon will penetrate and drive into the target.
Speaker 10: So on four DOH in June of two thousand and eight,
Speaker 10: you can see these three holes depicted. Here is the
Speaker 10: main exhaust shaft with two additional ventilation shafts on either side.
Speaker 10: The United States decided to strike these two ventilation shafts
Speaker 10: seen here on the main graphic as the primary point
Speaker 10: of entry into the mission space. In the days preceding
Speaker 10: the attack against Fourneau, the Iranians attempted to cover the
Speaker 10: shafts with concrete to try to prevent an attack. I
Speaker 10: won't share the specific dimensions of the concrete cap, but
Speaker 10: you should know that we know what the dimensions of
Speaker 10: those concrete caps were. The planners had to account for this.
Speaker 10: They accounted for everything. The cap was forcibly removed by
Speaker 10: the first weapon and the main shaft was uncovered. Weapons two, three,
Speaker 10: four five were tasked to enter the main shaft, moved
Speaker 10: down into the complex at greater than one thousand feet
Speaker 10: per second, and explode in the mission space. Weapon number
Speaker 10: six was designed on each side, so there were six
Speaker 10: on each side. Weapons number six was designed and does
Speaker 10: a flex weapon to allow us to cover if one
Speaker 10: of the preceding jets or one of the preceding weapons
Speaker 10: did not work. The video I'm about to show you
Speaker 10: is a culmination of over fifteen years of development and testing.
Speaker 10: As I said, hundreds of test shots on various models.
Speaker 1: This is one weapon.
Speaker 10: So if you take a view of this is five additionals,
Speaker 10: you'll get a sense of what this looks like. Hopefully
Speaker 10: you can see it and there's not too much reflection.
Speaker 10: Tom runs our videos out there. We'll run at full
Speaker 10: speed so you can see it and then go back
Speaker 10: through it. Go ahead, Tom, keep it going for a minute.
Speaker 10: You'll see inside the mission space. Unlike a normal surface bomb,
Speaker 10: you won't see an impact crater because they're designed to
Speaker 10: deeply bury and then function. I know there's been a
Speaker 10: lot of questions about that. All six weapons at each
Speaker 10: vent at four doh went exactly where they were intended
Speaker 10: to go. A bomb has three effects that causes damage, blast, fragmentation,
Speaker 10: and overpressure. In this case, the primary kill mechanism in
Speaker 10: the mission space was a mix of overpressure and blast,
Speaker 10: ripping through the open tunnels and destroying critical hardware. The
Speaker 10: majority of the damage we assessed based on our extensive modeling,
Speaker 10: was a blast layer combined with the impulse extending from
Speaker 10: the shock. Imagine what this looks like six times over.
Speaker 10: A point that I want to make here, the Joint
Speaker 10: Force does not do BDA by design. We don't grade
Speaker 10: our own homework. The intelligence community does. But here's what
Speaker 10: we know following the attacks and the strikes on four DAH.
Speaker 10: First that the weapons were built, tested, and loaded properly. Two,
Speaker 10: the weapons were released on speed and on parameters. Three
Speaker 10: the weapons all guided to their intended targets and to
Speaker 10: their intended aim points. For the weapons functioned as design,
Speaker 10: meaning they exploded. We know this through other means, intelligence
Speaker 10: means that we have that were visibly We were visibly
Speaker 10: able to see them, and we know that the trailing
Speaker 10: jets saw the first weapons function and the pilots stated, quote,
Speaker 10: this was the brightest explosion that I've ever seen. It
Speaker 10: literally looked like daylight. Let me now turn to the
Speaker 10: bomber crews themselves give you a few details about them.
Speaker 10: The crews that attacked Fordeaux were from the Active Duty
Speaker 10: Air Force and the Missouri Air National Guard. The crews
Speaker 10: ranked from captain to colonel and Most were graduates of
Speaker 10: the Air Force Weapon School, headquartered at Nellis Air Force
Speaker 10: Base in Nevada. I will state for the record that
Speaker 10: there is no beach, volleyball, or football at the Air
Speaker 10: Force Weapon School. They were male and female aviators on
Speaker 10: this mission, and a crew member told me when I
Speaker 10: talked to them on video the other day that this
Speaker 10: felt like the Super Bowl, the thousands of scientists, airmen,
Speaker 10: and maintainers all coming together. One last story about people.
