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The US air strikes on Iran set back its nuclear progress by less than six months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that casts doubt on Donald Trump’s claims to have “obliterated” the programme.
The findings of the preliminary report into the attack by the Defense Intelligence Agency, described by some US media, came just three days after the US president authorised the bombing of Iran’s key nuclear sites.
The DIA’s findings, revealed on Tuesday by CNN and others, were furiously rejected by the White House and the Pentagon, which stood by Trump’s judgment that Iran’s nuclear programme had been destroyed.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X that the “alleged ‘assessment’” had been leaked by “an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community”.
Leavitt added: “Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”
The report’s findings will raise questions about the merits of the US military strike, which involved B-2 stealth bombers and submarine-launched missiles hitting Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, a facility buried half a kilometre underground.
Iran has repeatedly said that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes. US intelligence earlier this year also said that Iran was not building a bomb, although Trump rejected that assessment.
“Based on everything we have seen — and I’ve seen it all — our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons. Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target — and worked perfectly,” US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said.
“The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran; so anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the president and the successful mission,” he added.
The DIA is part of the US department of defence.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration postponed a classified briefing for US lawmakers to discuss the outcome of the strikes, drawing fury from Democrats.
Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, described the postponement as “outrageous”. He added: “They’re bobbing and weaving and ducking. Senators deserve full transparency.”
Pat Ryan, a Democratic congressman from New York and member of the House armed services committee, claimed Trump had cancelled the briefing because “his team knows they can’t back up his bluster and BS”.
The growing debate in the US about whether the mission succeeded came after Iran’s president said Israel had failed to destroy the country’s nuclear sites and knowhow.
Masoud Pezeshkian said in a late-night address to his nation on Tuesday that “the aggressor enemy failed in achieving its sinister aims which were destroying facilities, declining nuclear knowledge and social unrest”, according to state media.
The president added that while Iran suffered loss of life during 12-days of war with Israel, the damage suffered by Israel was “beyond imagination”.
However, in a pre-recorded address on Tuesday night, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed up Trump’s claims, saying the Israeli and US bombing campaigns had brought Iran’s nuclear programme to “ruin”.
He also threatened to “act in the same way” if Iran tried to rebuild it.
Additional reporting by James Shotter in Jerusalem
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