Military

Pentagon Presses Iran Strike Claims as Briefed Senators Point to Unknown Effects

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon

A day that was supposed to offer both lawmakers and the public new information to address reporting and questions about the effectiveness of the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities ended with little progress for the Trump administration.

A Thursday morning Pentagon press conference ordered by President Donald Trump quickly turned contentious, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spending much of his time berating the press over what he felt were poor choices in coverage. Reporting emerged earlier in the week that initial assessments by the Defense Intelligence Agency found Trump's airstrikes on Iran had likely not eliminated its nuclear program and only set it back months.

Meanwhile, a closed-door classified briefing for senators on Capitol Hill ended with lawmakers saying it was still too early to know how badly Iran's nuclear program was damaged by U.S. strikes over the weekend, despite Trump's insistence that the U.S. bombs "obliterated" their targets.

The pair of briefings came as the Trump administration seeks to discredit the early intelligence assessment ^[2], which was starkly at odds with claims made immediately after the strikes by both Trump and Hegseth.

"The news conference will prove both interesting and irrefutable," Trump said in a social media post Wednesday, referring to the public Pentagon briefing.

However, the event began with the defense secretary taking nearly 10 minutes to lambaste the press for what Hegseth claimed was an anti-military bias before passing it off to Gen. Dan Caine, the Joint Chiefs chairman.

Caine then took another nearly 20 minutes to offer an argument for the mission's success that largely focused on the incredibly meticulous nature in which the bombs -- the Massive Ordnance Penetrators -- were designed specifically with the destruction of Iran's Fordo nuclear facility in mind.

Caine did not address the strikes at the other two locations of Natanz and Isfahan or the possibility that Iran had other locations or materials that could be used to continue weapons development.

The four-star general then told reporters that the mission was meticulously planned to put the bombs through the ventilation shafts at the Fordo facility and that, ultimately, the bombs "went exactly where they were intended to go."

Finally, Caine said that "we know that the trailing jets saw the first weapons function, and the pilot stated, quote, 'This was the brightest explosion that I've ever seen.'"

Still, neither Caine nor Hegseth were able to offer any direct evidence of the destruction at the Fordo facility. Trump ordered the strike on the facility -- a historic move against the U.S.' longtime foe in the region -- after Israel started a bombing campaign that triggered an Iranian retaliation.

Hegseth repeated his argument from Wednesday and told reporters that "if you want to know what's going on at Fordo, you better go there and get a big shovel, because no one's under there right now."

Caine argued that the "majority of the damage we assessed based on our extensive modeling" would have come from the bomb's blasts.

Experts were quick to note that that type of argument -- everything matched the models and plans -- is flawed.

"A strike can go 'precisely as planned' and still fail, if the model of the facility is wrong," Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said on social media Thursday ^[3].

After briefing reporters, Hegseth and Caine, among others, then went to Capitol Hill and gave the full Senate a closed-door classified briefing.

While some of Trump's staunchest supporters in the Senate backed his claims that the facilities hit by U.S. forces were completely destroyed, even some Republicans emerged from the briefing tamping down that appraisal -- in the same breaths in which they praised the operation.

"I would just say the goals of the mission were accomplished," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters. "I don't think anybody's been underground to assess the extent of the damage, so I don't know if anybody can give you a precise number" of how long Iran's nuclear program was set back.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., similarly told reporters that "whether it is a month or a year or some other period really depends on the final battle damage assessment, which has not been done."

By contrast, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an ardent Trump supporter and Iran hawk, was adamant that Iran's nuclear program has been hampered for years.

"They blew these places up in a major league way," Graham said.

In the public briefing, Hegseth was quick to point to intelligence assessments from both the CIA ^[4] and the Director of National Intelligence ^[5] released Wednesday that cited "new intelligence" that the facilities in Iran were destroyed. Neither statement, however, offered any details about the new intelligence, and Hegseth wouldn't commit to making it public.

Yet when a reporter asked Hegseth whether he felt the public needed to see the intelligence being cited, he countered: "Do you have a top secret clearance, sir?"

Also left unanswered was whether the Trump administration was factoring in reports that Iran removed all of its enriched uranium from the targeted locations before the U.S. strikes.

Hegseth, when asked, said only that he was "not aware of any intelligence ... that says things were not where they were supposed to be, moved or otherwise."

Notably, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was not one of the briefers for the Senate session. In addition to Hegseth and Caine, senators heard from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

The same slate of officials is scheduled to brief the House on Friday morning, when they are likely to face similar skepticism and questions as they did from senators.

