CIA Director John Ratcliffe said on Wednesday that US strikes caused “severe damage” to Iran’s nuclear facilities, contradicting a leaked intelligence report that downplayed the extent of the operation.
According to the Associated Press, Ratcliffe said key sites had been destroyed and would require rebuilding over the “course of years”, though he stopped short of declaring Iran’s nuclear programme completely eliminated.
The assessment counters a leaked Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) report that concluded key components of Iran’s nuclear programme could be restarted within months. The DIA assessment also suggested Iran had moved much of its highly enriched uranium stockpile before the weekend strikes.
President Donald Trump initially described the bunker-buster bomb attacks on the Fordow and Natanz uranium enrichment sites as a “spectacular military success” that “obliterated” the locations. He dismissed the DIA assessment as “fake news” on social media Wednesday.
However, Trump and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth later appeared to cast doubt on the damage scale during the NATO summit in The Hague. Trump told journalists the “intelligence was very inconclusive”, saying “we don’t know. It could’ve been very severe”, before reversing course to claim the Iranian programme had been set back “decades”.
Hegseth described the damage as “moderate to severe” whilst rejecting the DIA report as false.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Wednesday that the US strike “rendered” the Fordow facility “inoperable” and that combined Israeli-US strikes had “set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assessed that access roads and an entrance at Fordow were hit, whilst two impact holes were found above underground enrichment and storage halls at Natanz.
Jeffrey Lewis, a professor of nonproliferation at the Middlebury Institute, told AP that drawing reliable conclusions days after strikes was difficult, saying “either it’s too early to know, or you know” about the damage.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said Iran retained the “technical knowledge” and “industrial capacity” to rebuild its programme, adding his priority was allowing inspectors back to conduct thorough assessments.
Trump said US and Iranian officials would meet soon to resume dialogue interrupted by nearly two weeks of conflict between Israel and Iran, stating he did not require an agreement because Iran was “too badly damaged” to rebuild.
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