Shocking early US intelligence report on US strikes of Iran’s nuclear program

By MICHELLE L. PRICE and MARY CLARE JALONICK 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new U.S. intelligence report found that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months after a U.S. strike and was not “completely and fully obliterated” as President Donald Trump has said, according to 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 authorized 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 U.S. 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.

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.”

Trump has said in comments and posts on social media in recent days, including Tuesday, that the strikes left the sites in Iran “totally destroyed” and that Iran will never rebuild its nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu said in a televised statement on Tuesday that, “For dozens of years I promised you that Iran would not have nuclear weapons and indeed ... we brought to ruin Iran’s nuclear program."

He said the U.S. joining Israel was “historic" and thanked Trump.

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the DIA assessment. ODNI coordinates the work of the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA, which is the intelligence arm of the Defense Department, responsible for producing intelligence on foreign militaries and the capabilities of adversaries.

The intelligence assessment was first reported by CNN on Tuesday.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and David Klepper contributed to this report