‘Fake news’: Trump rejects intelligence report suggesting US strikes didn’t destroy Iran nuclear sites

US President Donald Trump, on Tuesday (June 24), pushed back against a CNN report which, citing an early US intelligence assessment, suggested that the US military strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure failed to destroy the core components of Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Trump rebuffed the report, calling it “fake news”, claiming the airstrikes were “ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MILITARY STRIKES IN HISTORY.”

He reiterated that “THE NUCLEAR SITES IN IRAN ARE COMPLETELY DESTROYED!”

While on his way to the NATO summit in the Netherlands, he told reporters aboard Air Force One that the press was very “disrespectful” of the US strikes.

“And our B2 pilots made this all possible. They had a magnificent hit in the dark of night with no moon, no light, no nothing. They hit the target perfectly, wiped it out, and the press is very disrespectful. I saw CNN fake news going: Well, maybe it wasn’t a perfect hit. It was perfect. 

They said maybe it did destroy it, we agree, it did destroy it, but maybe it could have destroyed it more. No, No. Everyone hit, and it’s very disrespectful to those great geniuses and patriots that flew those planes through tremendous dangers,” Trump said.

The CNN report

The CNN report claimed that US military strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, likely set back the country’s nuclear programme by only a few months, citing an early US intelligence assessment.

Quoting two people familiar with the developments, the report suggested that the stockpile of 
Iran’s enriched uranium was not destroyed in the US strikes and Tehran’s centrifuges, targeted by Israel and the United States, remain largely “intact”.

The DIA reports stated that the enriched uranium, which could be put to use for manufacturing nuclear weapons, may have been moved to other secret nuclear sites maintained by Iran.

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” CNN quoted one of the people as saying.

White House Press Secretary disputes report

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt swiftly disputed the report, labelling it “flat-out wrong”.

In a post on X, Leavitt said, “This alleged “assessment” is flat-out wrong and was classified as “top secret” but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community.”

“Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration,” she added.

The report casts doubt on Trump’s claims, who has repeatedly asserted that the recent US military strikes had “completely and totally obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Source: The Indian Express
--Agencies