At a Pentagon press briefing, Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth took a question about what changed in the past three days to give certainty about the efficacy of the Iran strikes.
00:00Yes, sir. General, on Sunday you said final battle damage will take some time, and you also said I think BDA is still pending, and it would be way too early for me to comment on what may or may not still be there, that nuclear facility. That was just over three days ago. So what has changed? Would you use the term obliterated as well?
00:22Sir, like I said, we don't do BDA. I'll refer that to the intelligence community.
00:27You're talking with them. I mean, what changed in the past three days and make you so, you know.
00:32Sir, I think I explained what changed. There was a great deal of irresponsible reporting based on leaks, preliminary information in low confidence. Again, when someone leaks something, they do it with an agenda.
00:47And when you leak a portion of an intelligence assessment, but just a little portion, just a little portion that makes it seem like maybe the strike wasn't effective, then you start a news cycle, whether it's the Washington Post or Fox News or CNN or MSNBC, you start a news cycle that starts to call into question the ethics.
01:06No, that's why. So you bring the chairman here who's not involved in politics. He didn't do politics. That's my lane to understand and translate and talk about those types of things.
01:15So I can use the word obliterated. He could use defeat, destroy, assess, all of those things.
01:19But ultimately, we're here to clarify what these weapons are capable of, which anyone with, you know, two ears, two eyes, some ears and a brain can recognize that kind of firepower with that specificity at that location and others is going to have a devastating effect.
01:34So we all recognize there will be days and weeks ahead. That's why yesterday I said, if you want to know what's going on at Fordow, you better go there and get a big shovel because no one's under there right now.
01:44No one's under there able to assess and everyone's using reflections of what they see. And that's why the Israelis, the Iranians, the IAEA, the U.N. to a man and to a woman who recognize the capability of this weapon system are acknowledging how destructive it's been.
01:57So that's what's that's what's changed. Just three or four days later.
02:02This is this is a point. This is how difficult it is to actually manage. You just watched a video of what this weapon is capable of.
02:11We that's where we find our confidence is in the skill of men and women and the capability of the systems they employed and the recognition so far in the reflections that it was a highly successful mission.
02:21Sure. I think you could I'd say go out the IC should.
