Photo:Iran’s nuclear facilities were significantly damaged , Israeli officials say
Israeli intelligence services believe U.S. and Israeli strikes caused “very significant” damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities, with some officials perplexed by a leaked U.S. intelligence report that suggested otherwise.
- Like the U.S., Israel has not produced a final assessment on how far back the bombing campaign has set Iran’s nuclear program, three officials told Axios.
The emerging Israeli assessment presents a far more optimistic view of the operation than a preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which assessed the strikes may have set Iran back only a few months.
- President Trump’s claim that Iran’s nuclear program has been “obliterated” came under scrutiny Tuesday after the DIA report was leaked to CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post and multiple other outlets.
- The leak infuriated the White House, which rejected the findings as “fake news” and accused anonymous officials of seeking to undermine Trump.
- Speaking Wednesday at the NATO summit in the Netherlands, Trump said that the U.S. report was a preliminary report that was “inconclusive,” and said Israel’s forthcoming report would give more information.
Israel, which initiated the war and faces a far more direct threat from Iran than the U.S., is largely satisfied with the early results from Trump’s military strike on Saturday.
- “A professional battle damage assessment takes time,” an Israeli official stressed, suggesting it was far too soon to draw the kinds of conclusions included in the DIA report.
- “Israeli intelligence services haven’t arrived at any bottom lines for now,” the official added. “But we don’t think there was any bug in the operation, and we have no indications the bunker-buster bombs didn’t work. Nobody here is disappointed.”
The classified DIA report was based on early intelligence from just one agency, and the overall picture remains muddled — especially with Iran itself still assessing the damage and weighing its next moves.
- Still, the existence of the report — paired with the abrupt postponement of congressional briefings on Tuesday — has ignited deep frustration among Democrats over Trump’s cavalier approach to sensitive intelligence.
- “I’m very concerned about [Trump] distorting, manipulating and even lying about intelligence,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told Axios. “We’ve been here before. We went to war in Iraq under false pretenses.”
Trump and his aides have doubled down on the success of the B-2 bombing operation and lashed out at the media for reporting on the early intelligence assessment.
- “Leaking that type of information — whatever the information, whatever side it comes out on — is outrageous. It’s treasonous,” White House envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News.
- “We put 12 bunker-buster bombs on Fordow,” Witkoff continued, referring to Iran’s most fortified underground nuclear site. “There’s no doubt that it breached the canopy … and there’s no doubt that it was obliterated.”
Axios