WATCH: Pentagon Holds Press Conference After Iran Strikes

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan “Razin” Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Sunday held a joint press conference to discuss the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

Hegseth confirmed that B-2 stealth bombers dropped 14 GBU-57 bunker buster bombs on the hardened Fordow uranium enrichment site on Saturday evening. Satellite images confirm that the bombs were able to penetrate the heavily-fortified site, and the administration has expressed confidence that Iran’s nuclear capabilities have been eliminated.

“And I think Tehran is certainly calculating the reality that planes flew from the middle of America and Missouri overnight, completely undetected, over three of their most highly sensitive sites, and we were able to destroy nuclear capabilities, and our boys in those bombers are on their way home right now,” the defense secretary told reporters.

“We believe that’ll have a clear psychological impact on how they view the future and we certainly hope they take the path of negotiated peace,” Hegseth added before praising American service members for carrying out the daring raid.

Elsewhere in the press conference, Hegseth stressed that the strikes were intended to be limited in nature and that regime change was not an intended goal of the operation. “This mission was not and has not been about regime change,” he said.

“The President authorized a precision operation to neutralize the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program and the collective self-defense of our troops the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program and our ally Israel.”

“This was a complex and high-risk mission carried out with exceptional skill and discipline by our joint force. I want to thank every service member, planner, operator that made this mission possible. Their actions reflect the highest standards of the United States Armed Forces,” General Caine said after echoing Hegseth’s praise of U.S. service members.

“This operation was designed to severely degrade Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure. It was planned and executed across multiple domains and theaters with coordination that reflects our ability to project power globally with speed and precision at the time and place of our nation’s choosing. This was a highly classified mission with very few people in Washington knowing the timing or nature of this plan,” the general continued before providing an operational overview.

In order to maintain operations security, strategic assets were deployed to the Pacific in order to serve as a “decoy” and keep the element of tactical surprise. The main strike package consisted of seven B-2 heavy bombers, each of which are crewed by two airmen.

“Throughout the 18-hour flight into the target area, the aircraft completed multiple in-flight refuelings. Once over land, the B-2s linked up with escort and support aircraft in a complex, tightly timed maneuver requiring exact synchronization across multiple platforms in a narrow piece of airspace, all done with minimal communications. This type of integration is exactly what our joint force does better than anyone else in the world,” Caine said.

Once over the targets, strikes commenced around 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time. As the heavy bombers struck the Fordow site, more than 30 Tomahawk missiles were launched by submarines at additional nuclear sites at Natanz and Esfahan. Both of the former sites had already been targeted by the Israeli military in the preceding days.

“Throughout the mission, we retained the element of surprise. In total, US forces employed approximately 75 precision-guided weapons during this operation. This included, as the President stated last night, fourteen 30,000-pound GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrators, marking the first-ever operational use of this weapon,” Caine said. “I know that battle damage is of great interest. Final battle damage will take some time, but initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction.”