U.S. officials said Sunday that a stealth bombing raid Saturday night to destroy Iran’s nuclear program had caused extraordinarily serious damage and destruction.
During a Pentagon update with Defense Secretary Pet Hegseth, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that Operation Midnight Hammer used decoys and deception and encountered no Iranian resistance.
Caine stated that the operation had succeeded in destroying Iran’s nuclear sites in Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan.
According to Caine, preliminary battle damage assessments show that all three sites experienced extremely serious damage and destruction, while final battle damage assessments will take some time.
A total of 125 aircraft participated in the massive U.S. operation, which also involved the first-ever use of bunker busters in combat with 14 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs and hits by Tomahawk missiles fired from a submarine.
Speaking on Sunday as well, Vice President J.D. Vance claimed the mission was successful and that Iran’s nuclear capabilities had been set back by years.
At first, Vance stated that he was extremely certain that we had significantly slowed down their development of a nuclear weapon, even though he would not reveal classified intelligence regarding what we had observed on the ground.
When pressed further, he stated on NBC’s Meet the Press that he believes their program has been delayed for a very long period. The Iranians won’t be able to create a nuclear weapon for many, many years, in my opinion.
Attacks on the Fordo and Natanz enrichment plants and the Isfahan nuclear site were confirmed by the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization. There were no immediate indications of radioactive contamination in the vicinity, according to Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
But the mission made the world uneasy, and President Donald Trump queried why not in a late afternoon post on Truth Social, despite Hegseth’s statement earlier in the day that the U.S. strategic goal was not to overthrow the Iranian regime.
The phrase “regime change” is not politically correct, but why wouldn’t there be a regime change if the existing Iranian regime is incapable of making Iran great once more? Trump shared content on social media. MIGA!
Iran denounced the activities as a breach of its sovereignty and international law, while U.S. officials emphasized that Washington was targeting exclusively nuclear targets and urged caution.
Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, stated that Washington bears full responsibility for whatever retaliatory measures Tehran may take.
At a press conference in Turkey, he stated that they had crossed a very high red line by targeting nuclear installations. I’m not sure how much space there is for diplomacy.
The U.S. opted to kill diplomacy, and the Iranian military will choose the timing, character, and scope of the nation’s commensurate response, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, told a U.N. Security Council emergency meeting.
In response, Acting U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shear reiterated President Trump’s warning that any direct or indirect Iranian attack on Americans or American bases will be met with devastating punishment during the same meeting.
She claimed that after Iran obstructed its nuclear weapons program and blocked sincere attempts at recent negotiations, the United States took action to protect Israel and American civilians by preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Shea encouraged the Security Council to demand that Iran cease pursuing Americans and U.S. interests, stop its 47-year attempt to destroy Israel, stop its nuclear program, and engage in sincere peace talks.
The U.S. military operation was denounced by China and Russia, where Araghchi was traveling for negotiations with President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s Foreign Ministry called the assaults a flagrant breach of international law and called for a return to a diplomatic and political path. A statement from the Turkish Foreign Ministry cautioned about the possibility that the conflict could escalate to a worldwide scale.
Although she urged those engaged in the war to exercise caution, the chief diplomat for the European Union stated that Iran must not be let to build a nuclear weapon.
In a social media post, EU foreign policy leader Kaja Kallas urged all parties to take a step back, go back to the bargaining table, and stop the situation from getting worse.
75 precision-guided munitions were deployed, according to U.S. officials.
Joseph Votel, a former commander of the U.S. Central Command and current fellow at the Middle East Institute, stated that he would not be surprised if, following an evaluation period, we went back in and re-struck some of these targets to ensure that we got the effect. Actually, striking, evaluating, and then striking again if necessary to accomplish the desired effects is a standard component of our military aiming process.
According to Caine and a Pentagon graphic, a submarine with the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group in the Arabian Sea fired 24 Tomahawk cruise missiles before the B-2 raids on Fordow.
Our boys in those bombers are currently en route home, Hegseth stated earlier on Sunday. Later, a U.S. official claimed that one of the pilots of the B-2s was a woman.
In response to U.S. attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released a national terrorism notice late Sunday, warning of potential cyberattacks and violence, including hate crimes against Jews.
Although the Iranian regime has denounced the U.S. move, the department stated that there are no specific credible threats against the homeland.
According to the advisory, a heightened threat environment is anticipated to persist throughout the summer in the United States.
