President Donald Trump announced that Israeli officials believe the U.S. airstrike targeting an Iranian nuclear site over the weekend has made it “totally inoperable” and set the regime back for years.
The agency assesses “that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities have set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons for many years to come.”
Over the weekend, U.S. B-2 stealth planes dropped bombs on several Iranian sites, including the partially buried Fordow site, before Trump announced that a cease-fire would commence between Israel and Iran after more than a week-long aerial conflict between the two nations.
This week, a preliminary report, issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), was leaked to media outlets stating Iran’s nuclear capabilities were not totally destroyed in the U.S. airstrike, drawing pushback from Trump and other administration officials.
“Now, if you take a look at the pictures … the whole area for 75 yards around the hole is black with fire,” Trump said, referring to the damage done during the strikes on Fordow. He also chided media outlets for reporting on the leak, saying that the pilots of the U.S. B-2 planes put their lives at risk to carry out the mission and that the report was discrediting those military members.
“It was obliteration, and you’ll see that,” Trump told reporters earlier in the day while attending the NATO summit in the Netherlands. He said the intelligence was “very inconclusive” and described media outlets as “scum” for reporting on it.
Trump has said in comments and posts on social media in recent days, including Tuesday, that the strike left the sites in Iran “totally destroyed” and that Iran will never rebuild its nuclear facilities.
The White House also rejected the DIA assessment, releasing an emailed statement on Wednesday to The Epoch Times indicating that Iran’s nuclear facilities “have been obliterated” and chided “fake news” reports.
That email also included a quote from Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei saying that “our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure.”
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised statement, “For dozens of years I promised you that Iran would not have nuclear weapons and indeed … we brought to ruin Iran’s nuclear program.” He said the United States joining Israel was a historic move and praised Trump.
It comes as the head of the UN atomic agency signaled that international investigators are unsure of where Iran’s uranium is located following the strikes or whether it was moved.
“I have to be very precise. …We are the IAEA, so we are not speculating here,” he said. “We do not have information of the whereabouts of this material.”
