At the conclusion of President Donald Trump’s brief address to the nation Saturday night regarding the U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, he noted that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine would hold a Sunday morning press conference on the mission from the Pentagon.
Hegseth and Caine did just that bright and early Sunday, both speaking briefly before taking a few questions from assembled reporters.
Hegseth spoke first, praising the mission’s success.
“This is a plan that took months and weeks of positioning and preparation, so that we could be ready when the President of the United States called. It took a great deal of precision. It involved misdirection and the highest of operational security. Our B-2s went in and out…of these nuclear sites — in and out and back — without the world knowing at all. In that way, it was historic — a strike that included the longest B-2 Spirit Bomber mission since 2001 and the first operational employment of the MOP, a Massive Ordnance Penetrator.”
From their remarks, we learned several key additional points:
- The mission was named “Operation Midnight Hammer.”
- SecDef Hegseth characterized its execution as “flawless.”
- CJCS Caine referred to it as a “complex and high-risk mission, carried out with exceptional skill and discipline by our joint force.”
- Caine also noted, “This was a highly classified mission with very few people in Washington knowing the timing or nature of this plan.”
- As we learned late Saturday evening, Friday evening’s midnight launch of B-2 bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri included a partial decoy package which headed west — “a deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners and key leaders” — while the main strike package, comprised of seven B-2 Spirit Bombers, “proceeded quietly to the east with minimal communications.”
- It was an 18-hour flight into the target area, requiring multiple in-flight refuelings.
- Once they were 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.”
- Over two dozen Tomahawk missiles were launched at Isfahan at approximately 5:00 PM Eastern on Saturday.
- As the strike package entered Iranian airspace, the U.S. employed deception tactics, including decoys, to sweep in front of the package for enemy fighters and surface-to-air missile threats.
- They are currently unaware of any shots fired at the strike package on the way in or on the way out. Iran’s fighters did not fly, and it appears that the SAMs did not see us — the element of surprise was maintained throughout the mission.
- At 6:40 PM Eastern, the lead B-2 dropped the first GBU 57 MOP on the first target, with the remaining bombers then hitting their targets. In total, 14 MOPs were dropped.
- All three of the Iranian nuclear facility targets were struck within a 25-minute window, between 6:40 PM and 7:05 PM Eastern, with the Tomahawks being the last to strike at Isfahan to ensure the element of surprise was retained throughout the operation.
By all accounts (save for Iranian propaganda and a handful of domestic naysayers), Operation Midnight Hammer was a rousing success.
