The White House made the unusual move of releasing a statement from Israel that appears to contradict intelligence from a Pentagon agency about the U.S. strikes on Iran
The administration has vehemently criticized a leaked preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment that the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities may not have been as devastating as Donald Trump claimed.
On Tuesday, the White House issued a statement from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) as it continued to insist the strikes obliterated three Iranian targets.
Speaking in the Netherlands, the president also read the statement from Israel aloud as he complained about the leaked intelligence and attacked the media for reporting on it.
“The devastating strike on Fordo destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable,” the IAEC statement read.
“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 continued.
Israel pressured Trump to carry out the strikes before the mission, as the U.S. was the only country capable of bombing the Fordo nuclear site with its “bunker busters.”
The president on Wednesday repeatedly insisted the leaked intelligence was preliminary and they did not know, but he did not dispute what was in it.
His own argument raises questions as to why the president himself announced the sites had been obliterated so soon after the strikes without further information. Even the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine on Sunday said it was too early to tell the extent of the damage.
That initial assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency within the Pentagon suggested the strikes did not completely destroy the facilities and that the enriched uranium could have been moved, but Trump stood by his Saturday night remarks.
“It was so devastating actually. If you look at Hiroshima, if you look at Nagasaki, you know that ended a war too. This ended a war in a different way, but it was so devastating,” Trump said of the strikes.
When asked whether the U.S. was relying on Israeli intelligence, Trump said he was not and also pointed to a statement from Iran.
“The document said it could be very severe damage, but they didn’t take that. They said it could be limited or it could be very severe,” Trump said of the initial U.S. intel report.
The president claimed that since then, they have also collected additional information and spoken to people who have seen the site, but he did not provide further evidence.
“The site is obliterated, and we think everything nuclear is down there,” Trump claimed.
It comes as briefings with the House and Senate on the strikes on Tuesday were abruptly canceled, raising questions from Democrats over whether the intelligence disputed the president’s claims on Iran. Those briefings are now scheduled for Thursday and Friday.
Trump officials, including the president, on Wednesday also suggested the media reports on the preliminary intelligence were attacks on the military and pilots who carried out the daring mission.
However, none of the reports demeaned the brave men and women who carried out the operationally successful mission, but shared the early assessment that the damage was limited and only set back the program months.
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