Washington — Senior Pentagon officers revealed new particulars concerning the U.S. operation to bomb three nuclear sites in Iran, with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees saying it was the “largest B-2 operational strike in U.S. historical past” and inflicted “extraordinarily extreme harm and destruction” to the targets.
“This was a extremely categorised mission with only a few individuals in Washington realizing the timing or nature of this plan,” Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman, mentioned in a briefing on the Pentagon Sunday morning detailing the strikes towards the Iranian nuclear websites at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.
Caine mentioned the mission, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, included seven B-2 Spirit bombers that flew east from their base in Missouri to Iran. The 18-hour flight required a number of in-flight refuelings, and the bombers met up with U.S. fighter jets and help plane as soon as over land within the Center East in a “complicated, tightly timed maneuver,” Caine mentioned.
Map reveals Iran targets, Operation Midnight Hammer flight path
Caine spoke in entrance of a map exhibiting the flight path of the plane, and the timeline of key occasions within the operation:
Protection Division 
At about 5 p.m. ET Saturday, simply earlier than the plane entered Iranian airspace, a U.S. submarine launched greater than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles towards targets on the web site in Isfahan. Because the bombers approached their targets, the U.S. deployed “a number of deception ways, together with decoys,” and fighter jets cleared the airspace forward of them, checking for enemy plane and surface-to-air missiles.
“We’re at present unaware of any photographs fired on the U.S. strike bundle on the best way in,” Caine mentioned.
At about 6:40 p.m. ET, or 2:10 a.m. in Iran, the lead B-2 dropped two “bunker-buster” bombs often known as the GBU-57 Large Ordnance Penetrators, or MOPs, on the location at Fordo. Over the subsequent 25 minutes, Caine mentioned, a complete of 14 MOPs could be dropped on two goal areas. The Tomahawk missiles landed at Isfahan after bombs have been dropped on the 2 different websites. Caine mentioned no photographs have been fired on the planes as they left Iranian airspace.
“Iran’s fighters didn’t fly, and it seems that Iran’s surface-to-air missile methods didn’t see us. All through the mission, we retained the ingredient of shock,” Caine mentioned.
“Greater than 125 U.S. plane participated on this mission,” Caine mentioned, together with the B-2 bombers, fighter jets, refueling planes and surveillance plane. Greater than 75 precision-guided weapons have been used within the assault.
“Preliminary battle harm assessments point out that every one three websites sustained extraordinarily extreme harm and destruction,” Caine mentioned, noting {that a} full evaluation will take time.
The chairman warned Iran towards taking any retaliatory motion for the strikes.
“Our forces stay on excessive alert and are totally postured to answer any Iranian retaliation or proxy assaults, which might be an extremely poor selection,” Caine mentioned. “We are going to defend ourselves.”
Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth known as the assault “an unbelievable and overwhelming success.”
“The order we acquired from our commander in chief was targeted, it was highly effective, and it was clear,” Hegseth mentioned on the briefing alongside Caine. “We devastated the Iranian nuclear program, but it surely’s price noting that the operation didn’t goal Iranian troops or the Iranian individuals.”
He added: “The operation President Trump deliberate was daring, and it was good, exhibiting the world that American deterrence is again. When this president speaks, the world ought to hear.”
“Our B-2s went out and in … and again with out the world realizing in any respect,” Hegseth mentioned. “In that method it was historic. A strike that included the longest B-2 Spirit bomber mission since 2001, and the primary operational employment of the MOP, a Large Ordnance Penetrator.”
Mr. Trump introduced Saturday night that the U.S. had launched strikes towards Iran. He mentioned in a national address later Saturday night that the websites “have been fully and completely obliterated.”
Flanked by Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance on the White Home, the president described the strikes as a “spectacular navy success” and warned of “far higher” assaults if Iran doesn’t “make peace.”
“If peace doesn’t come rapidly, we are going to go after these different targets with precision, pace and ability, most of them might be taken out in a matter of minutes,” he mentioned. “There is not any navy on the earth that might have completed what we did tonight, not even shut. There has by no means been a navy that might do what came about just a bit whereas in the past.”
