Unlock the White House Watch watch newsletter for free
Your guide on what Trump’s second term for Washington, Business and the World means
US air strikes on Iran have given its nuclear progress for less than six months, according to an assessment of early American information which doubts Donald Trump’s claims to have “erased” the program.
The conclusions of the preliminary report on the attack on the Defense Intelligence Agency, described by certain American media, intervened only three days after the authorization of the President the bombardment of the main nuclear sites of Iran.
The conclusions of the DIA, revealed Tuesday by CNN and others, were furiously rejected by the White House and the Pentagon, which was held by AssetThe judgment according to which the nuclear program of Iran had been destroyed.
The white house press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X that the “alleged” evaluation “had been disclosed by” a low -level anonymous loser in the intelligence community “.
Leavitt added: “Everyone knows what is happening when you perfectly drop fourteen bombs of 30,000 pounds on their targets: total obliteration.”
The report’s conclusions will raise questions about the merits of the American military strike, which involved B-2 furtive bombers and missiles launched by submarine striking Iranian nuclear sites in Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, an installation buried half a kilometer underground.
Iran has repeatedly said that its nuclear program was for civil ends. American intelligence earlier this year also said that Iran did not build a bomb, although Trump rejected this assessment.
“Based on everything we have seen – and I saw everything – our bombing campaign has erased Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons. Our massive bombs struck the right place with each target – and worked perfectly,” said US Secretary for Defense, Pete Hegseth.
“The impact of these bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran; therefore anyone who says that the bombs were not devastating simply try to undermine the president and the successful mission,” he added.
DIA is part of the US Defense Ministry.
On Trump administration on Tuesday, the Trump administration postponed a classified briefing for American legislators to discuss the outcome of strikes, pulling the fury of the Democrats.
Chuck Schumer, the best democrat in the Senate, described the postponement as “scandalous”. He added: “They swing, wove themselves and that break. Senators deserve full transparency.”
Pat Ryan, a member of the New York Democrat Congress and member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Trump had canceled the briefing because “his team knows that they cannot safeguard his fanfaron and BS”.
The growing debate in the United States on the question of whether the mission has succeeded after the Iranian president said that Israel had failed to destroy the country’s nuclear sites and know-how.
Masoud Pezeshkian told his nation in an end of evening speech on Tuesday that “the aggressor enemy had failed to achieve his sinister objectives that destroyed the facilities, the drop in nuclear knowledge and social disorders”, according to the state media.
The president added that if Iran suffered a loss of life for 12 days of war with Israel, the damage suffered by Israel were “beyond the imagination”.
However, in a pre-recorded address on Tuesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported Trump’s claims, saying that Israeli and American bombing campaigns had brought Iran’s nuclear program to “ruin”.
He also threatened to “act in the same way” if Iran tried to rebuild him.
Additional James Shotter report in Jerusalem
