Live Updates: Trump Officials Push Back on Reports Contradicting Trump Take on Iran Nukes
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| As the cease-fire between Israel and Iran entered a second day, the Trump administration contradicted a preliminary, classified U.S. intelligence report that suggested American strikes did not significantly set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions. |
As the cease-fire between Israel and Iran appeared to be holding for a second day, Trump administration officials pushed back forcefully against the findings of a leaked preliminary U.S. intelligence report in arguing that American strikes dealt a fatal blow to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The comments by President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a NATO summit in the Netherlands on Wednesday were the latest in an effort to portray the 12-day war — the biggest and deadliest ever between Iran and Israel — as a success. They contradicted the findings of the much less optimistic U.S. intelligence report about the effects of the U.S. attacks on Iranian nuclear sites.
Trump told reporters at a news conference at NATO that he didn’t “think it was necessary” to sign some kind of agreement with Iran, presumably to get the country to commit to give up its nuclear ambitions. “We may sign an agreement, I don’t know.”
Trump tells reporters at the NATO summit in the Hague that he is confident the conflict between Israel and Iran is over because they are “both tired, exhausted.”
“They have fought a hell of a war, very hard,” Trump said. “I think the war ended, actually, when we hit the various nuclear sites with planes.”
Trump, at the NATO summit, just mused about changing the name of the Defense Department to the War Department. He called Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth the “Secretary of War” and recalled that the Defense Department used to be the War Department before, he said, political correctness changed it.
“All of the nuclear stuff is down there” in the tunnels of nuclear facilities, Trump said, seeming to reject to the argument that nuclear material was moved out of the target sites, especially Isfahan, before the U.S. struck the facilities with so-called bunker-busting bombs over the weekend.
President Trump, speaking again at a NATO summit in the Netherlands, assailed the preliminary intelligence report that concluded that the military action had set Iran’s nuclear program back only by a number of months. He blamed the news media for calling into question the effectiveness of the strikes, even though the report was put together by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.
The Israel Atomic Energy Commission said in a statement that the American strike on the reinforced Iranian nuclear site at Fordo “destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable.” Unusually, the White House put out the statement first, and it was only later confirmed by the Israeli prime minister’s office, which oversees the country’s nuclear commission.
The remarks come amid a growing debate over the effectiveness of the U.S. attacks on the Iranian nuclear program. President Trump has asserted that the sites were “obliterated.” But a preliminary and classified U.S. report found that the attacks set back the country’s nuclear program by only a few months.
In the statement, the Israeli nuclear commission was quoted as saying that the American attack, “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 added that would remain the case so long as Iran did not gain access to nuclear material.
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President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio made their most detailed case yet on Wednesday for why they believe the American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities dealt a fatal blow to the country’s ambitions, pushing back on the findings of a U.S. intelligence report and statements from international nuclear inspectors.
While Mr. Trump largely repeated his arguments that the facilities were “obliterated,” Mr. Rubio stepped in with a more detailed description of why he thought the Iranians were set back for years, rather than by only a few months as the preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency report said.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said that the country had secured “a great victory in the campaign against the enemy who sought our destruction,” referring to Iran. Netanyahu promised that the Israeli government would work speedily to help those harmed by the fighting recoup their losses and rebuild their lives.
The Israeli military just said it shot down an incoming drone believed to have been fired from Yemen. The Houthis, a Yemeni militia backed by Iran, have been firing ballistic missiles and drones at Israel for well over a year in support of their Palestinian allies in Gaza.
Iran’s Parliament has voted in favor of a bill to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to Press TV, a state-owned news channel. The bill would block nuclear inspectors from entering Iran unless the “security of facilities is guaranteed,” the broadcaster reported, without giving further details.
But to take effect, the legislation must be approved by Iran’s Guardian Council, a body partly appointed by the country’s supreme leader that also decides which candidates are allowed to run in elections. The bill could offer Iran another way to defy the United States and Israel, giving it leverage in any potential new negotiations over its nuclear program. There was no immediate comment from the I.A.E.A.
