
U.S. strikes crippled Iran's nuclear program, Israeli analysis finds
THE HAGUE — Israel's preliminary analysis of the damage caused by U.S. strikes on Iran's main nuclear facilities — based in part from on-the-ground assessments — shows the attacks inflicted widespread destruction, a senior Israeli official said.
The official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said that Tehran has been 'actively trying to hide the damage' from the attacks, which President Trump said in The Hague on Wednesday had all but eliminated Iran's enrichment program.
Trump, who repeatedly defended the effectiveness of the strikes at the NATO Summit, made reference to individuals who had been on the ground to assess the damage, without providing details.
'I can't say it's a final assessment, because we're less than a week after. It's not like we can send officers openly. But that's the indication we have now,' the official said.
A spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry on Wednesday said the bombing raid 'badly damaged' the nuclear sites, but the Iranian government has said it will continue its nuclear efforts, which it insists are for peaceful purposes.
A full review of the mission could take weeks, and experts have expressed skepticism of declarative statements by Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the U.S. operation was a success within mere days of the attack.
'Battlefield damage assessment is an imprecise art, with initial estimates frequently being way off,' said Patrick Clawson, an expert on Iran and director for research at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 'I would be very suspicious of any claims — by Iran, by Trump, by Israel — about what has happened to Iran's enriched uranium stocks or to its centrifuges.'
Israel's preliminary findings come after an initial assessment from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency cast doubt on the effectiveness of the American strikes, stating with low confidence that Iran had retained the core elements of its nuclear program despite the attacks, one U.S. official familiar with the findings told The Times. The DIA assessment was first reported by CNN.
The U.S. attack followed nine days of an Israeli military campaign that decimated Iran's air defenses, its military leadership and its ballistic missile stockpiles, while degrading its nuclear facilities.
Israeli intelligence has also monitored the reaction to the campaign among Iranian leadership, which has struggled to comprehend the extent of the damage itself, the Israeli official said.
'We don't believe everyone in the leadership knows what really happened, because the whole program was compartmentalized — they weren't sharing a lot of information, and a lot of the officers who were highly involved on the ground level were eliminated,' the official continued. 'So a lot of the top leadership hasn't fully begun to understand what's happened.'
The developing intelligence picture comes as Trump defended the U.S. mission, called Operation Midnight Hammer, during multiple appearances at the NATO Summit in The Hague on Wednesday.
'It's been obliterated, totally obliterated,' he said of Iran's nuclear facilities. Addressing the DIA report, he added, 'They did a report, but it was like, if you look at the dates, it's just a few days after.'
The U.S. deployment of massive, 'bunker-buster' munitions targeting Iran's main nuclear sites — including six dropped on Fordo, a facility burrowed deep into the side of a mountain — was intended to bury its most advanced equipment and most highly enriched uranium, which can be used to build nuclear warheads.
Initial assessments of the damage were unclear, but since then, Trump said, 'we've collected additional intelligence. We've also spoken to people that have seen the site, and the site is obliterated.'
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The heads of two key American intelligence agencies issued statements Wednesday on what they said was "new" intelligence on the damage resulting from the recent U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, each noting the Iranian program was likely to have been set back by "years." The statements were released after President Trump decried a leaked, preliminary assessment produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency that said Tehran's nuclear program had only been pushed back by a matter of months. Mr. Trump had ordered airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities late Saturday, adding to a more than weeklong Israeli campaign against targets in Iran. CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement Wednesday that "a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran's Nuclear Program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes." 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But when asked whether enriched material was successfully moved during a press availability following the NATO summit in the Netherlands on Wednesday, President Trump said, "We think we hit them so hard and so fast, they didn't get to move." The president also said the U.S. and Iran were expected to hold talks "next week." The format remains unclear, for now, but special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff is expected to lead the talks, if they happen, two U.S. officials told CBS News. Witkoff has spoken with the Iranian foreign minister, and recently, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance have also become more involved in the diplomacy, a U.S. and regional diplomat told CBS News. Both Ratcliffe and Gabbard were slated to participate in a classified Senate briefing on Tuesday on the U.S. strikes in Iran, but the session was cancelled and rescheduled for Thursday. The House is expected to be briefed on Friday. It is unclear whether both leaders will still participate in both briefings. Ratcliffe and Gabbard's statements on Wednesday also included criticism of the leak to media outlets of the DIA assessment, which a spokesperson for that agency later said was issued with low confidence and would be refined as additional intelligence becomes available. The initial DIA report said the entrances to two Iranian nuclear sites — including the Fordo facility — were sealed off in the strikes, but that Iran could reconstitute elements of its program once it dug out and made repairs to water and electrical systems, according to sources familiar with it. The assessment also provided a range of possibilities for how long it could take for Iran to regain access to the underground facilities and resume some operations, ranging from a few months to less than a year, one source familiar with the assessment told CBS News. Administration officials have blasted those findings, which are at odds with Mr. Trump's repeated assertions that Saturday night's airstrikes "obliterated" Iran's nuclear facilities. Speaking from the NATO summit, Mr. Trump said the airstrikes set back Iran's program by "basically decades." "They said it could be limited or it could be very severe. They really didn't know," Mr. Trump said of the U.S. intelligence assessments. Appearing alongside the president, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Wednesday the damage to the sites was extensive. "If you want to make an assessment of what happened at Fordo, you'd better get a big shovel and go really deep, because Iran's nuclear program is obliterated," he told reporters. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said in a press availability on Sunday following the strikes that a full battle damage assessment of the strikes "will take some time." He said at the time that the three targets "sustained extremely severe damage and destruction." Hegseth is set to lead a press briefing Thursday morning, which Mr. Trump said "will prove both interesting and irrefutable." , , and contributed to this report.

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