Soroush Negahdari
BBC Monitoring

Image source, Maxar Technologies/Reuters

Iran's constitutional watchdog has officially approved a bill mandating the suspension of cooperation with the global nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The bill bars IAEA inspectors from accessing Iranian nuclear sites until specific conditions are met. These conditions include recognition of Iran's right to uranium enrichment under Article 4 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The bill has already been approved by Iran's parliament, and this approval from the Guardian Council - a body of clerics and jurists - means it is officially a law now.

Final authority, including how and when it will be implemented, lies with Iran's Supreme National Security Council and Iran’s supreme leader.

As we explained earlier, today's briefing by the US on their strikes on Iran was incredibly detailed.

For part of it, the press in the room were shown a video by Gen Dan Caine. The clip showed a test of one of the bombs used in the strikes.

The battle of the narrativespublished at 14:37 British Summer Time

14:37 BST

Frank Gardner
Security correspondent

Image source, Reuters

No surprises there then: the Pentagon briefing we have just watched is directly at odds with the claims made by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei earlier today.

The US, said Iran's leader, who has only just emerged from hiding, had "failed to achieve anything significant" in its attacks on Iran's key nuclear facilities. Yet those attacks, specifically the one on the most important site at Fordo, were "a historic success" according to the US Defence Secretary, destroying or "obliterating" Iran’s nuclear programme.

They can't both be right.

So let’s break this down. Did those six massive US bunker-busting bombs, the GBU-57s, all hit their targets in the mountain at Fordo? Yes.

Were they the culmination of years of painstaking study by the Pentagon on how best to attack Iran's deeply buried uranium enrichment programme? Yes. Did they choose the best line of attack - the ventilation shafts - then detonate at the right depth to achieve maximum effect? Yes.

But that's not the whole story.

We simply don't know, beyond conjecture, what state those centrifuges are in, down there in that subterranean hall, because neither US nor UN inspectors have been down there. Crucially, we don't know where the missing 408kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) has gone to.

And we don't know - because this was a Pentagon briefing, not an intelligence assessment - how much of a nuclear knowledge base Iran retains that could soon, potentially be applied to restarting its programme in secret.

So in short, from a purely tactical point of view, the B2 pilots who flew that extraordinary 37 hour mission to drop those 13-tonne bunker-busting bombs fulfilled their mission to the letter.

But when it comes to the question of whether Iran's suspected nuclear programme has actually been destroyed (as the US claims), or merely set back, the jury is still very much still out.

The US president has also just addressed rumours that some of Iran's highly enriched uranium was removed from the Fordo nuclear site before it was bombed by the US.

This was also denied by Hegseth during his press conference.

"Nothing was taken out of [the] facility," Trump writes on social media, adding it "would take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!"

Instead, he suggests that "cars and small trucks at the site" belonged to "concrete workers trying to cover up the top of the [ventilation] shafts".

As we reported, Gen Caine, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the US targeted the nuclear site in Fordo by dropping bombs down its ventilation shafts.

We've just heard reaction from US President Donald Trump, who calls his defence secretary's press conference "one of the greatest, most professional… news conferences" he has ever seen.

In a social media post, he goes on to suggest that the "Fake News should fire everyone involved in this Witch Hunt, and apologize to our great warriors, and everyone else!"

This appears to be part of his continuing push back against a leaked preliminary intelligence assessment that questioned the effectiveness of the raids.

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

Battle damage assessments take time – time to review intelligence reports from both surveillance and human sources, time to gather information and time to reach conclusions with some level of confidence.

The pace of American politics moves much more quickly.

Trump administration officials are pushing back hard against the leaked preliminary report suggesting a less than optimal result from Saturday night’s airstrikes because they know it doesn’t take long for the public opinion in a major event like this to harden. If American voters conclude now that the US attacks weren’t effective, it will be hard for the White house to change their minds weeks or months later.

Polls indicate that Donald Trump’s popularity has sagged recently and that Americans were sceptical about American military involvement in the Iran-Israel conflict going into Saturday night.

A successful military operation has the potential to give this president a boost if the White House can convince the public that Trump took decisive action, that produced a positive result. But the window on such opportunities closes fast.

