US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend did not destroy the country’s nuclear program, early intelligence suggests, contrary to claims by President Donald Trump, a report states.
Citing four people briefed on the initial assessment produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, CNN reports that the strikes likely only set Iran’s nuclear ambitions back by months.
The DIA, the Pentagon’s intelligence agency, based its assessment on battle damage analysis carried out by U.S. Central Command after the strikes on Saturday night, according to one source who spoke with CNN.
While analysis of the damage to the three sites is still ongoing and may change as more intelligence becomes available, these early findings contradict Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.
The same claim was made on Sunday by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Two of the people familiar with the assessment cited by CNN said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One said the centrifuges are largely “intact.”
That person added: “So the assessment is that the U.S. set them back maybe a few months, tops.”
According to the U.S. military, the operation went as planned and was an “overwhelming success.”
The White House has acknowledged the existence of the assessment to the network but said they did not agree with its conclusions.
In a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN: “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.”
She continued: “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.”
A comprehensive analysis of the damage to Iran’s nuclear program is still underway by the broader U.S. intelligence community, and the DIA assessment is the only one to be spoken of so far. Therefore, comparisons with other agencies cannot be made at this time.
As the smoke cleared over the three underground facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan hit by stealth bombers and cruise missiles over the weekend, experts who spoke with The Independent say the result may actually bring an Iranian nuclear bomb closer to reality and raise the risk of greater U.S. involvement in the conflict.
“Technically, it’s probably slightly further away, but politically it’s much more imminent,” said Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute and a former member of the International Security Advisory Board (ISAB), which advises the Secretary of State.
