US strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months, according to the Pentagon

A preliminary classified U.S. intelligence report on Tuesday threw cold water on President Donald Trump’s claims that the military operation launched over the weekend against three Iranian uranium enrichment and storage facilities was a spectacular success. The president also stated that the Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz plants were “completely and totally obliterated.” According to the initial report leaked to the press, the spectacular military deployment — which included submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles and 125 aircraft loaded with, among other weapons, 14 bombs weighing more than 30,000 pounds — only managed to delay Iran’s nuclear program by a few months.

The report bears the signature of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The contents, first reported by CNN and later confirmed by other U.S. media outlets citing anonymous sources, not only claims that certain key components of the nuclear program, including the centrifuges, could be restarted in a matter of months, but also reveals what many suspected: that a large portion of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, the kind that would be used in the manufacture of a nuclear weapon, was presumably moved to new, secret locations before the bombings began.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt responded to the CNN report on Tuesday: “This alleged assessment is flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community.”

Leavitt said that “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. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”

The only thing both sides agree on is that it is still too early to obtain a complete picture of the true impact of the strikes, which involved B-2 aircraft that dropped so-called “bunker-busting bombs” on the Fordow and Natanz enrichment plants, as Israel had requested after several days of aerial strikes of its own against Iran. The mission at Fordow was particularly complex, as the facilities are buried at a depth estimated at up to 290 feet beneath the mountains south of Tehran.

According to the DIA report, the damage to both those facilities and the Isfahan storage facility was limited primarily to above-ground structures, which were severely damaged.

“I’ve seen it all”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reacted to the CNN report on Tuesday, saying that “based on everything we have seen - and I’ve seen it all - our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons.”

Trump reiterated his early messages, and on Tuesday he called the report “fake news.” In a Truth Social post, he wrote that the operation was “one of the most successful military strikes in history. The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed!”

The assessment of the damage caused by the U.S. strikes is a still-unfolding battle being fought on several fronts, the outcome of which will determine whether Trump can ultimately claim credit for this risky gamble. On Tuesday, Democratic senators criticized the sudden postponement of a classified House briefing on what exactly happened and how much was destroyed in the early hours of last Sunday in Tehran.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the “last-minute postponement” of the briefing to Thursday. “It’s evasive, it’s derelict,” he told reporters at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. “The administration has a legal obligation to brief Congress on what’s happening. What are they afraid of? Why won’t they engage Congress in the critical details?”

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