Trump admin officials slam leaked bomb damage assessment indicating Iran could restart nuclear program within months: ‘Completely preposterous'
Trump administration officials on Tuesday slammed a leaked preliminary intelligence assessment of the damage done to Iran's nuclear facilities by weekend US airstrikes that the president has touted as a massive success.
The classified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) bomb damage assessment — deemed a 'low confidence' estimation of the effectiveness of Saturday's strikes on the Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz sites — reportedly determined that Iran could bring its nuclear program back online as quickly as within one to two months, according to Fox News.
On the high end, estimates indicate that Iran could restart uranium enrichment within a year, according to those who viewed the DIA report.
3 Trump administration officials do not believe the DIA's bomb damage assessment is accurate.
via REUTERS
CNN, which first reported on the leaked classified document, noted that assessments are ongoing and could change, but the DIA believes Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed by the 'bunker buster' bombs dropped on the nuclear facilities.
The White House strongly disagrees with the DIA's preliminary assessment.
'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 wrote on X.
'The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran's nuclear program,' she added.
'Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration,' Leavitt argued.
The assessment was reportedly based on satellite images and electronic communications that have been intercepted since the strikes.
The report focuses on the damage done to the Fordow, a facility buried underneath mountains south of Tehran, which was hit by 14 Massive Ordnance Penetrators.
The DIA reportedly assessed that the entrances to the facility caved in as a result of the strike, and that some infrastructure was destroyed, but that the Iranians could still dig out, repair or rebuild the site.
3 The DIA report suggested the Fordow facility caved in but could be dug out by the Iranians.
AP
3 Trump on Tuesday claimed Iran will never restart its nuclear program.
Getty Images
Special Envoy Steve Witkoff charged that any suggestion the US did not achieve its military objectives in Iran is 'completely preposterous.'
'I've read all the damage assessment reports from not just our government, but from other governments, and I'm not going to get into anything that's top secret, but let me tell you for sure what happened here,' Witkoff said during an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
Witkoff was adamant that the conversion facility at Isfahan — needed to begin the process of uranium enrichment — was 'the only facility in Iran that can do this' and 'was completely destroyed' in Saturday's aerial assault.
'It's above ground. It was hit with a 30,000-pound bunker buster, and it could not survive that hit — so they have no conversion opportunity, and that means they cannot weaponize, even if they've enriched to 90%,' the Trump administration official said on 'The Ingraham Angle.'
'Then there are two other nuclear reactors in Natanz, one above ground and one below ground,' Witkoff continued. 'The below-ground one we know we eviscerated, and the above-ground one, which had been hit by the Israelis and had been substantially damaged, we put another bomb on top of it, just to make sure that it was eviscerated. And we know for a fact it was.
'Fordow is the last enrichment reactor that was operating there, and we put 12 bunker buster bombs on Fordow. There's no doubt that it breached the canopy. There's no doubt that it was well within reach of the depth that these bunker buster bombs go to, and there's no doubt that it was obliterated.'
Witkoff slammed the leaking of the DIA assessment as 'outrageous' and 'treasonous,' and called for investigation to find the person responsible for it in order to hold them accountable.
The White House did not respond to The Post's request for comment.
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