Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth went on the attack against the corporate news media at a Pentagon press conference this morning, particularly taking aim at CNN and the New York Times for “fawning coverage” of a preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that concluded that the June 22 U.S. air strikes only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months. Hegseth claimed that the strikes were “historic” in that they were “a resounding success resulting in a ceasefire agreement and the end of the 12-day war.”
The DIA report “admits itself in writing that it requires weeks to accumulate the necessary data to make such an assessment,” Hegseth said. “It’s preliminary. It points out that it’s not been coordinated with the intelligence community at all. There’s low confidence in this particular report. It says in the report there are gaps in the information….”
Hegseth claimed the report was “leaked because someone had an agenda to try to muddy the waters and make it look like this historic strike wasn’t successful.”
