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US military strikes stormed out early Sunday local time with over a dozen 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs on the three Iranian nuclear sites. President Donald Trump himself, watching the press interaction, endorsed Hegseth's commentary by arguing that vehicles at the site are instead owned by concrete workers, not part of any uranium-relocation effort.
Disputed Reports on Uranium's Whereabouts
Despite those denials, some experts say they believe that Iran may have shipped at least some of its uranium stockpile — especially the near-weapons-grade material it had enriched to 60 per cent purity — out of the heavily fortified Fordow underground site ahead of the strikes. Unusual vehicle movements had been picked up in satellite imagery around Fordow in the days before and a senior Iranian official was believed to have said the material had been taken to an undisclosed location.
A European intelligence assessment, however, found that Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium had barely been touched because it was not concentrated at Fordow. Yet the precise status of Iran's uranium remains murky.
Mixed Signals Over Impact, Political and Media Tensions Escalate
Hegseth, defending the ordered strike as "historically successful," downplayed a leaked initial report from the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) that said the only result was a temporary setback to Iran's programme. He said fresh intelligence — which he quoted from C.I.A. Director John Ratcliffe — showed that Iran's capabilities had been seriously disrupted and could take years to be restored.
Hegseth and Ratcliffe, as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and General Dan Caine, gave a classified briefing to all 100 US Senators on Thursday. Gabbard was not invited to participate. The Senate is expected to vote in the coming days on a resolution that would require congressional approval for future strikes in Iran, but it is unlikely to pass.
Hegseth also criticized the media, who he has accused of being biased against Trump, and minimizing the military's achievements while speaking at the Pentagon. Trump gushed about the conference, one of the most professional he had seen.
General Caine gave a technical account of the bunker-buster bombs used but drew short of giving his personal assessment of the effectiveness of the strikes. He emphasized that military judgments are apolitical and insisted that he had never been instructed by leadership to change his opinion.