Speaker 10: When the crews went to work on Friday, they kissed
Speaker 10: their loved ones goodbye, not knowing when or if they'd
Speaker 10: be home. Late on Saturday night, their families became aware
Speaker 10: of what was happening, and on Sunday, when those jets
Speaker 10: returned from White Men, their families were there, flags flying
Speaker 10: and tears flowing. I have chills literally talking about this.
Speaker 10: The jets rejoined into a formation of four airplanes, followed
Speaker 10: by a formation of three, and came up overhead White Men,
Speaker 10: proudly in the traffic pattern, pitching out to land right
Speaker 10: over the base and landing to the incredible cheers of
Speaker 10: their families who sacrifice and serve right alongside their family members.
Speaker 10: Like I said, there were a lot of flags and
Speaker 10: a lot of tears. One commander told me, this is
Speaker 10: a moment in the lives of our families that they
Speaker 10: will never forget. That, my friends, is what America's joined for.
Speaker 10: Does we think? We develop? We train, we rehearse, we test,
Speaker 10: we evaluate every single day, and when the call comes
Speaker 10: to deliver, we do so. I could not be more
Speaker 10: proud standing up here today of our joint force. I'm
Speaker 10: filled with gratitude that I get to tell their story.
Speaker 10: And as we stand here right now, our forces remain
Speaker 10: on a high state of readiness in the region, prepared
Speaker 10: to defend themselves. And one last thing, our adversaries around
Speaker 10: the world should know that there are other Dittri team
Speaker 10: members out there studying targets for the same amount of
Speaker 10: time and we'll continue to do so. Thank you very much.
Speaker 10: I apologize for the length I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 1: Thank you, mister Chairman.
Speaker 8: I would just thank you, by the way for that
Speaker 8: extensive work, the lay down, I mean, even get that
Speaker 8: laser porter, yes, sir.
Speaker 1: Thank you scaring me away as always.
Speaker 9: I mean even in just public reporting.
Speaker 8: If you see the post strike shaft of the three holes,
Speaker 8: the vast majority and fairly so. The vast majority speculation
Speaker 8: has been those are the three strike points, when.
Speaker 9: In actuality, what you realize is these are the events.
Speaker 1: These are the caps.
Speaker 8: The first munition took the cap off, and the other
Speaker 8: five went down the center hole, which if you're planning
Speaker 8: the target, you would want it to be the direct
Speaker 8: one going to the bottom. These are the types of
Speaker 8: things that go into the planning for a strike that
Speaker 8: we wouldn't the Pentagon would not expect the press corps
Speaker 8: of the American people that initially understand.
Speaker 1: So laying this information.
Speaker 8: Out is helpful, but it's also why we asked for
Speaker 8: a beat, for a moment, for a day or two,
Speaker 8: the opportunity to tell that story, because, as the Chairman said,
Speaker 8: these men and women that did this mission, they just
Speaker 8: want to do their job. They're not expecting their story
Speaker 8: to be told. They're not expecting the glory. They are
Speaker 8: grateful for the flags and the hugs of family. That's
Speaker 8: why they do the job. But they also so know
Speaker 8: they were part of something historic. We know how historic
Speaker 8: it was. The chairman does I know, Our staffs know,
Speaker 8: and so that's why we are and the President of
Speaker 8: the United States States knows and That's why it's almost
Speaker 8: personal when we see the way in which.
Speaker 9: Leaks are used to try to disparage.
Speaker 8: The outcome or muddy the waters about the impact of
Speaker 8: what happened without being responsible with information and allowing the
Speaker 8: professionals to assess and provide that information, just like the
Speaker 8: Chairman did. So thank you, mister Chairman, for that information,
Speaker 8: and we welcome a few additional questions.
Speaker 11: Yes, sir General, on Sunday you said final battle damage
Speaker 11: will take some time, and you also said, I think
Speaker 11: BDA is still pending and it would be way too
Speaker 11: early for me to comment on what may or may
Speaker 11: not still be there a new QUIP facility.
Speaker 1: So that was just over three days ago. So what
Speaker 1: has changed? Would you use the term obliterated as well?
Speaker 4: Sir?
Speaker 1: Like I said, we don't do BDA.
Speaker 10: I'll refer that to the intelligence community, and uh, you're
Speaker 10: talking with them.
Speaker 1: I mean, what changed in the past three days?
Speaker 11: And make you so you know, sir?
