CIA Director Claims Iran's Nuclear Program Has Been 'Severely Damaged'
CIA Director John Ratcliffeclaimed Iran's nuclear program was 'severely damaged' by recent U.S. airstrikes after reports from CNN and The New York Times suggested that the targeted hits weren't as successful as President Donald Trump has maintained.
Ratcliffe pointed to what he described as a 'body of credible intelligence,' which showed that 'several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.'
His statement comes as the White House has disputed media reports, including one from CNN, which cited an assessment by the Pentagon's intelligence arm, and which stated that the airstrikes had 'likely only set [Iran's nuclear program] back by months.'
The CNN report also noted that the strikes failed to 'destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program,' while another report from the Times, which referred to the same intelligence assessment, said that they did not 'collapse … underground buildings' which are a key part of the nuclear sites.
The Pentagon intelligence assessment reportedly noted that the sites had suffered 'moderate to severe damage,' and was a preliminary review. A final conclusion about the battle damage assessment is still to come, General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Sunday.
Trump has repeatedly alleged that the U.S. 'obliterated' Iran's nuclear program when it launched airstrikes on three nuclear facilities this past weekend, even as other officials, like Caine, have been more circumspect about speaking on the extent of the damage.
Trump also lashed out at both CNN and the Times for their reporting on this issue, calling journalists 'scum' and describing them as 'fake news.'
'This alleged 'assessment' is flat-out wrong and was classified as 'top secret' but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community,' White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement earlier this week.
Trump noted in a Truth Social post on Wednesday that he'll be holding a press conference alongside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to address the subject on Thursday.
'The Fake News (Times and CNN) lied and totally misrepresented the Facts, none of which they had (because it was too soon, there were no Facts out there yet!). The News Conference will prove both interesting and irrefutable,' he wrote on Truth Social.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump posts video with ‘Bomb Iran' song amid ceasefire
President Trump posted a new video on Truth Social featuring a compilation of videos of B-2 stealth fighter jets dropping bombs along with the 1980 song 'Bomb Iran' by Vince Vance & the Valiants. The song, a parody of the 1961 song 'Barbara Ann' by the Regents, plays over a video of various B-2 stealth fighter jets, which were used to drop 14 GBU-57 bunker busters bombs in Iran. The jets were specifically used on the Fordow fuel enrichment plant and the Natanz Enrichment Complex, key nuclear sites in Iran. The U.S. also hit Iran's Isfahan nuclear site. The song continues with the lyrics, 'Went to a mosque, gonna throw some rocks, tell the Ayatollah, 'Gonna put you in a box!' Bomb Iran.' The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment. Trump posted the video Tuesday night on Truth Social amid rising tensions between Iran, Israel and the U.S. after the U.S. military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. The video is just the latest post from the president on the rising conflict in the Middle East, one of which even singled out Israel in a rare move, advising them against dropping more bombs. Trump came down on the Iranians and Israelis earlier in the day at the White House, voicing his displeasure at continued fighting between the two adversaries. 'We basically — we have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the f‑‑‑ they're doing,' Trump told reporters at the White House earlier Tuesday. While Trump hailed the strikes against the nuclear facilities as a success, an early intelligence assessment reportedly found that Tehran's nuclear program was set back by only months. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CNN
43 minutes ago
- CNN
Analysis: Trump claims the press is demeaning the military. But questioning power is patriotic
Journalists ask questions, vet the answers and report the results to the public. That's pretty much the job description. But the Trump administration is claiming that it's unpatriotic to do so. Several days after the US conducted airstrikes in Iran, as the public awaits a clearer picture of the strikes' impact, President Trump is attacking CNN for reporting on an early US intel assessment that undercut his claims about Iran's nuclear enrichment sites being 'totally obliterated.' The New York Times is also being targeted by Trump because it matched CNN's reporting. 'They tried to demean the great work our B-2 pilots did,' Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday. CNN and The Times have not demeaned any pilots. But the administration is casting 'any questioning of the success of an incredibly difficult military operation as fake, as unappreciative, and as disrespectful to servicemembers,' CNN's Jake Tapper said on 'The Lead' Wednesday evening. Tapper cited past examples of government deception and said, 'history has taught us that the most pro-servicemember action we can take is to ask questions of our leaders, especially in times of war. That, for journalists, is the height of patriotism.' Indeed, history is replete with proof that it is imperative to ask for evidence of presidential assertions. It is necessary to question official accounts; to wonder if the public is being misled; and to do so regardless of which party is in power. When President Joe Biden ordered the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in 2021, CNN was at the forefront in documenting and scrutinizing the chaos that followed. One headline at the time stated, 'Biden's botched Afghan exit is a disaster at home and abroad long in the making.' When lives are on the line, government officials often have an incentive to hide or obscure the truth — and reporters have a duty to uncover it. 'The truth, which literally hurts, is that every administration lies about war, particularly (though not only) about its reasons for initiating deadly force,' Matt Welch wrote for Reason magazine in 2020. Welch warned that 'too many people turn off their brains once the battle bugle calls' when the opposite response is actually needed. Trump clearly thinks it is politically advantageous to claim that scrutiny of the Iran strike's outcome is insulting to the US military and to the country. At a NATO summit press conference on Wednesday, Trump asserted that the B-2 pilots were 'devastated' by Tuesday's reports about the early intel assessment. 'You should be proud of those pilots and you shouldn't be trying to demean them,' Trump said in response to a question from NBC's Kelly O'Donnell. 'There's a difference, sir, between asking about an assessment' and doubting the pilots, O'Donnell responded, although she was barely audible over the president's mic. 'No one is questioning the skill of the US military,' O'Donnell added. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took the same tack as Trump at the press conference, charging the press with trying to 'spin' the airstrike outcome 'for their own political reasons to try to hurt President Trump or our country.' Later in the day, Trump announced that Hegseth would hold a Thursday morning news conference at the Pentagon 'to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots.' Their dignity is not in question, however. 'No one is questioning whether this was a heroic and valiant effort on behalf of the United States,' Tapper said Wednesday evening. The key questions are 'about the degree of success of the operation, and the current state of Iran's nuclear weapons program, and what the intelligence — not the politicians — what the intelligence reveals.' 'Our obligation as journalists,' Tapper continued, 'is not to praise President Trump, or protect his feelings, or to disparage him,' it's 'to report facts.' The Times responded to Trump's all-caps assertion that it teamed up with CNN to 'demean one of the most successful military strikes in history' by pointing out the White House's inconsistency on the subject. 'Yesterday,' The Times said, 'President Trump called this 'fake news.' But he and his entire national security team subsequently confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency did in fact produce the preliminary assessment described in a report by The Times and others. So their statement was fake, not The Times's reporting.' CNN also issued a statement after Trump called for Natasha Bertrand, one of three correspondents who broke the initial story, to be fired. 'We stand 100% behind Natasha Bertrand's journalism and specifically her and her colleagues' reporting of the early intelligence assessment of the U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities,' the network said. 'CNN's reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence. We have extensively covered President Trump's own deep skepticism about it.' 'However,' CNN said, 'we do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest.'
