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US strikes delayed Iran's nuclear program by 2 years, says Pentagon
(File) A satellite image shows new airstrike craters on the perimeter of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Facility, amid the Iran-Israel conflict, near Qom, Iran, June 24, 2025. Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters
The Pentagon said that intelligence reports indicate that the latest US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities last month, targeting three major sites, have set back Tehran's nuclear program by about one to two years, news agency Reuters reported.
Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell repeated Donald Trump's claim that key Iranian nuclear facilities were completely destroyed. However, he did not provide further details on how these assessments were made, saying only that the information came from within the Defense Department.
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'We have degraded their program by one to two years,' Parnell said at a news conference held at the Pentagon, as quoted by The Guardian. 'At least, intel assessments inside the department assess that.'
Parnell's comments offered a more cautious view than Donald Trump's claims about how much damage the US strikes caused. An early, low-confidence report from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) suggested Iran's nuclear program might only be delayed by several months.
The full extent of the damage remains unclear as US intelligence continues to analyze new information. Some materials indicate that centrifuges at Iran's Fordow enrichment site were destroyed, though it's not certain whether the entire facility collapsed.
On Sunday, Rafael Grossi, head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warned that Iran might be able to resume producing enriched uranium within a few months.
'They can have in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium,' Grossi said, adding that Iran has advanced nuclear knowledge that cannot simply be erased.
An initial DIA assessment, based on information gathered just over a day after the strikes, indicated outcomes could range from Iran quickly restarting the Fordow facility with new equipment to possibly abandoning it altogether, the Guardian previously reported.
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