Chris Partridge
BBC News weapons analyst

Image source, US Department of Defence

The Pentagon gave an unusually detailed description of the B-2 attacks on Fordo with the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), and showed various pictures of the strike scene.

They targeted two air ventilation shafts.

For each shaft, General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described how one MOP blew off a concrete cap covering the shaft, before five more MOPs - travelling at more than 1,000 feet per second – went down the same shaft, causing extensive blast and pressure damage.

He added: “Weapons all guided to intended targets and aim points and functioned as designed (ie exploded). Tailing jets said it was the brightest explosion they had ever seen. Male and female aviators were on this mission.”

We know that six B-2 bombers were involved at Fordo – each dropping two GBU-57s. The strike package was supported by F-22 and F-35 5th generation stealth jets – plus other 4th generation fighter aircraft.

On battle damage assessment, Gen Caine said the USAF was not involved, as that was for the intelligence teams. "We don't mark our own homework."

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth took the lectern at the Pentagon briefing room with two goals.

He wanted to present evidence of the success of the American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and push back against a preliminary defence intelligence assessment that suggested the strikes were less effective.

And he wanted to berate the American media and paint their coverage of that report as unpatriotic and disrespectful to the “brave men and women” in the US military.

Hegseth ticked through a variety of other intelligence information – from US sources as well as the Israelis - that he said concluded that the Iranian nuclear programme was set back years from the attacks.

“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated, choose your words,” he said.

The American media weren’t reporting this sufficiently, he said, because they were cheering against the president and hoping that he failed.

“It’s in your DNA.”

The morning’s briefing was the Trump administration’s attempt to wrest back the narrative around Saturday night’s attacks – and take a few mores swipes at journalists in the process.

There's a question now on whether highly enriched uranium had been moved out of the Fordo nuclear sites before the American missiles struck the Iranian base.

This is followed up by another asking whether Caine has been pressured politically to give a better assessment of what happened.

"No, I have not," Caine replies, adding that his job is to offer a range of options to the president and then follow the orders given.

"I've never been pressured by the president or the secretary to do anything other than tell them exactly what I'm thinking," he says.

Hegseth then steps in and responds to the question of whether uranium had been moved, saying: "There is nothing to suggest that we didn't hit exactly what we wanted to hit".

Pressed further on this, the defence secretary says the US is "watching every single aspect", but refuses to offer more detail.

Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent

A little earlier, the chairman showed a video that appears to show the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) destroying the entrances to the Fordo site - but again nothing definitive so far that the sites have been destroyed to the point where Iran can’t revive its nuclear programme.

When asked by reporters if he’d use the word obliterated - the general wouldn’t confirm.

Hegseth answers, angrily rebuking the press, and saying “[anyone] with eyes and a brain can recognise” the destruction.

Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent

What is somewhat odd is that Hegseth is playing down intelligence (albeit preliminary) from his own department and preferring to cite everyone else.

That even includes the UN - “no friend of the US or Israel” - he said. He highlights assessments by Israel and the IAEA.

But the defence secretary is doing the job he was hired to do - cheer the military and Trump whilst attacking the press.

In contrast, General Dan Caine from the Joint Chiefs of Staff has sidestepped Hegseth’s angry politics, focusing on the logistics and giving us a vivid picture of what the military achieved.

He says the oldest soldier on the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, where Iran retaliated with strikes, was 28 years old and the youngest was 21.

Caine says all US weapons that hit the Fordo nuclear site reached their target and exploded.

Pilots in the jets trailing behind described it as "the brightest explosion I've ever seen, it literally looked like daylight".

Caine praises the bomber crews involved and says when they landed home they were greeted by "incredible cheers" from their families. "Tears were flowing."

And he finishes by saying he "could not be more proud". US forces remain on a "high state of readiness in the region" and he warns American adversaries that teams are continuing to study targets.

Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent

Unsurprisingly Pete Hegseth has given a robust, somewhat angry, and emotional defence of President Trump and the US’s mission in Iran.

He has lashed out at the media for challenging the narrative and accuses them of "searching for scandals and missing moments".

He says he’s fighting for the dignity of great American patriots, implying not going with the administration’s narrative is somehow a betrayal.

