President Donald Trump is defending the effectiveness of U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites while attending the NATO summit, despite mixed messages from his administration.
Trump reiterated Wednesday that the U.S. bombs dropped over the weekend destroyed three key Iranian facilities. “It was very, very successful. It was called obliteration. No other military on earth could have done it,” Trump said.
However, a report from the Defense Intelligence Agency suggests Iran’s nuclear weapons program has only been set back a few months, according to AP sources. The early assessment reportedly indicates that the entrance collapsed at the Fordo enrichment facility deep underground, and infrastructure was damaged but not totally destroyed.
It also suggests some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium was moved out of multiple sites before the strikes and survived.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at Middlebury Institute, said, “Iran could restart the program almost immediately.”
The White House is calling the leaked Pentagon assessment low-confidence intel and is sharing a statement from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, which claims the American and Israeli strikes set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by “many years.”
Trump doubled down on the impact, saying, “We destroyed the nuclear. In other words, that’s destroyed. I said Iran will not have nuclear. Well, we blew it up. It’s blown up to kingdom come.”
The CIA released a statement this afternoon saying that intelligence shows the nuclear program has been severely damaged by the strike. Others within the administration have acknowledged it will take some time to fully assess the damage.
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Trump defends U.S. strikes on Iran amid conflicting reports
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