Donald Trump’s claims that the US airstrikes ‘completely and totally obliterated’ nuclear bases in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, in Iran over the weekend have been contradicted by a concerning new report.
The US president, 79, has persistently maintained the stance that the attack was a huge success and took a nuclear bomb ‘right out of Iran’s hands’.
Then, as he left the NATO summit yesterday (24 June), he went on to declare that the country ‘will never rebuild its nuclear bases’.
Trump confidently told reporters: “That place is under rocks, that place is demolished.”
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During the summit, he also made the claim that Iran’s nuclear plans had been been set back ‘decades’.
Trump said, as reported by The Independent: “The Iranian nuclear programme has been put back by these years, I think basically decades, because I don't think they'll ever do it again. We hear it was obliteration. It was a virtual obliteration.”
And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth added that it was a ‘flawless mission’.
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However, according to AP News, a new US intelligence report suggests otherwise - and Trump is not happy about it, having already called it ‘fake news’ and doubled down that the ‘nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed’.
The report suggests that Iran’s nuclear programme has actually only been set back only a few months and while the strikes did ‘significant damage’, the bases were not ‘completely obliterated’.
It was issued on Monday (23 June) by the Defense Intelligence Agency (the intelligence arm of the Pentagon) and sources also reportedly claimed that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed, as per CNN.
Other claims included that the centrifuges are ‘largely intact’ and the enriched uranium was moved prior to the strikes.
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However, the White House and President Trump himself have been quick to shut down the report’s claims.
In a scathing statement provided to CNN, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “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.
“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.
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“Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”
Trump also took to his own social media platform, Truth Social, earlier today (25 June) to brand the report as ‘fake news’ and even suggested it was ‘an attempt to demean’ the strikes.
Writing in all caps, the Republican leader said: “Fake news CNN, together with the failing New York Times, have teamed up in an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history.”
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Not holding back, he continued: “The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed! Both The Times and CNN are getting slammed by the public.”
On Tuesday, Iran and Israel signalled that the conflict between them had ended, for now at least, after Trump publicly hit out at them for allegedly violating the ceasefire he announced.
LADbible Group has contacted CNN and The New York Times for comment.
Topics: Donald Trump, Iran, Politics, World News, US News
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Madison Burgess