"I walk away from that briefing still under the belief that we have not obliterated the program," Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Thursday. "The president was deliberately misleading the public when he said the program was obliterated. It is certain that there is still significant capability and significant equipment that remain."

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Upcharging on Food, Selling Booze: The Army's Plan to Privatize Dining

Iron Eagles Cafe after its official reopening at Fort Bliss

The Army ^[1] is preparing to overhaul its food service system in a move that could strip away government-run dining facilities and hand operations to private, for-profit companies.

Framed as a modernization effort, the plan could saddle enlisted soldiers, many of whom already struggle with low pay ^[2], with even greater costs for meals they are effectively required to buy.

So-called "campus-style dining" has been pitched to lawmakers as a way to incentivize private vendors to create Army dining spaces where soldiers want to eat, with longer hours, a better atmosphere, and additional menu variety.

But documents reviewed by Military.com show a system light on guardrails, nutrition standards and financial transparency -- and heavy on opportunities for contractors to upsell alcohol and high-priced extras to a population that has little choice to opt out.

So far, the Army still hasn't found a contractor to take up the deal. The deadline for contractors to make a pitch is Tuesday.

"[We] will leverage industry expertise and incentivize a contractor to operate a facility where soldiers want to dine, with better ambience, additional healthy food options, extended operating hours, and more," Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, the acting head of Army Material Command, told lawmakers during an April hearing on the Defense Department's food operations.

The pilot program, currently open for bids, covers dining operations at five of the Army's largest installations: Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Carson ^[4], Colorado; Fort Stewart ^[5], Georgia; Fort Drum ^[6], New York; and Fort Cavazos ^[7], Texas.

Under the proposal, contractors would run the facilities, cover renovation costs up front, and be allowed to sell premium items such as higher-quality meal options, snacks and booze. They would also share the profits with the Army.

There are few restrictions on what vendors can sell, and they are exempt from following Army nutritional standards altogether, though the service itself also frequently skirts its own nutrition rules ^[8]. The Army has also waived compliance with the Berry Amendment, which requires the military to prioritize U.S.-made products or purchase through the Defense Logistics Agency, which governs oversight and logistics of food products for the Pentagon.

For many of the troops who would be affected, there is no real choice in the matter.

Junior enlisted service members who live in barracks are automatically charged a Basic Allowance for Subsistence, or BAS, amounting to roughly $460 per month. That money is deducted directly from their paychecks, regardless of how often they eat or what they consume, though the service has been largely unable to account for how that money is spent ^[9].

Under the privatized model, the deductions would continue, but soldiers may find themselves paying out of pocket for items not covered in the contractor's meal package under the "campus-style dining" initiative.

"It's important to stress this is a pilot program; we'll be assessing how this goes," Col. Junel Jeffrey, a service spokesperson, told Military.com. "Regular dining facilities are not being replaced."

Phrases such as "high-quality" and "fresh" are used frequently throughout the solicitation for contracts dictating what the Army expects from potential contractors, though the service never defines what those words actually mean.

The Defense Department has had mixed success with privatizing some of its major quality-of-life services, such as medical care, housing and military permanent change of station ^[10] moves.

It has looked to private companies to tackle some of the department's largest duties since the early 1990s, giving broader access to privately managed health care to family members and retirees, establishing the privatized military housing program to address shortfalls in family housing and, most recently, awarding a contract to a private joint partnership to run military moves.

For the most part, companies have invested heavily in their military contracts, providing services and benefits beyond what were offered by the Defense Department when it managed the programs.

But those efforts have not been without trouble and, in some cases, major scandals.

In 2018, the Reuters news organization uncovered shoddy construction and workmanship, poor service and inadequate maintenance that contributed to poor health and safety concerns ^[11] among military families in privatized housing.

A change in Tricare ^[12] contractors this year continues to affect military families, who have faced problems getting medical appointments ^[13] and maintaining their services with private health care providers in a new network managed by TriWest Healthcare Alliance.

And as recently as last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth canceled a $7.2 billion contract to a company hired in 2021 to run the services' permanent change of station moves ^[14]. According to the DoD, the company, HomeSafe Alliance, failed to deliver on promises that it would assume management of nearly all of the DoD's domestic moves this year.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said cancellation of the company's contract was "for cause due to HSA's demonstrated inability to fulfill their obligations and deliver high-quality moves to service members."

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