Trump administration officials on Tuesday strongly denied an early US intelligence assessment suggesting the military operations against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure achieved limited strategic impact, with the White House characterizing the leaked analysis as “flat-out wrong” and politically motivated.
The administration’s response followed a CNN report describing a Defense Intelligence Agency evaluation that found the attacks may have delayed Iran’s nuclear activities by only several months, contrary to President Donald Trump’s claim that the targeted sites were “obliterated.”
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed the intelligence leak and claimed it came from an “anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community” attempting to “demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission.”
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“Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration,” she mused.
Trump addressed the matter on Truth Social and declared that it was “one of the most successful military strikes in history. The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed!”
The leaked report concluded that operations successfully damaged surface infrastructure but left critical underground components largely operational.
“Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely ‘intact,’” CNN reported. “Another source said that the intelligence assessed enriched uranium was moved out of the sites prior to the US strikes.”
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Trump’s strikes, according to one of the sources, set Iran’s nuclear program back by “maybe a few months, tops.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth maintained that Iranian nuclear capabilities had been eliminated. “Based on everything we have seen — and I’ve seen it all — our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons,” Hegseth said.
Addressing questions about potential Iranian recovery efforts, Trump insisted: “That place is under rock. That place is demolished.”
As CNN reported, not all Trump administration officials echoed the ‘obliterated’ narrative. Chairman emeritus of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Michael McCaul, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine were more conservative in their responses.
“It was never meant to completely destroy the nuclear facilities, but rather cause significant damage,” McCaul told CNN. “But it was always known to be a temporary setback.”
Caine, meanwhile, said that it was “way too early” for a definitive assessment.
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