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Israel’s military said on Wednesday that Iran’s nuclear program had been delayed by years, a day after the disclosure of a preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment that said it had only been set back by only a few months.
The assertion by Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, comes as questions swirl about the status of Iran’s nuclear program after Israeli and U.S. strikes over 12 days of war. It added to a chorus of public comments from senior Israeli and U.S. officials that contradict the early American intelligence assessment.
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President Trump pushed back Wednesday on the findings of a preliminary classified U.S. report, insisting again that Iran’s nuclear program was obliterated despite the early intelligence suggesting U.S. strikes had set the program back only by a few months.
The Trump administration has rebuked the media for reporting on that early assessment from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, which officials said found that U.S. strikes had sealed off entrances to two of three nuclear sites but not collapsed their underground buildings.
When pressed on whether the preliminary classified U.S. reportwas incorrect, President Trump said it was “very inconclusive.”
“The intelligence says, ‘We don’t know. It could have been very severe,’” Trump said. “That’s what the intelligence says. So I guess that’s correct, but I think we can take the ‘we don’t know it was very significant.’ It was obliteration.”
President Trump said the U.S. attack on Iran may bring progress to the negotiations between Israel and Gaza.
“I think great progress is being made on Gaza,” he said. “I think because of this attack that we made, I think we’re going to have some very good news.”
Even as President Trump said he did not want to make a direct comparison, he said the U.S strikes against Iran were analogous to the Americans dropping atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II.
“I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima,” he said. “I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war. This ended the war. If we didn’t take that out, they would have been they’d be fighting right now.”
That hit ended the war. That hit ended the war. I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima. I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing that ended that war. This ended that with the war. If we didn’t take that out, they would have been, they’d be fighting right now.
President Trump, who is meeting with NATO leaders at the alliance’s annual summit in The Hague, said he thinks Iran’s nuclear program has been set back by decades after the U.S. and Israeli strikes. The findings of a preliminary classified U.S. reportsaid the American bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran set back the country’s nuclear program by only a few months.
“I don’t think they’ll ever do it again,” Trump said of the Iranians. “They just went through hell. I think they’ve had it. The last thing they want to do is enrich.”
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose agency conducted the preliminary classified U.S. report that concluded that the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities set the program back by only a few months, argued on Wednesday that the American strikes were “flawless.”
“Any assessment that tells you something otherwise is speculating with other motives, and we know that because when you actually look at the report — by the way, it was a top secret report — it was preliminary, it was low confidence,” he said.
Hegseth claimed the heavy bombs used in the mission caused “devastation” at the Fordo nuclear site.
Mr President, when you talk to the people who built the bombs, understand what those bombs can do and deliver those bombs. They landed precisely where they were supposed to. So it was a flawless mission — “Flawless.” Right down where we knew they needed to enter. And given the 30,000 pounds of explosives and capability of those munitions, it was devastation underneath Fordo. And the amount of munitions, six per location, any assessment that tells you it was something otherwise is speculating with other motives. And we know that, because when you actually look at the report, by the way, it was a top secret report, it was preliminary, it was low confidence.
Hegseth said the Pentagon was working with the F.B.I. to conduct a leak investigation and blamed news organizations for “trying to spin it to make the president look bad when this was an overwhelming success.”
The Israeli military just said it shot down an incoming drone believed to have been fired from Yemen. The Houthis, a Yemeni militia backed by Iran, have been firing ballistic missiles and drones at Israel for well over a year in support of their Palestinian allies in Gaza.
President Trump, who is meeting with NATO leaders on Wednesday at the alliance’s annual summit in The Hague, just said that the cease-fire between Israel and Iran is “going very well.” Speaking at a meeting with the NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, he said he was “so proud” of Israel for turning around their planes, at his behest on Tuesday, after Iran had “a little bit of a violation” of the truce.
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