US President Donald Trump insists nuclear sites in Iran were “completely destroyed” by US military strikes, despite an intelligence report casting doubt on their success.
The leaked damage assessment from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency estimates the attack only set Iran’s nuclear programme back “a few months.”
The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.
Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” Another source said that the intelligence assessed enriched uranium was moved out of the sites prior to the US strikes.
“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.
The White House acknowledged the existence of the assessment but said they disagreed with it.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement: “This alleged assessment is flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community. The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”
Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff called the leaked intelligence assessment on the US strike on Iran “treasonous.”
“It’s outrageous, it’s treasonous and it has to be investigated. Whoever’s responsible for it should be held accountable,” he told Fox News.
He added that he has read all the damage assessment reports, saying there’s “no doubt” that all three nuclear sites the US hit were “obliterated”.
Trump appeared to echo Witkoff’s comments by posting a clip of the Fox interview on Truth Social, quoting him as saying: “We put 12 bunker buster bombs on Fordow. There’s no doubt that it breached the canopy…and there’s no doubt that it was OBLITERATED. So, the reporting out there that in some way suggests that we did not achieve the objective is just completely preposterous!”