Speaker 1: I think I said, I mean, I think I explained
Speaker 1: what changed.
Speaker 8: There was a great deal of irresponsible reporting based on
Speaker 8: leak's preliminary information in low confidence. Again, when someone leaks something,
Speaker 8: they do it with an agenda, and when you leak
Speaker 8: a portion of an intelligence assessment, but just a little portion,
Speaker 8: just a little portion, that makes it seem like maybe
Speaker 8: the strike wasn't effective. Then you start us a news cycle,
Speaker 8: whether it's the Washington Post or Fox News or CNN
Speaker 8: or MSNBC, you start a news cycle that starts to
Speaker 8: call into question the ethics.
Speaker 1: That's why.
Speaker 8: So you bring the chairman here, who's not involved in
Speaker 8: politics here in new politics. That's that's that's my lane
Speaker 8: to understand and translate and talk about those types of things.
Speaker 1: So I can use the word obliterate it.
Speaker 8: He could use defeat, destroyed, assess all of those things.
Speaker 8: But ultimately we're here to clarify what these weapons are
Speaker 8: capable of which anyone would you know, two ear, two eyes,
Speaker 8: some ears in a brain can recognize that kind of
Speaker 8: firepower with that specificity at that location and others is
Speaker 8: going to have a devastating effect.
Speaker 9: So we all recognize there will be days and weeks ahead.
Speaker 1: That's why yesterday I said, if.
Speaker 8: You want to know what's going on a four to zero,
Speaker 8: you better go there and get a big shovel, because
Speaker 8: no one's under there right now, No one's under there
Speaker 8: able to assess, and everyone's using reflections of what they see.
Speaker 8: And that's why the Israelis, the Iranians, the I, A, A,
Speaker 8: the U N to a man and to a woman
Speaker 8: who recognized the capability of this weapon system.
Speaker 1: Are acknowledging how destructive it's been.
Speaker 9: So that's what's that's what's changed.
Speaker 1: Just three or four days later.
Speaker 8: See this is this is a point. This is how
Speaker 8: difficult it is to actually manage. You just watched a
Speaker 8: video of what this weapon is capable of. Uh we
Speaker 8: That's where we find our confidence is in the skill
Speaker 8: of men and women and the capability of the systems
Speaker 8: they employed, and the recognition so far in the reflections
Speaker 8: that it was a highly successful mission.
Speaker 1: Sure, I think you could.
Speaker 10: I'd say, go the ICE should be able to help
Speaker 10: you answer that question. They look at a variety as
Speaker 10: the Secretary is alluded to, we look at a variety
Speaker 10: of things. I don't do that. They do all different
Speaker 10: sources of intel, which I'd refer you to them to
Speaker 10: get clarity on the intill.
Speaker 8: Again, I go back to the IC, whether it's Director
Speaker 8: Radcliffe or Odie and I Gabbart. I read the statements
Speaker 8: at the beginning. They're the ones aggregating the intelligence, and
Speaker 8: they're saying nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to
Speaker 8: be rebuilt over a number of years.
Speaker 1: Facilities were destroyed, whatere. We got right here.
Speaker 12: So you cited a body of credible intelligence to suggest
Speaker 12: that the damage at fort in other places.
Speaker 1: What is that referring to? And when we see it?
Speaker 8: I was reading from the CIA director's statement which came
Speaker 8: out last night. CIA again, they do the BDA, they
Speaker 8: do the assessment. CIA can confirm that a body of
Speaker 8: credible intelligence indicates it also goes on to say new
Speaker 8: intelligence from historically reliable and accurate sources and methods.
Speaker 9: Now you can imagine, you can imagine the CIA.
Speaker 8: Director is going to be very careful about how he
Speaker 8: articulates things of that sensitivity, classified secret, top secret, compartmentalized.
Speaker 8: He's going to know things that you're not going to know,
Speaker 8: that the press isn't going to know. And he's reflecting
Speaker 8: that the sources he's seeing are highly credible. Uh, they've
Speaker 8: they've given credible intelligence. They are those processes of given
Speaker 8: credible intelligence in the past, and that's what.
Speaker 1: He's basically on.
Speaker 3: I think we need to see that.
Speaker 1: Do you have a top secret clearancer.
Speaker 13: Eventually okay the American public once.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I wanted to.
Speaker 12: I wanted to ask briefly, just not you check it shut?
Speaker 14: Oh so Mike Glennwood, Washington, Yes.
