Iran's nuclear facilities 'intact' after US attack? White House says 'top secret assessment' 'flat out wrong'
Iran's Fordow nuclear site after US attack.
The core components of Ira's nuclear program are intact, and they can be set back by months, a top secret assessment of the US intelligence revealed, CNN reported. The report said the assessment was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, based on the battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command.
CNN quoted two people familiar with the assessment who said Iran's stockpile of uranium was not destroyed. One said they were "largely intact".
The White House reacted to the CNN report and said there was a "top secret" assessment which was classified but was leaked to CNN by "an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community". White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the assessment has been rejected by the administration as "flat-out wrong".
"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. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration," Leavitt said to CNN in her statement.
Earlier, Donald Trump named CNN and slammed them for questioning the ability of the B-2 bomber pilots who flew for 18 hours, entered Iran and dropped the bunker-busters, and drove home back for another 18 hours -- without being attacked.
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Where is Iran's uranium stockpile?
Vice President JD Vance's statement hinted that the stockpile remains with Iran. On Fox News, the vice president said the location of the uranium is not the question before the US now but the question is whether Iran can make nuclear weapons from what they have.
The Iranian stockpile of uranium was believed to have been located mainly at Isfahan, which houses a conversion facility that turns uranium into the form that can be fed into centrifuges for enrichment. 'The goal was to bury the uranium, and I do think the uranium is buried,' Vance said.
Vance dismissed the possibility that Iran moved the stockpile before the attack and said the Midnight Hammer mission was successful.
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