US President Donald Trump on Wednesday rejected media reports saying that American strikes on Iran did not destroy its nuclear programme, but only set it back by a few months.
Calling the US strikes “most successful in history”, Trump said, “The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed! Both the Times and CNN are getting slammed by the public!”
US media have cited people familiar with the Defence Intelligence Agency findings as saying the weekend strikes did not fully eliminate Iran’s centrifuges or stockpile of enriched uranium.
Contrary to Trump’s claims that US strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, media reports downplayed the attacks that Washington joined early on Sunday.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the authenticity of the assessment but said it was “flat-out wrong and was classified as ’top secret’ but was still leaked.”
“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,” Leavitt posted on X.
“Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration,” she added.
US B-2 bombers hit two Iranian nuclear sites with massive GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs over the weekend, while a guided missile submarine struck a third with Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Impact Shorts
View AllTrump called the strikes a “spectacular military success” and said they had “obliterated” the nuclear sites, while Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said Washington’s forces had “devastated the Iranian nuclear program.”
Meanwhile, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, has said it is “very early to jump into conclusions” about the damage caused to Iran’s nuclear program. Talking to NBC, Danon said, “We have to wait for the assessment. I’m sure that the US have their own intelligence. But one thing is for sure, Iran is not a threat today to Israel, to the Middle East, to the stability of the world order.”
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