U.S. Strikes Found to Cost Tehran A Few Months on Nuclear Program --- Early intelligence report counters Trump; White House calls it 'flat out wrong'

“A preliminary intelligence report found that the U.S. military's strikes last week on three Iranian nuclear facilities only set back Tehran's nuclear ambitions by a few months, countering claims made by President Trump and the White House, according to people familiar with the intelligence.

 

The initial findings, written by the Defense Intelligence Agency, relied on military damage assessments following the bombings, the people said, adding that the assessment could change as more intelligence is collected.

 

A senior administration official confirmed the report's existence but said it hadn't risen to the level of being shared with Defense Department's top leaders. Multiple members of Congress, including full committees, have seen or have access to the report, lawmakers said.

 

U.S. intelligence agencies frequently produce classified reports that are later revised, sometimes substantially, as more information is collected. Such reports don't necessarily reflect the views of other spy agencies, and disagreement among the agencies isn't uncommon.

 

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, wrote in a post on X that the "alleged 'assessment' is flat out wrong," and described the report as classified at the top-secret level. She also blamed an "anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community" for leaking the report to the media. CNN earlier reported on the assessment.

 

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all intelligence agencies in the U.S. government, declined to comment. The Defense Intelligence Agency didn't respond to a request for comment.

 

The report contradicts statements from Trump, who has repeatedly said the targets of the raids were destroyed. "Those targets were obliterated," he said on Tuesday morning. Some independent nuclear security experts have also said they believe that Iran sustained significant to severe damage to its nuclear program.

 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also challenged the intelligence report. "Based on everything we have seen, and I've seen it all, our bombing campaign obliterated Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons," he said, adding: "Anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the president and the successful mission." Trump posted Hegseth's comments on social media.

 

The administration delayed a classified briefing about Iran that had been scheduled for lawmakers Tuesday. That has led some in Congress -- mainly Democrats -- to question whether U.S. intelligence matches up with public statements from Trump, a Republican.

 

The strikes over the weekend shut the entrances to underground facilities at two of the sites, but didn't collapse their underground structures, the report said, according to an official familiar with the assessment.

 

One of the people familiar with the intelligence said that the facilities were degraded, but not severely, and that Iran still retained the ability to enrich uranium. Iran might have also moved enriched material from the sites before they were destroyed, and might have other covert sites to enrich uranium, the person said.

 

Early last week, days before the U.S. strikes on Iran, a senior U.S. intelligence official said the consensus intelligence community view at the time was that Israel's bombing campaign had already set back Iran's nuclear program by five to six months.

 

The U.S. strikes targeted three key Iranian nuclear sites: Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow. U.S. B-2 stealth bombers dropped a total of 14 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-buster bombs at targets including Fordow, which has an underground nuclear facility. U.S. submarines also fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Isfahan site.

 

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said on Monday that the strikes likely caused "significant damage" at Fordow, but that no one, including the agency, was in a position to fully assess the damage at the underground site.

 

A fuel enrichment plant was hit at Natanz, Grossi told the IAEA board of governors on Monday. At Isfahan, other buildings were hit, as were entrances to tunnels used for storing enriched nuclear material, he said.

 

The strikes followed days of Israeli bombing at Iranian military and government sites. Israel and the Trump administration said the strikes were intended to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran has said its nuclear program is peaceful.” [1]

 

1. U.S. Strikes Found to Cost Tehran A Few Months on Nuclear Program --- Early intelligence report counters Trump; White House calls it 'flat out wrong'. Volz, Dustin; Malsin, Jared; Seligman, Lara.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 25 June 2025: A1.