US Intelligence Suggests Iranian Nuclear Sites Remain Untouched After Attacks

The US military strikes on three of Iran's nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by four people briefed on it.

The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.

Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely "intact."

"So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops," this person added.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement: "This alleged assessment is flat-out wrong and was classified as 'top secret' but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community. 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. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration."

The US military has said the operation went as planned and that it was an "overwhelming success."

Israel had been carrying out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities for days leading up to the US military operation but claimed to need the US' 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs to finish the job. While US B-2 bombers dropped over a dozen of the bombs on two of the nuclear facilities, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment plant and the Natanz Enrichment Complex, the bombs did not fully eliminate the sites' centrifuges and highly enriched uranium, according to the people familiar with the assessment.

Instead, the impact to all three sites — Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan — was largely restricted to aboveground structures, which were severely damaged, the sources said. That includes the sites' power infrastructure and some of the aboveground facilities used to turn uranium into metal for bomb-making.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine said Sunday that while the damage assessment was still ongoing it would be "way too early" to comment on whether Iran still retains some nuclear capabilities.

Jeffrey Lewis, a weapons expert and professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies who has closely reviewed commercial satellite imagery of the strike sites, agreed with the assessment that the attacks do not appear to have ended Iran's nuclear program.

"The ceasefire came without either Israel or the United States being able to destroy several key underground nuclear facilities, including near Natanz, Isfahan and Parchin," Lewis said, referring to the ceasefire between Israel and Iran that Trump announced on Monday. Parchin is a separate nuclear complex near Tehran.

"These facilities could serve as the basis for the rapid reconstitution of Iran's nuclear program."

Earlier on Tuesday, classified briefings for both the House and Senate on the operation were canceled.

Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan of New York said on X that "Trump just cancelled a classified House briefing on the Iran strikes with zero explanation. The real reason? He claims he destroyed 'all nuclear facilities and capability'; his team knows they can't back up his bluster and BS."