Speaker 15: Thanks.
Speaker 14: Anybody who's ever read a battalions to report after a
Speaker 14: fight knows that it's usually the initial report is usually wrong,
Speaker 14: sometimes grossly so. Is what happened in a sentence that
Speaker 14: caused y'all to sort of rethink the intelligence process or
Speaker 14: the dissemination or do you think it's just I mean,
Speaker 14: it's a process itself doesn't require any more adjustment.
Speaker 8: Well, I can tell you what the chairman told me
Speaker 8: in the situation room and reminded us all, which is
Speaker 8: alongside what you just said, sir, is that the first first.
Speaker 1: Reports are almost always wrong.
Speaker 8: They're almost always incomplete, right anything, whether it's a squad
Speaker 8: level operation or a strategic level operation, the initial reflections
Speaker 8: you get are coming at you at a high rate
Speaker 8: of speed from a lot of different sources. So your
Speaker 8: job is to step back and assess them. And that's
Speaker 8: why we're urging caution about putting it premising entire stories
Speaker 8: on biased leaks to biased publications trying to make something
Speaker 8: look bad.
Speaker 1: How about we take a beat, recognize.
Speaker 8: First the success of our warriors, hold them up, tell
Speaker 8: their stories, celebrate that wave an American flag, be proud
Speaker 8: of what we accomplished. And in the meantime, I can
Speaker 8: assure you the Chairman of his staff, the intelligence community,
Speaker 8: are staff and others are doing all the assassins necessary to.
Speaker 9: Make sure that mission was indeed successful.
Speaker 1: Yes, right there, So thank you, missus.
Speaker 16: Secretary. Iran has recognized that their nuclear program was indeed
Speaker 16: severely damaged, but they also said that the US strikes
Speaker 16: only strengthened their ability and their determination to complete their
Speaker 16: nuclear program. How do you respond to us? Or is
Speaker 16: that a provocation from Iran?
Speaker 8: Well, I would say Iron's going to have to say
Speaker 8: a lot of things right now in order to bolster
Speaker 8: their image, especially internally. You know, in if the media,
Speaker 8: there's a lot of things they'll say for domestic consumption,
Speaker 8: but we're watching very closely what they do. Again, that's
Speaker 8: the intel community. Our job as the chairman, I mean,
Speaker 8: the chairman laid it out so beautifully. Our job is
Speaker 8: to be prepared. And how proud are you? How proud
Speaker 8: am I? I didn't know the full story of those
Speaker 8: men and women fifteen years ago who've been pointing at
Speaker 8: that target.
Speaker 1: It makes me proud to be an American. That's an
Speaker 1: awesome story.
Speaker 8: I hope we can tell more aspects of that in
Speaker 8: an unclassified way in the future. That's a great thing
Speaker 8: to know. Our job is to be prepared when the
Speaker 8: commander in chief calls based on those assessments. So of
Speaker 8: course I see the Intelligence Committee will keep watching what
Speaker 8: Iran does and pay attention to that. But the President
Speaker 8: has created the contours the opportunity for a deal for
Speaker 8: peace in something that the world said was intractable, that
Speaker 8: wasn't possible, and we.
Speaker 1: Got that piece that cease fire, that.
Speaker 8: Option because of strength, because of his willingness to use
Speaker 8: American military might that no one else on the planet
Speaker 8: can do with the kind of planners and operators that
Speaker 8: the Chairman just laid out.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, right there, yep, sir.
Speaker 12: Just a quick question. There's public imagery available saying that
Speaker 12: highly enriched uranium was moved out of Foordo before the strikes?
Speaker 1: Is that accurate?
Speaker 3: Have you seen that?
Speaker 12: And mister chairman, a question for you. Have you been
Speaker 12: pressured to change your assessment or given more rosy intelligence
Speaker 12: assessment to us by any political factor, whether it's a
Speaker 12: president or the Secretary, And if you were, would you
Speaker 12: do that?
Speaker 10: Yeah, well, that one's easy. No, No, I have not,
Speaker 10: and no I would not. My job as a chairman
Speaker 10: is to offer a range of options to the President
Speaker 10: and the National Command Authority, to deliver the risks associated
Speaker 10: with each of those, and then take the orders of
Speaker 10: the National Command Authority and go execute them. I've never
Speaker 10: been pressured by the President or the Secretary to do
Speaker 10: anything other than tell them exactly what I'm thinking, and
Speaker 10: that's exactly what I've done.
