A brand new assessment conducted by the military is contradicting a report put out by that bastion of journalistic integrity known as CNN (please tell me you caught the sarcasm) concerning the damage done to Iran’s nuclear capabilities following President Donald Trump’s bombing operation.
The military report vindicates the president and officials at the White House who said the targets were “obliterated” during “Operation Midnight Hammer.” If you didn’t already think the powers-that-be at CNN hated this country, the fact they are desperate to undermine anything the administration accomplishes should make it clear.
According to a report from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program has been set back “many years.” The report comes after Trump shared that Israel had boots on the ground at all three of the Iranian sites in order to assess the damage.
“The devastating U.S. strike on Fordow destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable,” the commission remarked in a statement the White House gave to Fox News on Wednesday. “We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years,” it said.
“This achievement can continue indefinitely if Iran does not get access to nuclear material,” the statement continued.
via Trending Politics News:
The Israeli commission contradicts an earlier assessment by the U.S. intelligence community that 14 “bunker buster” bombs only damaged Iran’s three sites enough to set its program back “several months.” Trump, speaking from a NATO summit in the Netherlands, doubled down on his claim that the bombing accomplished a “total obliteration” of all three sites.
“It was obliteration. And you’ll see that — and it’s going to come out. Israel is doing a report on it now, I understand. And I was told that they said it was total obliteration. You know, they have guys that go in there after the hit, and they said it was total obliteration,” Trump said to group of reports on Wednesday.
“It’s very tough to rebuild because the whole thing has collapsed,” Trump remarked while referencing Iran’s underground Fordow facility. “In other words, inside it’s all collapsed. Nobody can get in to see it because it’s collapsed. You can’t go in to see a room that has, you know, 10 million tons of rock in it. And the tunnels are totally collapsed.”
Israeli intelligence officials also said it was too soon to draw comprehensive conclusions about the extent of damage done to the facility in Fordow, which is buried dozens of meters beneath concrete and mountainside.
“A professional battle damage assessment takes time,” an official said in comments delivered to Axios.
“Israeli intelligence services haven’t arrived at any bottom lines for now,” they continued. “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 CNN report has kicked a hornet’s nest at the White House, where officials have fallen in line behind the president and insisted that the bombs “obliterated” their targets while attempting to turn the media’s focus toward finding the leaker of the confidential U.S. assessment.
President Trump delivered a brutal statement — in all caps — on Truth Social where he accused CNN, along with the New York Times, of “teaming up…to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed on Wednesday that both the Pentagon and the FBI are now opening investigations to find the source of the leak.
“Of course, we’re doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now because this information is for internal purposes. Battle damage assessments,” Hegseth told the media. “And CNN and others are trying to spin it to make the president look bad when this was an overwhelming success.”
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