Washington, DC – New media studies in the USA, citing intelligence assessments, have solid doubt over President Donald Trump’s assertion that Washington’s army strikes final month “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme.
The Washington Submit and NBC News reported that US officers have been saying that solely one of many three Iranian nuclear websites – the Fordow facility – focused by the US has been destroyed.
The Submit’s report, launched on Friday, additionally raised questions on whether or not the centrifuges used to counterpoint uranium on the deepest stage of Fordow have been destroyed or moved earlier than the assault.
“We positively can’t say it was obliterated,” an unidentified official informed the newspaper, referring to Iran’s nuclear programme.
Trump has insisted that the US strikes have been a “spectacular” success, lashing out at any studies questioning the extent of injury they inflicted on Iran’s nuclear programme.
An preliminary US intelligence evaluation, leaked to a number of media shops after the assault final month, mentioned the strikes didn’t destroy key parts of Iran’s nuclear programme and solely delayed its work by months.
However the Pentagon mentioned earlier in July that the assaults degraded the Iranian programme by one to two years.
Whereas the strikes on Fordow – initially regarded as probably the most guarded facility, buried inside a mountain – initially took centre stage, the NBC Information and Washington Submit studies urged that the amenities in Natanz and Isfahan additionally had deep tunnels.
‘Impenetrable’
The US army didn’t use monumental bunker-busting bombs towards the Isfahan website and focused floor infrastructure as an alternative.
A congressional aide conversant in intelligence briefings informed the Post that the Pentagon had assessed that the underground amenities at Isfahan have been “just about impenetrable”.
The Pentagon responded to each studies by reiterating that each one three websites have been “utterly and completely obliterated”.
Israel, which began the conflict by attacking Iran with out direct provocation final month, has backed the US administration’s evaluation, whereas threatening additional strikes towards Tehran if it resumes its nuclear programme.
For its half, Tehran has not offered particulars in regards to the state of its nuclear websites.
Some Iranian officers have mentioned that the amenities sustained vital injury from US and Israeli assaults. However Supreme Chief Ali Khamenei mentioned after the conflict that Trump had “exaggerated” the affect of the strikes.
The situation and state of Iran’s extremely enriched uranium additionally stay unknown.
Iran’s nuclear company and regulators in neighbouring states have mentioned they didn’t detect a spike in radioactivity after the bombings, suggesting the strikes didn’t end in uranium contamination.
However Rafael Grossi, the top of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, didn’t rule out that the uranium containers might have been broken within the assaults.
“We don’t know the place this materials may very well be or if a part of it may have been beneath the assault throughout these 12 days,” Grossi informed CBS Information final month.
Based on Grossi, Iran may resume uranium enrichment in a “matter of months”.
The conflict
Israel launched a massive attack towards Iran on June 13, killing a number of high army officers, in addition to nuclear scientists.
The bombing marketing campaign focused army websites, civilian infrastructure and residential buildings throughout the nation, killing lots of of civilians.
Iran responded with barrages of missiles towards Israel that left widespread destruction and claimed the lives of a minimum of 29 individuals.
The US joined the Israeli marketing campaign on June 22, putting the three nuclear websites. Iran retaliated with a missile assault towards an air base housing US troops in Qatar.
Initially, Trump mentioned the Iranian assault was thwarted, however after satellite tv for pc photographs confirmed injury on the base, the Pentagon acknowledged that one of many missiles was not intercepted.
“One Iranian ballistic missile impacted Al Udeid Air Base June 23 whereas the rest of the missiles have been intercepted by US and Qatari air defence methods,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell informed Al Jazeera in an e mail final week.
“The affect did minimal injury to tools and buildings on the bottom. There have been no accidents.”
After a ceasefire was reached to finish the 12-day conflict, each the US and Iran expressed willingness to have interaction in diplomacy to resolve the nuclear file. However talks have not materialised.
Iran and the US have been periodically holding nuclear talks earlier than Israel launched its conflict in June.
EU-Iran talks
Throughout his first time period in 2018, Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement, often known as the Joint Complete Plan of Motion (JCPOA).
The settlement noticed Iran reduce its nuclear programme in alternate for lifting worldwide sanctions towards its economic system.
In current days, European officers have urged that they might impose “snap-back” sanctions against Iran as a part of the deal that has lengthy been violated by the US.
Tehran, which began enriching uranium past the boundaries set by the JCPOA after the US withdrawal, insists that Washington was the get together that nixed the settlement, stressing that the deal acknowledges Iran’s enrichment rights.
I had a joint teleconference with E3 FMs & EU HR final night time, through which I made the next factors clear:
It was the US that withdrew from a two-year negotiated deal -coordinated by EU in 2015- not Iran; and it was US that left the negotiation desk in June this 12 months and selected a… pic.twitter.com/NFQdK2HZD4
— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) July 18, 2025
On Friday, Iranian Overseas Minister Abbas Araghchi mentioned he held talks with the highest diplomats of France, the UK and Germany – often known as the E3 – in addition to the European Union’s excessive consultant.
Araghchi mentioned Europeans ought to put apart “worn-out insurance policies of menace and strain”.
“It was the US that withdrew from a two-year negotiated deal – coordinated by EU in 2015 – not Iran; and it was US that left the negotiation desk in June this 12 months and selected a army choice as an alternative, not Iran,” the Iranian overseas minister mentioned in a social media publish.
“Any new spherical of talks is barely potential when the opposite facet is prepared for a good, balanced, and mutually helpful nuclear deal.”
Tehran denies searching for a nuclear bomb. Israel, in the meantime, is broadly believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.