Speaker 8: There's nothing that I've seen that suggests that what we
Speaker 8: didn't hit exactly what we wanted to hit in those locations.
Speaker 13: It's about highly enriched uranium. Do you have certainty that
Speaker 13: all the highly enriched uranium was inside the Four Dome
Speaker 13: Mountain or some of it? Because there were satellite photos
Speaker 13: that showed more than a dozen trucks there two days
Speaker 13: in advance. Are you certain none of that highly enriched
Speaker 13: uranium was moved?
Speaker 9: Of course, we're watching every single aspect.
Speaker 8: But Jennifer, you've been about the worst, the one who
Speaker 8: misrepresents the most intentionally what the President says, I'm familiar.
Speaker 13: About the ventilations chefs on Saturday night, and in fact,
Speaker 13: I was the first to describe the B two bombers,
Speaker 13: the refueling, the entire mission with great accuracy. So I
Speaker 13: take issue with that.
Speaker 8: I appreciate you acknowledging that this was the first, the
Speaker 8: most successful mission based on operational security that this department
Speaker 8: has done since you be here, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 8: So we're looking at all aspects of intelligence and making
Speaker 8: sure we have a sense of what was where.
Speaker 15: Acknowledge the female pilots that also participated in this mission.
Speaker 15: The early messages that you sent out only congratulated the boys.
Speaker 8: So when I say something like our boys and bombers,
Speaker 8: see this is the kind of thing the press does.
Speaker 9: Right of course, the Chairman mentioned a female bomber pilot.
Speaker 8: That's fantastic. She's fantastic, she's a here. I want more
Speaker 8: female bomber pilots.
Speaker 1: I hope the.
Speaker 8: Men and women of our country sign up to do
Speaker 8: such brave and audacious things.
Speaker 1: But when you spin it as because I say our boys.
Speaker 8: And bombers as a common phrase, I'll keep saying things
Speaker 8: like that, whether they're men or women. Very proud of
Speaker 8: that female pilot, just like I'm very proud of those
Speaker 8: male pilots. And I don't care if it's a male
Speaker 8: or a female in that cockpit, and the American people
Speaker 8: don't care. But it's the obsession with race and gender
Speaker 8: in this department that's changed priorities.
Speaker 9: We don't do that anymore. We don't play your little games.
Speaker 1: Yes, right there.
Speaker 15: Certainly the uranium was removed from the facility before the
Speaker 15: B two struck.
Speaker 8: So I'm not aware of any intelligence that I've reviewed
Speaker 8: that says things were not where they were supposed to
Speaker 8: be moved or otherwise.
Speaker 7: Yes, Kelly Meyer.
Speaker 17: With News Nation, and just off the top when I
Speaker 17: say we're grateful for the service of these pilots and
Speaker 17: everybody that serves I wanted.
Speaker 7: To ask you.
Speaker 17: The CIA statement said when possible, they will provide updates
Speaker 17: and information to the public for transparency, and I believe
Speaker 17: that's what we're looking for here. Do you commit to
Speaker 17: share the Defense Intelligence Agency report when it is ready
Speaker 17: so the American people can understand more about the intelligence assessment?
Speaker 8: Well? Whatever, Actually the report that was discussed, this preliminary report,
Speaker 8: was a what's called a restrike report, so it comes
Speaker 8: to us to give us an assessment whether a target
Speaker 8: would need to be restruck, right, that's the reason why.
Speaker 8: So based on internal feedback loop that we're supposed to
Speaker 8: have access to. Unfortunately someone took advantage of that. But
Speaker 8: whatever is supposed to be made public will be. But
Speaker 8: whatever has to stay sensitive, so.
Speaker 10: Can I It's jump in you know. One of the
Speaker 10: things that I'm trying to do through this journey that
Speaker 10: we're on together, of course transparency, but also the requirement
Speaker 10: to really protect these capabilities. I guess it times up,
Speaker 10: so there's a balance in there, right, we do need
Speaker 10: to preserve options should the nation and the Joint Force
Speaker 10: be tasked to go do something again. So I'm confident
Speaker 10: we'll find the middle ground. But there are some things
Speaker 10: that if asked, I want to not release really, so.
Speaker 1: We're going to leave it right there.
