Middle East conflict: Trump says Israel agents inspected Iran's nuclear site; saw ‘total obliteration'
US President Donald Trump (left) and Fordow nuclear site after US strikes (AP)
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed that Israel may have sent agents to inspect Iran's Fordo nuclear site following recent American airstrikes. He said the site suffered 'total obliteration' and warned that further action would follow if Tehran were to resume uranium enrichment.
While speaking to reporters at the Nato summit in The Hague, Trump said, 'You know they have guys that go in there after the hit, and they said it was total obliteration.'
He said that Israel is currently assessing the damage inflicted on the sites.'Israel is doing a report on it now, I understand, and I was told that they said it was total obliteration. I believe it was total obliteration, and I believe they didn't have a chance to get anything out because we acted fast,' he added.
Israeli officials, while responding to remarks made by Trump, told Kan public broadcaster, that they were not aware of any Israeli operation at Fordo nuclear site after the US strikes.
Earlier in the week a leaked Pentagon intelligence report first reported by CNN, suggested that US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities might have left core components largely intact, and that Iran's nuclear program has essentially only been set back only by months.
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Adding that a significant portion of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile may have been moved out of the facilities before the bombings took place.
The White House has dismissed the report's conclusions and criticized the leak.
When asked by the reporters if the US would strike Iran again if Tehran were to rebuild its uranium enrichment facilities, Trump said, 'Sure. But I'm not going to have to worry about that. It's gone for years.'
In response to a question about the extent of the setback to Iran's nuclear program, Trump said, 'I think it's basically decades, because I don't think they'll ever do it again. I think they've had it. I mean, they just went through hell. They've had it.'
'The last thing they want to do is enrich anything right now,' Trump said. 'They want to recover,' he added.
'They're not going to have a bomb and they're not going to enrich,' he stressed.
Trump went on to compare the American strikes on the three Iranian nuclear sites with the nuclear bombing of Japan towards the end of world war two, 'That hit ended the war. That hit ended the war. I don't want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don't want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing that ended that war. This ended that, this ended that war. If we didn't take that out, they would have been fighting right now.
'
'I think we'll end up having somewhat of a relationship with Iran,' he added.
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