CIA director says Iran's nuclear sites 'severely damaged'
The head of the CIA has said US strikes "severely damaged" Iran's nuclear facilities and set them back years, diverging from a leaked intelligence report that angered President Donald Trump by downplaying the raid's impact.John Ratcliffe, the US spy agency's director, said key sites had been destroyed, though he stopped short of declaring Iran's nuclear programme had been eliminated outright.It comes a day after a leaked preliminary assessment from a Pentagon intelligence agency suggested core components of Iran's nuclear programme were only lightly damaged by the US bombings.President Trump again maintained the raid had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear facilities.
The Republican president took to social media on Wednesday to post that the "fake news" media had "lied and totally misrepresented the facts, none of which they had".He said Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth and other military officials would hold an "interesting and irrefutable" news conference on Thursday at the Pentagon "in order to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots".It came as Israel and Iran seemed to honour a fragile ceasefire that Trump helped negotiate this week on the 12th day of the war.Speaking at The Hague where he attended a Nato summit on Wednesday, Trump said of the strikes: "It was very severe. It was obliteration."He also said he would probably seek a commitment from Iran to end its nuclear ambitions at talks next week. Iran has not acknowledged any such negotiations.But US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff told US network NBC there has been direct and indirect communication between the countries.
Ratcliffe's statement said the CIA's information included "new intelligence from an historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years".Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has also come out in support of Trump's assessment on the damage to Iranian nuclear facilities."If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordo, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do," she wrote on X.The US operation involved 125 military aircraft, targeting the three main Iranian nuclear facilities on Saturday.New satellite images show six craters clustered around two entry points at Fordo, with similar craters spotted at Isfahan. But it is unclear if the nuclear facilities located deep underground were wiped out.A report from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency was leaked to US media on Tuesday, estimating that the US bombing had set back Iran's nuclear programme "only a few months".The US defence secretary said the assessment was made with "low confidence".
Officials familiar with the evaluation cautioned it was an early assessment that could change as more information emerges. The US has 18 intelligence agencies, which sometimes produce conflicting reports based on their mission and area of expertise.UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday that there is a chance Tehran moved much of its highly enriched uranium elsewhere as it came under attack.But Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told Al Jazeera on Wednesday: "Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that's for sure." He did not elaborate.A report by the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission said the strike on Fordo "destroyed the site's critical infrastructure".
The damage across all the sites, the report said, has pushed Iran's timeline for nuclear weapons back by "many years".Yet Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to the chairman of the Iranian parliament, said shortly after the US strikes that "no irreversible damage was sustained" at Fordo.Iran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is peaceful. US intelligence agencies have previously said Tehran was not actively building atomic weapons.
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Daily Mail
25 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Trump official in 'line of fire' for leaked Iran bombing intel as they're left out of major security briefing
Tulsi Gabbard is rumored to be in Donald Trump ' 'line of fire' as she is set to miss out on the first intelligence briefing between the administration and Congress over strikes on Iran 's nuclear facilities. Gabbard, Trump's Director of National Intelligence, had to do a dramatic U-turn last week after the president said she was 'wrong' when she testified Tehran was not close to getting a nuclear weapon. Now, she is missing out on the Thursday meeting that will offer Congress a chance to see how successful the strikes were, as Trump has angrily insisted CNN and The New York Times were wrong in saying they had minimal effect. Gabbard was originally supposed to join members of Trump's inner circle - CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth - in the briefing. A person familiar with Gabbard's schedule told the Associated Press said she was originally going to attend but no longer. 'The media is turning this into something it's not,' a senior Trump administration official told The Washington Post, adding that Ratcliffe will represent the intelligence community. However, controversial Trump biographer Michael Wolff said that Trump now sees Gabbard as a 'stooge' who will take the blame for the leaks. 'It's always important in the Trump script, the fallback is always who to blame, who to blame. Just have to have someone to blame. Tulsi is in the line of fire,' Wolff told The Daily Beast. Wolff added: 'There is an investigation that is going on. They will try to find someone to blame. Within the White House, within the West Wing, what they are saying as of this morning, who this is being pinned on, is Tulsi.' Trump and much of his administration have raged at the media's reports based on anonymous sources that the damage to Iran's nuclear facilities from Saturday night's bombing was not as severe as they had hoped. The leaked report from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reportedly states that the U.S. strikes only delayed Iran from getting a nuclear weapon by a couple of months. An investigation has begun and many in the White House have said the person who leaked incomplete intel should be jailed. Gabbard fiercely backed the president in his rivalry with the press and said the U.S. troops eliminated Iran's nuclear capabilities. 'New intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran's nuclear facilities have been destroyed. If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do,' Gabbard wrote on social media. 'The propaganda media has deployed their usual tactic: selectively release portions of illegally leaked classified intelligence assessments (intentionally leaving out the fact that the assessment was written with 'low confidence') to try to undermine President Trump's decisive leadership and the brave servicemen and women who flawlessly executed a truly historic mission to keep the American people safe and secure,' she added. