CNN: US Strikes Didn't Destroy Nukes

A classified preliminary U.S. intelligence report suggested that the Trump administration’s initial assessment of damage to Iran’s nuclear program from U.S. strikes was overblown, CNN reported.

An assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Department’s intelligence wing, surveyed the damage from the United States’s B-2 strikes with 30,000-pound bunker-buster munitions and smaller follow-up strikes from Israel’s air force, sources told several outlets. Based on information gathered from a U.S. Central Command assessment, the DIA estimated that the strikes on the nuclear facilities, particularly the Fordow fuel enrichment plant, set Iran’s nuclear program back by less than six months.

The assessment is a far cry from President Donald Trump’s public estimate that the U.S. strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Officials speaking with the New York Times clarified that the five-page report is only preliminary and that further analyses with more information are anticipated.

Prior to the attack, analysts were unsure if the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-buster could penetrate deep enough to destroy the Fordow facility, which is buried deep in a mountain. The preliminary estimate speculated that it could not. The entrances to two facilities were sealed off, and the electrical systems for Fordow were badly damaged, but the main underground facilities did not collapse.

Additionally, the report held that much of Iran’s stockpiled enriched uranium was moved before the strikes to other secret locations. If Iran were able to save most of its stockpiled enriched uranium, it could still make a dash for a crude nuclear weapon relatively quickly, one of the leading fears of Israeli and American policymakers.

The assessment reported that further strikes are needed to deal decisive damage to Iran’s nuclear program, but Trump has largely ruled further attacks out after striking a ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel on Monday.

Speaking with CNN, Middlebury Institute of International Studies professor and weapons expert Jeffrey Lewis agreed with the assessment.

“The ceasefire came without either Israel or the United States being able to destroy several key underground nuclear facilities, including near Natanz, Isfahan, and Parchin,” he said. “These facilities could serve as the basis for the rapid reconstitution of Iran’s nuclear program.”

The White House vigorously pushed back on the preliminary assessment, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt calling it “flat-out wrong.”

“The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program,” she said in a statement. “Everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”

The “12 Day War” between Israel and Iran did immense damage to the latter’s nuclear program, both through the destruction of nuclear infrastructure and the assassination of many of its top nuclear scientists. Nevertheless, Tehran has vowed to rebuild its nuclear program in the war’s aftermath.