An early U.S. intelligence assessment has found that last weekend’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities failed to destroy the country’s core program and likely only set it back by a few months, a scathing conclusion that directly contradicts President Donald Trump’s public claims of “total obliteration.”
The assessment, produced by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), was described by multiple sources briefed on its findings. The analysis suggests that while aboveground structures were severely damaged, Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium and its centrifuges remain largely intact, possibly because they were moved before the attack.
The White House fiercely disputed the leaked findings. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the assessment “flat-out wrong” and a leak by a “low-level loser” intended to “demean President Trump.” The president himself posted on social media that Iran’s nuclear sites were “completely destroyed!”
However, the DIA’s conclusions align with comments from some lawmakers and outside experts, who have long maintained that a strike would only be a “temporary setback” for Iran, not a knockout blow. Republican Rep. Michael McCaul acknowledged that the plan was “never meant to completely destroy the nuclear facilities.”
The revelations have fueled political turmoil in Washington, where classified congressional briefings on the operation were abruptly canceled, deepening the controversy over the mission’s true impact.
