US President Donald Trump has asserted that the recent US strikes on Iran‘s nuclear sites have “completely destroyed” the facilities, contrary to reports from US media outlets citing a Pentagon assessment that the attacks only set Tehran’s nuclear program back by a few months. The discrepancy in assessments has sparked a heated debate about the effectiveness of the military strikes.
According to Trump, the strikes were a “spectacular military success,” and he emphasized that Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been “completely and totally obliterated”. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote, “The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed!” He also mentioned that the biggest damage took place far below ground level, which is not visible on satellite images.
However, officials familiar with the military intelligence report from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) have provided a different account. They suggest that Iran’s “enriched uranium was not destroyed” and the centrifuges were “largely intact”. Another source told CNN that enriched uranium had been moved before the US strikes on Sunday.
The White House has disputed the intelligence assessment, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stating that it is “flat-out wrong”. She emphasized that dropping fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets results in “total obliteration”.
Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, also dismissed the intelligence report, saying that most, if not all, the centrifuges at the three nuclear sites had been damaged or destroyed. In his view, and that of many other experts who have seen the raw data, it will take a period of years for Iran to resurrect its nuclear program.
Shihab Rattansi noted that an information war is underway, with figures in Washington keen to leak a very preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency bombing assessment. This could be an attempt to demean President Trump and discredit the fighter pilots who conducted the mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program.
The varying assessments highlight the complexity of the situation and the challenges in determining the actual damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The incident has also raised concerns about the potential for further escalation in the Middle East and the impact on diplomatic efforts to monitor Iran’s nuclear program.