Speaker 8: I want to thank the heroism of our men and
Speaker 8: women in the military. What their carbash is truly historic,
Speaker 8: setting back the Iranian nuclear program untold number of years.
Speaker 8: It was a devastating attack. We appreciate you covering it.
Speaker 8: Thank you very much for Chamis.
Speaker 15: Thank you for talk a little bit.
Speaker 2: More about well that was a pretty extraordinary press conference
Speaker 2: from the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the
Speaker 2: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Kine. They talked
Speaker 2: about the fact that multiple intelligence agencies have reported to
Speaker 2: strike on Iran's.
Speaker 3: Nuclear facilities, was successful.
Speaker 2: In obliterating them, destroying them, you choose the word, but
Speaker 2: the intelligence agencies agree it will take years and years
Speaker 2: for Iran to re establish any sort of nuclear capability.
Speaker 3: The Chairman of the Joint.
Speaker 2: Chiefs, I thought this was really interesting, talked about the
Speaker 2: fact that they've known about this for dou facility since
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine and have had a special group
Speaker 2: of people working for fifteen years not only studying that facility,
Speaker 2: but designing a especially to be dropped on that facility,
Speaker 2: and of course that happened just a few days ago.
Speaker 2: I thought it was very interesting howte me haig Seth
Speaker 2: chastised the media, essentially rebuking them for undermining not only
Speaker 2: the military but also America itself. And finally, my other
Speaker 2: observation there, Caleb was the Joint Chiefs, the Chairman's the
Speaker 2: Joint Chiefs warning America's adversaries just as we studied for
Speaker 2: dough since two thousand and nine that develop a special
Speaker 2: bomb for it. Don't think there are not other targets
Speaker 2: around the world that we are right now studying and
Speaker 2: preparing for in the event of conflict in the future.
Speaker 2: That was a pretty amazing press conference.
Speaker 4: Indeed, and of course that last point is what you know,
Speaker 4: peace through strength is all about. Right. It was reasonably
Speaker 4: light on actual detail. If you were hoping to have
Speaker 4: a blow by blow of exactly pardon the part of
Speaker 4: exactly what was destroyed, you didn't get it. But as
Speaker 4: HeiG Seth lined out, it'll take a long time to
Speaker 4: actually work out exactly what happened. Yeah, exactly got to
Speaker 4: go there with the shovel. And the report, of course
Speaker 4: he was talking about that CNN and MSNBC, the New
Speaker 4: York Times have been referencing in the last few days,
Speaker 4: was not released in full, and he said that it
Speaker 4: says on the first page it is a preliminary.
Speaker 5: Low confidence report.
Speaker 4: And so even if you have questions about exactly what
Speaker 4: has been destroyed, the fact remains that the report on
Speaker 4: which these reports media reports have been based is by no.
Speaker 5: Means correct or accurate.
Speaker 4: It is the earliest possible takeaway from what happened, So
Speaker 4: there is a lot more to come out of this now.
Speaker 5: It was funny as well.
Speaker 4: You mentioned him getting stuck into the press, how he
Speaker 4: said it was in their blood, their DNA, to essentially
Speaker 4: take on the present on these matters. The most interesting
Speaker 4: part from neither was the detail around how this bomb
Speaker 4: worked and how they deployed it on the day, particularly
Speaker 4: how they used the first bomb to blow off those
Speaker 4: concrete caps that had been put in place, and then
Speaker 4: the following four bombs were used to go down the
Speaker 4: central tunnel, and they had another one on back up
Speaker 4: if they needed it. He said each of these bombs
Speaker 4: was thirty thousand pounds, that is in kilograms, thirteen thousand
Speaker 4: and six hundred kilograms each, and they deployed six of them.
Speaker 4: So I mean that is an obscene amount.
Speaker 5: Of explosives that were.
Speaker 2: Dropped on those sets, dropped so lightning speed with pinpoint accuracy.
Speaker 5: About one thousand feet a second.
Speaker 4: So even if you're questioning what happened, I mean, heck,
Speaker 4: if you're dropping bombs of that magnitude, that big, that heavy,
Speaker 4: you can't tell me that they haven't done so well.
Speaker 6: I think that's the most important part because Hegseath made
Speaker 6: this point very clearly. The reason that initial report was
Speaker 6: leaked was for no other purpose than a political maneuver
Speaker 6: to undermine confidence in Donald Trump and in the US
Speaker 6: military and ultimately in the country itself. And so the
Speaker 6: whole point of illustrating exactly how the bombs worked was
Speaker 6: to basically say, there is absolutely no way on earth
Speaker 6: that such a perfectly executed, meticulously planned mission over fifteen
Speaker 6: years could not work. Essentially, they had the whole site model.
