Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took a lecturen in the Pentagon briefing room with two goals on Thursday morning.
He wanted to present proof of the success of the US attack on Iran’s nuclear amenities, pushing back against an early defense intelligence evaluation stating that the attacks were less effective.
And he wanted to harass American media and depict his coverage of that initial report as incompatible and derogatory for “brave men and women” in the US Army.
It was a briefing aimed at winning the divided referendum on the attacks – and to satisfy the audience of one in the White House, who have been railing against media coverage since day.
The previous target is still in question, but the latter has been completed.
“The greatest, the most professional, and the most ‘news conferences confirmed’ I have ever seen!” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that after the conclusion of Hegseth.
During his half -hour briefing, Hegseth ticks through a series of intelligence, although it was slightly new.
He read from a Wednesday letter written by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, claiming that “historically reliable and accurate sources/method was intelligent that many major Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and they would have to be rebuilt for years”.
He first cited Israeli Intelligence Finding, made a statement recently by Iranian leaders and reviewed the initial conclusions of “very important damage” by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
After General Dan Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff provided information about the development and power of the “bunker Buster Bomb” used in the attack – including how he was used to repeatedly hit the ventilation shaft in Iran’s Fordo facility – Hegseth asked the Americans to use their general knowledge whether the stricks were successful.
“Anyone with two eyes, ears and one brain can recognize that kind of firepower, with that uniqueness at that place and others are going to have a devastating effect,” he said.
“You want to destroy it, you want to make it defeated, you want to call it obituated, choose your words,” he said. “It was a historically successful attack.”
After appreciating the army members participating in the strike, Hegseth poured out the people they wanted to portray as the real villain of the story – an American media said that he was more interested in cheering against the President and hoped that he had failed. “This is in your DNA,” he said.
If Hegseth’s comments were paired with anger and frustration, it is in the part because there are more political bets at this time.
It takes time to assess war damage – the time to review the intelligence report from both monitoring and human sources, the time to gather information and time to reach the conclusion with some level of confidence. But the pace of American politics moves very quickly.
Officials of the Trump administration know that such a major event does not take a long time for public opinion. If American voters now conclude that the US attacks were not effective, it would be difficult for the White House to change the mind after weeks or months.
There was an attempt to withdraw a story derailed by Hegseth’s morning briefing initial defense intelligence report.
The pole indicates that Donald Trump’s popularity has recently gained and Americans had doubts about American military partnership in the Iran-Israeli conflict on Saturday night.
In the days after the attack, a survey found that the Republican was rally around the President, most of the Democrats and independents believed that American action made Americans less safe.
In theory, a successful military campaign has the ability to promote the President political if the White House could explain to the public that Trump took decisive action, which created positive results. This will provide the President to claim the success of foreign policy after its early high-profile efforts to end wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
But on such occasions the windows stop rapidly, which could tell why Trump, often suffering from hyperbole, was in a hurry to declare that Iran’s nuclear program was “slant”, as the strike was still busy with the strike and before the intelligence assessment started in Bayana.
Why is it also that his critics were so eager to promote the initial Pentagon report that his claims were outlined – and why journalists saw, noted politicians inspired by political gains, paid attention.
