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A leaked Protection Intelligence Company report is casting doubt on President Donald Trump’s declare that current U.S. airstrikes “fully and completely obliterated” three Iranian nuclear services, as an alternative concluding the mission solely set again Iran’s program by a number of months.
The report, printed by CNN and The New York Occasions, comes simply days after Trump authorized the strikes amid escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. In a nationwide tackle instantly following the operation, Trump declared the websites “fully and completely obliterated.”
Whereas members of the Trump administration have waged a brand new conflict to discredit the preliminary report from the Pentagon’s Protection Intelligence Company, a number of specialists advised Fox Information Digital that there’s too little data obtainable proper now to precisely decide how a lot harm the strikes did.
Piecing collectively a radical intelligence evaluation is advanced and time-consuming, they stated.
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Trump stated Saturday that the U.S. accomplished a “very profitable” strike in opposition to Iranian nuclear websites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, saying that Iran’s nuclear enrichment installations have been “obliterated.” (Fox Information)
Dan Shapiro, who beforehand served because the deputy assistant secretary of Protection for the Center East and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, stated he didn’t put lots of inventory in each overly pessimistic or overly optimistic assessments that emerged rapidly, and stated that the preliminary evaluation from DIA was doubtless solely based mostly on satellite tv for pc imagery.
“That is one piece of the puzzle of how you’d actually make this evaluation,” Shapiro, now a senior fellow on the Atlantic Council, advised Fox Information Digital. “You’d actually wish to have to check all the opposite streams of intelligence, from alerts intelligence, human intelligence, different types of monitoring the location, probably visits by Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company inspectors, probably visits by different individuals. In order that’s going to take days to weeks to get an actual evaluation.”
“However I feel it is doubtless that if the munitions carried out as anticipated, that vital harm was accomplished, and would set again this system considerably,” Shapiro stated.
Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, stated Sunday that preliminary battle harm assessments instructed “all three websites sustained extraordinarily extreme harm and destruction,” however he acknowledged {that a} last evaluation would “take a while.”
Nonetheless, media studies based mostly on the DIA report painted a unique image, and CNN’s reporting on the preliminary report stated that Iran’s stash of enriched uranium was not destroyed within the strikes, citing seven individuals who had been briefed on the report. The findings have been based mostly on a battle harm evaluation from U.S. Central Command, in response to CNN.
Different members of the Trump administration, together with Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth, have subsequently pushed again on the DIA report’s conclusions, claiming that the report was labeled “low confidence.”
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Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks throughout a information convention on the Pentagon, Thursday, June 26, 2025, in Washington. (AP Picture/Kevin Wolf)
The time period is often used when labeling preliminary assessments, and signifies that conclusions are based mostly on restricted knowledge, in response to specialists.
Retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who beforehand served because the director for transnational threats on the Nationwide Safety Council for former President Invoice Clinton, stated the low confidence description is often utilized in early assessments.
“Low confidence means the analyst just isn’t certain of the accuracy of their evaluation,” stated Montgomery, now a senior fellow on the Washington assume tank the Basis for the Protection of Democracies. “That is frequent when with a Fast Look 24-hour evaluation like this one.”
Montgomery’s colleague, Craig Singleton, additionally a senior fellow with the Basis for Protection of Democracies, stated that the low confidence label is utilized in circumstances with skinny proof and serves as a warning to policy-makers to hunt further data.
“Most significantly, low confidence assessments are normally issued when key info have but to be verified, which definitely applies on this case,” Singleton stated.
Rob Greenway, former deputy assistant to the president on Trump’s Nationwide Safety Council, advised Fox Information Digital that it’ll take one or two months to get a extra thorough evaluation with larger confidence.
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U.S. President Donald Trump holds a gathering alongside Vice President J.D. Vance within the Scenario Room on the White Home in Washington, D.C., on June 21, 2025. (The White Home/Handout through Reuters)
Greenway additionally stated that the strikes have been designed to create harm underground, which can complicate the evaluation of injury, as a result of it isn’t instantly obtainable and would require a number of sources of intelligence, comparable to alerts or human intelligence, to attract conclusions.
Israel had additionally beforehand performed strikes focusing on the websites, including to the online of study that have to be evaluated, Greenway stated.
“Every of those are one piece of a a lot bigger puzzle, and also you’re making an attempt to gauge the last word impact of everything of the puzzle, not only one specific strike,” stated Greenway, now the director of the Allison Heart for Nationwide Safety at The Heritage Basis. “All of which means it will take time to be able to do it.”
Even so, Greenway stated that the quantity of ordnance dropped on the websites – together with greater than 14 30,000-lb. bombs – signifies that the focused services have been so closely compromised they’re not serviceable.
“We have been placing twice the quantity of ordnance required to realize the specified impact, simply to be sure that we did not have to return,” Greenway stated.
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President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R) sit within the Scenario Room as they monitor the mission that took out three Iranian nuclear enrichment websites, on the White Home on June 21, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Daniel Torok/The White Home through Getty Photos)
“There’s just about no mathematical likelihood through which both facility can be utilized once more by Iran for the meant objective, if in any respect, which once more signifies that the whole lot now’s inside Israel’s functionality to strike if that is required,” Greenway stated.
And Michael Allen, a former Nationwide Safety Council senior director within the George W. Bush administration, stated that despite the fact that a last judgment from the intelligence group gained’t be prepared quickly, the intelligence portrait will change into “richer” within the coming days.
“Stuff is pouring in, and we’re on the market accumulating it, and so they’re making an attempt to hustle it to the White Home as quickly as doable,” Allen, now the managing director of advisory agency Beacon International Methods, advised Fox Information Digital.
White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt advised reporters that only a few individuals had entry to this report, and people who leaked it to the media will likely be held accountable because the FBI investigates who shared the doc with the press.
“That individual was irresponsible with it,” Leavitt advised reporters Thursday. “And we have to resolve it. And we have to strengthen that course of to guard our nationwide safety and defend the American public.”
