The intelligence report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency on Monday contradicts statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities
Satellite image shows damage at Fordo enrichment facility after strikes in Iran on June 23. Pic/AP
A new US intelligence report found that Iran’s nuclear programme has been set back only a few months after a US strike and was not “completely and fully obliterated” as President Donald Trump has said, as per two people familiar with the early assessment.
The intelligence report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency on Monday contradicts statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities. The people were not authorised to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. According to the people, the report found that while the Saturday strikes at the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites did significant damage, they were not totally destroyed.
The assessment found that at least some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium was moved out of multiple sites before the US strikes and survived, according to the people, and it also found that Iran’s centrifuges are largely intact. At the deeply buried Fordo uranium enrichment plant, the entrance collapsed and infrastructure was damaged, so that will take time to fix, but the underground infrastructure was not destroyed, according to one of the people. The person also said that previous assessments had warned of this outcome at Fordo.
White House: Report ‘flat out wrong’
The White House strongly pushed back on the assessment, calling it ‘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,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”
This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
