President Donald Trump has rejected a leaked US intelligence report that suggested the strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities only set them back by a few months.
The highly classified report, produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency and US Central Command, contradicts statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Over the weekend, the US struck the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites after Israel claimed it needed American bunker buster bombs to help support the operation.
Sources – who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity – say the US caused significant damage to the structures but said the sites were not totally destroyed.
In response, Trump took to social media to hit out at the reporting saying in all-caps that any reporting that the strikes weren’t “completely destroyed” was “fake news” and an attempt to “demean one of the most successful military strikes in history.”
The White House also strongly pushed back on the assessment, calling it “flat-out wrong”.
“The leaking of this alleged 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,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff went even further and said the leak of the report to the media was “treasonous”.
The Tehran regime has insisted its nuclear programme is peaceful, but its uranium enrichment process has gone far beyond what is required for power stations.
Israel is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons, which it neither confirms nor denies.
At least 610 people have been killed in Iran since Israel began its attacks, Iranian state-run media said. In Israel, 28 civilians have been killed by Iranian missile attacks, according to local authorities.
As of Wednesday morning, the tenuous ceasefire between the two nations appeared to be holding after President Trump criticised them both heavily for not following it earlier in the week.
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