A preliminary classified U.S. intelligence assessment has revealed that recent American airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities only temporarily set back Tehran’s nuclear program, contradicting public claims by former President Donald Trump that the strikes had “obliterated” the sites.
According to U.S. media reports on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) findings, the strikes disrupted Iran’s nuclear activities but failed to destroy the country’s centrifuges or its stockpile of enriched uranium. The report indicates that while some facility entrances were sealed off, key underground structures remained intact.
Despite the assessment, White House Press Secretary Karline Leavitt defended the military operation and criticized the leak of the classified report. She called the report “flat-out wrong,” stating, “Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.” Leavitt denounced the leak as a political attempt to undermine Trump and U.S. military personnel involved in the operation.
The strikes, carried out over the weekend, included coordinated attacks by B-2 stealth bombers using GBU-57 “bunker buster” bombs and Tomahawk missiles launched from a guided missile submarine. The U.S. military targeted two Iranian nuclear sites with bombs and a third with cruise missiles.
Former President Trump praised the operation, calling it a “spectacular military success,” and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed the sentiment, saying the strikes had “devastated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities. However, top U.S. military officer General Dan Caine offered a more cautious perspective, describing the damage as “extremely severe” but stopping short of declaring the program destroyed.
Iran, on the other hand, maintained that it had anticipated such an attack and had already activated contingency plans. Mohammad Eslami, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, stated on state TV that Iran had “taken the necessary measures” to ensure continuity of its nuclear program, noting that plans to restart operations were already in place. An adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also asserted that Iran still retained its enriched uranium stockpile and declared, “the game is not over.”
The escalation follows Israel’s unprecedented air campaign launched on June 13, which targeted Iranian nuclear facilities, scientists, and high-ranking military officials in an attempt to delay Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
Trump’s decision to take military action came after weeks of failed diplomatic attempts to renegotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran—one he had scrapped during his presidency in 2018. The recent operation involved more than 125 U.S. aircraft, including bombers, fighters, refueling tankers, surveillance planes, and a guided missile submarine, marking one of the most extensive military campaigns in recent U.S. history.