Speaker 6: They knew every nook and cranny, They modeled what these
Speaker 6: bombs would look like, how they would detonate.
Speaker 7: Every single element.
Speaker 6: Of this mission was planned, rehearse tested, and executed on
Speaker 6: the day.
Speaker 7: So I think it does shatter this narrative.
Speaker 6: Oh well, maybe maybe they did still have certain elements
Speaker 6: of these nuclear facilities still operable or still somehow standing,
Speaker 6: but it doesn't matter because they are going to be
Speaker 6: They have been so catastrophically struck by the sheer volume
Speaker 6: weight execution of this that it doesn't really matter and
Speaker 6: it will take them years to construct this. The other
Speaker 6: interesting point was Haig seth ran through the reports from
Speaker 6: other intelligence agencies as well from the un from the Israelis,
Speaker 6: and the consensus across the board is that they have
Speaker 6: set back the Iranian nuclear program by years. So I think,
Speaker 6: really now, the obsession with this line around questioning exactly
Speaker 6: what was destroyed and how it's all a red herring
Speaker 6: designed to undermine America.
Speaker 2: Well, Pete Hegseth made that point at the beginning, didn't
Speaker 2: he where he said, the press are so obsessed with
Speaker 2: the scandals they missed truly historic moments. And then of
Speaker 2: course he handed over to the Chief of the Joint
Speaker 2: the Chievement of the Joint Chiefs, who described just how
Speaker 2: historic this mission was. We all learned about a new
Speaker 2: defense agency that many of us had never heard of before,
Speaker 2: the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which apparently studies movements of
Speaker 2: America's adversaries around the world and spends well, in this instance,
Speaker 2: fifteen years, as he said, preparing especially for the event
Speaker 2: of an attack that's necessary. But meanwhile, the media obsessed
Speaker 2: with red herrings, with leaks that come with agendas and
Speaker 2: Feetegseth is pointing out the obvious. If you're going to
Speaker 2: leak an intelligence report from the Pentagon, you don't do
Speaker 2: it out of the goodness of your heart, you do
Speaker 2: it with an agenda. And as you said, Caleb, he
Speaker 2: accused the media of having anti Trump bias in their DNA,
Speaker 2: which means they have to hope that the mission is unsuccessful,
Speaker 2: because if it is successful, they have to congratulate Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: That's the last thing they want.
Speaker 2: And so since those bombs were dropped, most of the
Speaker 2: media have spent the entire time undermining, doubting, casting aspersions.
Speaker 2: That the other thing that's interesting about this and I
Speaker 2: felt this through the entire press conference, and we're sitting
Speaker 2: here in Australia, but you almost felt a sense of
Speaker 2: pride for the US military and for the soldiers involved.
Speaker 2: And I think that represents a real shift in this
Speaker 2: administration where they are really promoting the military, promoting.
Speaker 3: Pride in the United States.
Speaker 2: And I liked when hag Seth, who was criticized during
Speaker 2: the week for talking about how proud he was of
Speaker 2: our boys who flew those planes, and then was, well,
Speaker 2: you know, there are women pilots in the Air Force
Speaker 2: as well, and he simply said, we don't do those
Speaker 2: silly gender games anymore.
Speaker 3: We don't play those games anymore.
Speaker 2: This administration really is straight shooting, promoting the US military
Speaker 2: and getting rid of all the rubbish that the media
Speaker 2: have engaged in for so long, to say, hey, we've
Speaker 2: got an important job to do defending our nation, and
Speaker 2: we don't expect.
Speaker 3: The media to just play along, but we do.
Speaker 2: Expect the media to show a sense of responsibility and
Speaker 2: a sense of impartiality in their reporting.
Speaker 4: And that goes to his opening remarks about what Trump
Speaker 4: managed to achieve at NATO. I mean, what you have seen,
Speaker 4: and I've written about this in my column and the
Speaker 4: Advertiser tomorrow. What you have seen this week is a
Speaker 4: genuine world leader.
Speaker 1: And it's a long time.