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung backed Gabbard in a statement. Gabbard fiercely backed the president in his rivalry with the press and said the U.S. troops eliminated Iran's nuclear capabilities Gabbard was originally supposed to join members of Trump's inner circle - CIA Director John Ratcliffe (pictured right), Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (pictured center left) - in the briefing 'President Trump's Peace through Strength foreign policy is a tried-and-true approach that keeps America safe and deters global threats,' he said. 'Efforts by the legacy media to sow internal division are a distraction that will not work. President Trump has full confidence in his entire exceptional national security team. DNI Gabbard is an important member of the President's team and her work continues to serve him and this country well.' Cheung has previously called Wolff 'a lying sack of s***.' Last Friday, Gabbard reversed course and admitted that Iran actually does have the ability to create nuclear weapons after a public rebuke by her boss as Israel continued to wage war against the country. The director of national intelligence originally blamed the 'dishonest media' for a week of confusion about whether the administration believes the Persian country can develop a weapon of mass destruction. 'America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly,' she wrote on X. 'President Trump has been clear that can't happen, and I agree.' Trump warned that Tehran has a 'maximum' of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes if they don't abandon their nuclear ambitions. In New Jersey on Friday, however, the president dismissed Gabbard's testimony in March that the intelligence community 'continues to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.' The president responded, 'Well then, my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?' Informed that it had been Gabbard, Trump said, 'She's wrong.' Gabbard responded on X Friday that 'The dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division.' She included video of her testimony that claims Iranians appear clearly to have 'enriched uranium stockpiles at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.' She also noted that Iran 'contains a wide range of threats' to the United States and Israel. The next day, Trump celebrated the strikes on Tehran by American forces. Now, Congress will get its first inside look at the bombings as the president rages against a leak regarding its success rate. The administration has rubbished reports by both CNN and the New York Times that the damage to Iran's nuclear facilities from Saturday night's bombing was not as severe as they had hoped, while simultaneously demanding the person who leaked incomplete intel be jailed. The leaked report from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reportedly states that the U.S. strikes only delayed Iran from getting a nuclear weapon by a couple of months. Trump called for the CNN reporter who broke the story, Natasha Bertrand, to be fired and 'then thrown out like a dog' on Truth Social Media, drawing an enraged response from colleague Jake Tapper. Tapper went off on Trump during his Wednesday show: 'Today, President Trump and his administration are going after shooting the messengers in an increasingly ugly way.' He also defended Bertrand, saying: 'They're calling journalists 'fake news' for true stories. They're calling for an excellent CNN reporter, Natasha Bertrand, to be fired, which is preposterous — and to which a CNN statement today reads, 'we stand 100 percent behind Natasha Bertarnd's journalism, as they should.' Tapper went into a dissection of CNN's reporting on the matter, saying that the Defense Intelligence Agency's assessment of the bombing was 'low confidence... meaning that the DIA is far from sure about it.' 'It was described to CNN by seven people briefed on the DIA assessment, and our reporting stressed that the assessment's conclusion could evolve as new information comes to light,' he said. Tapper claimed that CNN reached out to the White House before broadcasting the story and that the administration 'attacked the assessment but confirmed it exists.' 'Even President Trump himself today confirmed it,' he said. Tapper said he was not criticizing the troops who executed the strikes, saying they 'honor and respect' them. Trump ripped into CNN again after Tapper defended the network's reporting and slammed the president for his 'ugly attack' on the press' coverage of the Iran bombings. Defense Secretary Hegseth said the FBI has taken the lead on conducting the probe after CNN, the New York Times and other outlets disclosed the report's findings. 'We're doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now, because this information is for internal purposes, battle damage assessments, and CNN and others are trying to spin it to make the president look bad,' he said during a NATO meeting alongside Trump and other top officials on Wednesday. The Pentagon chief defended the president like an attack dog, claiming the Fordow nuclear enrichment site was 'obliterated.' Flanked by Trump, Secretary of State Rubio, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Hegseth also mentioned how the classified document was only a preliminary assessment. 'It was a top secret report, it was preliminary, it was low confidence,' the Pentagon secretary explained. 'Given the 30,000 pounds of explosives and capability of those munitions, it was devastation underneath Fordow, and the amount of munitions, six per location, any assessment that tells you something otherwise is speculating with other motives.' He added that the preliminary DIA battle damage assessment indicated 'moderate to severe' damage was done to the facility. The administration, Hegseth continued, believes it was 'far more likely severe and obliterated.' Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was sitting next to Hegseth, argued the leakers had an agenda. 'This is what a leaker is telling you the intelligence says,' he said of the report. 'That's the game these people play. They read it and then they go out and characterize it the way they want it characterized.' He added it was 'against the law' to leak the information and told the media the leakers 'characterize it for you in a way that's absolutely false.' Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin similarly said Wednesday that 'it is still early to assess the results of the operation.' Though he added, 'I believe we have delivered a significant hit to the nuclear program, and I can also say that we have delayed it by several years.' In a Truth Social post on Wednesday afternoon, Trump revealed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would address the public at 8am Thursday morning to provide 'both interesting and irrefutable' proof about the success of the mission. Trump said the purpose of the conference is to 'fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots. 'These Patriots were very upset,' he said. 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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Trump will look at giving Ukraine more Patriot missiles as he calls on Putin to end war
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