Strikes on Iran set back its nuclear program only several months, sources say

Washington – An initial assessment of Defense Intelligence Agency concludes that US air strikes on Iranian nuclear enrichment sites during the weekend were not as effective as President Donald Trump said and that they have submitted the country’s nuclear program only three to six months, according to three people knowing the report.

“We assumed that damage was going to be much more important than this evaluation,” said one of the three sources. “This assessment already notes that these base parts are always intact. It is a bad sign for the global program. ”

CNN first pointed out the evaluation conclusions.

The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said reports on intelligence assessment were inaccurate.

“This alleged evaluation is perfectly wrong and has been classified as a top secret ” but has always been disclosed to CNN by a low-level anonymous loser in the intelligence community,” she said in a statement. “The leak of this alleged evaluation is a clear attempt to lower President Trump and discredit the brave hunting pilots who carried out a perfectly executed mission to erase the nuclear program of Iran.”

She added: “Everyone knows what is happening when you drop fourteen bombs of 30,000 pounds perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”

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An official of the White House said that defense leaders continue to “analyze the impact” of the bomb attack targeting Iran’s nuclear installations.

Trump said on Saturday that the Iranian nuclear program was “completely and completely erased”, but the first American military officer was less final on Sunday in his opinion, a so-called evaluation of battle damage.

“The final battle damage will take some time, but the initial battle damage assessments indicate that the three sites have suffered extremely serious damage and destruction,” said the president of the joint staff chiefs, the general of Air Caine, the general of Air Caine.

Initial information reports do not indicate that all Uranium stocks highly enriched by Iran have been destroyed or counted, and there are still questions about Iran’s advanced centrifugers, which were not located on nuclear sites bombed by American aircraft, According to one of the sources.

Representative Jim Himes du Connecticut, the best democrat of the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC on Monday that “it will be a good one, long before we know, if we ever learn, if we were able to really destroy the actions of 60% enriched uranium.”

Arms control experts say uranium can be transported relatively easily in cartridges.

A senior White House official told NBC News that early evaluation “had not reached the highest level of leadership at the Ministry of Defense”. The person said defense leaders continue to “analyze the impact” of bombing.

The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, also pushed the review into a press release, saying: “Based on everything we saw – and I saw everything – our bombing campaign has erased Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons. Our massive bombs hit the right place exactly with each target. assignment.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Tuesday in a speech to his nation that Israel “had destroyed the main facilities in Arak, Natanz and Isfahan” and “erased the enrichment site of hiding in crime”.

“We have eliminated Iran’s nuclear archives,” said Netanyahu. “We have dismantled the Iranian nuclear project. And if someone in Iran thinks of rebuilding it – we are going to knock again. ”

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon said on Tuesday in an interview “Meet the Press Now” that he was “still very early to take conclusions” on damage and that the evaluations are still to come. He argued that Israel and the United States “could degrade their capacities, repel them in decades”.

The director general of the UN nuclear surveillance dog, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said since the strike that craters were visible on the Fordo site, but that no one, including the International Atomic Energy Agency, was able to fully assess underground damage to the establishment. Grossi confirmed that Natanz and Isfahan were affected and that the entries of the tunnels used to store enriched materials seemed to have been affected.

Since strikes, Democratic legislators have demanded information on military action that Trump has unilaterally authorized and expressed skepticism that it actually destroys the nuclear components of Iran.

The classified American evaluation of the operation was transmitted to the congress and considered by certain senators in a safe place, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation.

Several Democrats in the Senate confirmed that they had seen it.

“I’m not going, you know, commenting on the veracity of something that has been disclosed,” Senator Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Told NBC News on Tuesday, adding that the evaluation of battle damage “is difficult” and that “it is also very difficult to destroy things underground”.

Questioned by NBC News if he had seen the evaluation, the head of the majority of the Senate John Thune, Rs.d., replied: “I saw things.”

The Democrats of Congress are unhappy with the quantity of information that the administration shared with the Congress.

“Is it, in fact, the case that Iran’s nuclear program was completely and completely deleted?” The minority head of the Hakeem Jeffries room, DN.Y., asked on Tuesday during a press conference. “There are apparently reasons to believe that it was a false flagrant statement made by Donald Trump to the American people.”