American strikes on three Iranian nuclear devices from Night to Sunday did not destroy the main components of the Tehran nuclear program, apparently just returned it in a few months. This is indicated by the initial estimate of US intelligence services, which on Tuesday, referring to three unnamed sources, informed CNN. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt challenged the report in response and described the alleged estimate as completely false, TASR writes.
On Sunday, the United States bombed Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordó, Nanza and Isfahane. US President Donald Trump immediately said that the attacks “completely destroyed” these devices. Similarly, his Defense Minister Pete Hegseth spoke of Iran’s destroyed nuclear ambitions.
The preliminary assessment of the impacts of the attacks was developed by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which is part of the US Department of Defense (Pentagon). It is based on the estimation of the damage that the US (Centcom) central command (Cent), one of the sources said.
According to the cited persons, the assessment shows that the Iranian supplies of enriched uranium were not destroyed and the centrifugs are largely “intact”. Indeed, in all three Iranian devices, mostly structures located above the ground were allegedly affected, which were seriously damaged.
They did not destroy the nuclear program back in a few months
According to analysts, it is still unclear whether the US strikes have removed the nuclear threat of Tehran – it is possible that Iran has managed to move its supplies of highly enriched uranium outside the sites that were the target of Israeli and American attacks. The estimate of Dia, according to one of the sources, is that the US has returned the Iranian nuclear program “a maximum of several months”, CNN said.
The White House admitted that there was an assessment, but said he disagreed with it. Leavitt on the X Network wrote that the document was described as “strict secret”, but nevertheless it was said to “provided an anonymous unsuccessful employee of the intelligence community”.
“The leakage of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to humiliate President Trump and discredit the courageous fighter pilots who have done a perfectly executed mission to destroy the Iranian nuclear program.
The evaluation of the damage continues continues
According to CNN, the US is still too early to gain a comprehensive picture of the impact of their strokes, and the damage evaluation continues. None of the sources registered how the DIA report coincides with the aspect of other intelligence services. The US continues to collect news information, even from Iran, CNN added.
The head of the US Defense Department Hegseth in reports questioning the declared success rate of attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities responded by saying that the dropped bombs “hit exactly the right place in every goal – and worked perfectly”. “Based on everything we saw – and I saw everything – our bombing destroyed Iran’s ability to construct nuclear weapons,” Hegseth told Reuters.
