Israel-Iran war: White House fury as claims emerge US strikes ‘did not destroy nuclear sites’

The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities on Saturday reportedly didn’t destroy the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early intelligence assessment.

The assessment, which was produced by the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency and reported by CNN, is in disagreement with US President Donald Trump’s claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites.

Two sources told CNN that an analysis of damage to sites at Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz revealed that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed, and that the centrifuges are largely “intact.”

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” one of the sources said.

The White House has reportedly acknowledged the existence of the assessment, but has disagreed with it.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the assessment is “flat-out wrong” and was leaked to CNN by an “anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community.”

She added that the leaking of the 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.”

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

The US President has come out firing on his Truth Social account, slamming two major United States news outlets for reporting on the leaked intelligence report.

“Fake news CNN, together with the failing New York Times, have teamed up in an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history,” Mr Trump wrote.

“The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed!”

US Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, has also critiqued the reports that suggest the Iranian nuclear facilities weren’t destroyed.

“We put 12 bunker buster bombs on Fordow. There’s no doubt that it breached the canopy...and there’s no doubt that it was obliterated,” Mr Witkoff told Fox News.

“So, the reporting out there that in some way suggests we did not achieve the objective is just completely preposterous.”