Speaker 4: Since you could say that we've had a genuine world leader,
Speaker 4: because I know we talk about prime ministers and presidents
Speaker 4: and premiers and people all the way down to local
Speaker 4: mayors being leaders, but the reality is that many of
Speaker 4: them are little.
Speaker 5: More than managers. They manage what is in front of them.
Speaker 4: In order to be a leader, funnily enough, you have
Speaker 4: to lead, which means you are getting other people to
Speaker 4: change their mind. You are changing the way a country operates,
Speaker 4: You're changing.
Speaker 5: Away the world operates.
Speaker 4: And that is what Trump has done this week, through
Speaker 4: the strength of that attack the preciseness of that attack.
Speaker 4: He has shown the world that he is willing to
Speaker 4: act if and when he thinks it is appropriate. And
Speaker 4: that is a message to China and Russia and any
Speaker 4: other potential adversary as much as it is to Iran.
Speaker 4: In fact, you know, you could argue that Iran is
Speaker 4: just the poor bugger that had to wear it in
Speaker 4: order for Trump to send the message that he's willing
Speaker 4: to use his might because it is there. He then
Speaker 4: goes to NATO and convinces all but one nation to
Speaker 4: increase their military spending to five percent.
Speaker 5: That is leadership, and that is why.
Speaker 4: Work like this has been so successful, because Trump, as
Speaker 4: he Seth said, has done away with the DEI nonsense
Speaker 4: and said we are in the business of peace through strength.
Speaker 5: And achieving things.
Speaker 4: That's what leadership is and that's what Trump has been about.
Speaker 4: And of course you mentioned the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Speaker 4: I mean, how extraordinary the genesis of all of this
Speaker 4: Over more than fifteen years, sixteen years that these two blokes,
Speaker 4: two blokes have been working on this project like it
Speaker 4: is literally two men who lived and breathed four dough
Speaker 4: that led to this attack on Sunday, Our time.
Speaker 5: That is extraordinary. Two men to men.
Speaker 2: Makes Trump's comparison with the bomb dropped on Hiroshima a
Speaker 2: little more realistic.
Speaker 3: Right now.
Speaker 2: You know that they've been working for fifteen sixteen years
Speaker 2: getting ready for this. If you saw the movie Oppenheimer,
Speaker 2: where they work specifically on We're going to end the war,
Speaker 2: We're going to drop a bomb, makes that comparison not
Speaker 2: quite so silly. As many people mocked Trump when he
Speaker 2: said that.
Speaker 7: And they weren't just mapping the mapping four dough.
Speaker 6: It's through their mapping that they ended up developing these
Speaker 6: special bombs.
Speaker 7: And so it's all this knowledge.
Speaker 6: Compounded over fifteen years developing the bombs and all the
Speaker 6: tech required to destroy the plants.
Speaker 7: It's truly incredible.
Speaker 6: I felt proud, and I'm not even American, and I
Speaker 6: just was sitting there thinking, imagine if our leaders in
Speaker 6: Australia spoke like this about our country. Imagine how great
Speaker 6: that'd be to have a defense minister who knows what
Speaker 6: they're talking about.
Speaker 7: We can only dream.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, of course you mentioned the NATO summit. Richard
Speaker 2: Marles was there on the very edge of the photograph.
Speaker 2: I'm not imagining that he nor the Albanezi government are
Speaker 2: going to be so enthusiastic about this amazing historic achievement
Speaker 2: by the United States military. It really does then leave
Speaker 2: them out in the cold when the US are celebrating
Speaker 2: such a historic event, a great result in Iran, and
Speaker 2: of course now with thirty two NATO nations right behind
Speaker 2: America who are leading with strengthening.
Speaker 4: And one of the other points that we should mention
Speaker 4: from that press is Higgs Seth sorry was asked multiple
Speaker 4: times about enriched uranium and whether or not it was
Speaker 4: removed from fourdoh ahead of the attack. He has said
Speaker 4: there is nothing to suggest that they didn't hit what
Speaker 4: they wanted to hit, which is saying he thinks they've
Speaker 4: destroyed it, but he's looking at the intelligence. But the
Speaker 4: reality is, even if it was removed, the stuff they
Speaker 4: need in order to use it has probably been destroyed.
Speaker 2: Well, it was an amazing press conference this evening. Thanks
Speaker 2: for tuning. That's all from US tonight, but stick around.
Speaker 2: Coming up in just a moment is to read a
Speaker 2: Pennety show.
Speaker 3: Good night,