Hegseth defends Iran strike amid doubts over Trump’s ‘obliteration’ claims

Defense chief says US bombings degraded Iran's nuclear sites, citing AI models over leaked intel doubts

The US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has defended the US strikes on Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities and said that Donald Trump had decimated ... obliterated" the country's nuclear program despite initial intelligence assessments that last week's strikes had failed to destroy key enrichment facilities and they could resume operations within just months.

But he and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, largely based that assessment on AI modeling, showing test videos of the bunker buster" bombs used in the strikes and referred questions on a battle damage assessment of Fordow to the intelligence community.