He also accuses reporters of “fawning” over the leaked preliminary intelligence briefing which he said was a “low confidence” report.

His performance is not that different to his previous role as a weekend Fox News host where he did a lot of fawning over President Trump, which is why his critics say he got the defence job in the first place.

“Badly damaged”, “severely damaged” “set back years”, “effectively destroyed” - Pete Hegseth quoted many organisations including the UN (often dismissed by the Trump administration), as examples of why he says the nuclear sites have been destroyed.

But it feels like the goal posts keep changing. Originally we were told it was "obliterated".

What Hegseth hasn’t said so far: are the sites destroyed to a point where Iran can’t revive its nuclear programme?

Operation Midnight Hammer was the "culmination" of 15 years of work, Caine continues.

He says the weapons used in the strikes were "designed, planned and delivered" to achieve success in attacking the Fordo nuclear site.

They struck two ventilation shafts at the site, he explains, which the Iranians had tried to cover with concrete to prevent an attack, Caine adds.

On both of the shafts targeted, the concrete caps were destroyed by an initial strike, he adds, allowing five more bombs to penetrate each one and move down into the main complex and "explode in the mission space".

Caine then shows a video of one of the weapons in action.

Gen Caine now turns his attention to the Iranian nuclear sites attacked by the US.

He says America first received intelligence on a project deep in the Iranian mountains a long time ago - in a reference to the Fordo facility.

He says an officer from the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency had been studying Fordo for 15 years.

The general says a "bunker-buster" bomb was later developed with the aim to carry out the strike which eventually took place on 22 June.

• For context: The Fordo site is built deep within northern Iran’s rugged, remote mountains some 60 miles (96km) south of the capital Tehran

More from Caine, who says Iran's attack on the US air base in Qatar started at 07:30 local time.

Caine says he believes Al Udeid Air Base's air defence was the largest patriot engagement in America's military history.

He acknowledges that Qatar also helped the US defend its base, adding that the air defenders had seconds to decide what to do.

Championing US and Qatari soldiers involved, Caine says they demonstrated the combat capability of the army and air defences.

Image source, US Department of Defense

Gen Dan Caine, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is describing Iran's attack on the US airbase in Qatar.

"On Monday morning, the US began to receive warnings that Iran intended to attack US bases in region," he says.

On the orders of the president, he says they assumed a "minimum force posture" at the base - with "most folks" moved off the base except for a few soldiers.

Caine says there were 44 soldiers left "responsible for defending the entire base".

The oldest soldier was a 28-year-old captain, the youngest was a 21-year-old private who had been in the military for less than two years, he says.

Hegseth then proceeds to quote different agencies on the damage caused by the US strikes.

He says Israel's atomic agency said the US attack "rendered [Iranian] enrichment facilities inoperable".

Hegseth quotes the head of the UN nuclear watchdog as saying that "enormous damage" was caused to Iran's nuclear programme. And he adds that the CIA considers that Iran's nuclear programme "has been severely damaged".

Hegseth ends by accusing the media of spinning information about the strikes to make them appear unsuccessful.

"It's irresponsible," he says, as he praises those involved in the "complex" mission. "How about we celebrate that?" he poses. "This was an historically successful attack and we should celebrate it as Americans."

• UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday that there was a chance Tehran had moved much of its highly enriched uranium elsewhere as it came under attack

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says Washington "destroyed" Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Quoting a leaked intelligence report, Hegseth says it was a "preliminary" assessment and news outlets had an "agenda" to make the strikes appear less successful.

Hegseth decries the "fawning" coverage of the preliminary report, suggesting there were gaps in it and that it hadn't been coordinated with the wider intelligence community.

For context: An early Pentagon intelligence assessment of the US attack said its strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities did not destroy the country's nuclear programme and probably only set it back by months. Read more here

Hegseth continues to tell the news conference about the Nato commitment to spend 5% on defence and national security.

He says this "seemed impossible" five years ago "but here we are", he says, because of Trump's leadership.

He moves on to the US strikes in Iran, which he says were "highly successful".

Hegseth says Trump directed "the most complex and secretive military operation in history" and it was a "resounding success".