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Analysis: Trump claims the press is demeaning the military. But questioning power is patriotic
Journalists ask questions, vet the answers and report the results to the public. That's pretty much the job description. But the Trump administration is claiming that it's unpatriotic to do so. Several days after the US conducted airstrikes in Iran, as the public awaits a clearer picture of the strikes' impact, President Trump is attacking CNN for reporting on an early US intel assessment that undercut his claims about Iran's nuclear enrichment sites being 'totally obliterated.' The New York Times is also being targeted by Trump because it matched CNN's reporting. 'They tried to demean the great work our B-2 pilots did,' Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday. CNN and The Times have not demeaned any pilots. But the administration is casting 'any questioning of the success of an incredibly difficult military operation as fake, as unappreciative, and as disrespectful to servicemembers,' CNN's Jake Tapper said on 'The Lead' Wednesday evening. Tapper cited past examples of government deception and said, 'history has taught us that the most pro-servicemember action we can take is to ask questions of our leaders, especially in times of war. That, for journalists, is the height of patriotism.' Indeed, history is replete with proof that it is imperative to ask for evidence of presidential assertions. It is necessary to question official accounts; to wonder if the public is being misled; and to do so regardless of which party is in power. When President Joe Biden ordered the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in 2021, CNN was at the forefront in documenting and scrutinizing the chaos that followed. One headline at the time stated, 'Biden's botched Afghan exit is a disaster at home and abroad long in the making.' When lives are on the line, government officials often have an incentive to hide or obscure the truth — and reporters have a duty to uncover it. 'The truth, which literally hurts, is that every administration lies about war, particularly (though not only) about its reasons for initiating deadly force,' Matt Welch wrote for Reason magazine in 2020. Welch warned that 'too many people turn off their brains once the battle bugle calls' when the opposite response is actually needed. Trump clearly thinks it is politically advantageous to claim that scrutiny of the Iran strike's outcome is insulting to the US military and to the country. At a NATO summit press conference on Wednesday, Trump asserted that the B-2 pilots were 'devastated' by Tuesday's reports about the early intel assessment. 'You should be proud of those pilots and you shouldn't be trying to demean them,' Trump said in response to a question from NBC's Kelly O'Donnell. 'There's a difference, sir, between asking about an assessment' and doubting the pilots, O'Donnell responded, although she was barely audible over the president's mic. 'No one is questioning the skill of the US military,' O'Donnell added. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took the same tack as Trump at the press conference, charging the press with trying to 'spin' the airstrike outcome 'for their own political reasons to try to hurt President Trump or our country.' Later in the day, Trump announced that Hegseth would hold a Thursday morning news conference at the Pentagon 'to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots.' Their dignity is not in question, however. 'No one is questioning whether this was a heroic and valiant effort on behalf of the United States,' Tapper said Wednesday evening. The key questions are 'about the degree of success of the operation, and the current state of Iran's nuclear weapons program, and what the intelligence — not the politicians — what the intelligence reveals.' 'Our obligation as journalists,' Tapper continued, 'is not to praise President Trump, or protect his feelings, or to disparage him,' it's 'to report facts.' The Times responded to Trump's all-caps assertion that it teamed up with CNN to 'demean one of the most successful military strikes in history' by pointing out the White House's inconsistency on the subject. 'Yesterday,' The Times said, 'President Trump called this 'fake news.' But he and his entire national security team subsequently confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency did in fact produce the preliminary assessment described in a report by The Times and others. So their statement was fake, not The Times's reporting.' CNN also issued a statement after Trump called for Natasha Bertrand, one of three correspondents who broke the initial story, to be fired. 'We stand 100% behind Natasha Bertrand's journalism and specifically her and her colleagues' reporting of the early intelligence assessment of the U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities,' the network said. 'CNN's reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence. We have extensively covered President Trump's own deep skepticism about it.' 'However,' CNN said, 'we do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest.'
