CIA director says Iran’s nuclear websites ‘severely broken’
BBC Information, Washington DC
The pinnacle of the CIA has stated US strikes “severely broken” Iran’s nuclear services and set them again years, diverging from a leaked intelligence report that angered President Donald Trump by downplaying the raid’s impression.
John Ratcliffe, the US spy company’s director, stated key websites had been destroyed, although he stopped wanting declaring that Iran’s nuclear programme had been eradicated outright.
It comes a day after a leaked preliminary evaluation from a Pentagon intelligence company instructed core parts of Iran’s nuclear programme remained intact after the US bombings.
President Trump once more maintained the raid had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear services.
The Republican president took to social media on Wednesday to publish that the “pretend information” media had “lied and completely misrepresented the info, none of which they’d”.
He stated Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth and different army officers would maintain an “attention-grabbing and irrefutable” information convention on Thursday on the Pentagon “to be able to struggle for the Dignity of our Nice American Pilots”.
It got here as Israel and Iran appeared to honour a fragile ceasefire that Trump helped negotiate this week on the twelfth day of the conflict.
Talking at The Hague the place he attended a Nato summit on Wednesday, Trump stated of the strikes: “It was very extreme. It was obliteration.”
He additionally stated he would in all probability search a dedication from Iran to finish its nuclear ambitions at talks subsequent week. Iran has not acknowledged any such negotiations.
However US Center East envoy Steve Witkoff advised US community NBC there was direct and oblique communication between the international locations.
Ratcliffe’s assertion stated the CIA’s info included “new intelligence from an traditionally dependable and correct supply/technique that a number of key Iranian nuclear services had been destroyed and must be rebuilt over the course of years”.
Director of Nationwide Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has additionally come out in help of Trump’s evaluation on the injury to Iranian nuclear services.
“If the Iranians selected to rebuild, they must rebuild all three services (Natanz, Fordo, Esfahan) fully, which might seemingly take years to do,” she wrote on X.
The US operation concerned 125 army plane, focusing on the three primary Iranian nuclear services on Saturday.
New satellite tv for pc photos present six craters clustered round two entry factors at Fordo, with related craters noticed at Isfahan. However it’s unclear if the nuclear services situated deep underground had been worn out.
A report from the Pentagon’s Protection Intelligence Company was leaked to US media on Tuesday, estimating that the US bombing had set again Iran’s nuclear programme “only some months”.
The US defence secretary stated that evaluation was made with “low confidence”.
Officers acquainted with the analysis cautioned it was an early evaluation that might change as extra info emerges. The US has 18 intelligence businesses, which typically produce conflicting reviews based mostly on their mission and space of experience.
UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi stated on Wednesday that there’s a probability Tehran moved a lot of its extremely enriched uranium elsewhere because it got here underneath assault.
However Iranian international ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei advised Al Jazeera on Wednesday: “Our nuclear installations have been badly broken, that is for certain.” He didn’t elaborate.
A report by the Israeli Atomic Power Fee stated the strike on Fordo “destroyed the positioning’s crucial infrastructure”.
The injury throughout all of the websites, the report stated, has pushed Iran’s timeline for nuclear weapons again by “a few years”.
But Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to the chairman of the Iranian parliament, stated shortly after the US strikes that “no irreversible injury was sustained” at Fordo.
Iran has lengthy maintained that its nuclear programme is peaceable. US intelligence businesses have beforehand stated Tehran was not actively constructing atomic weapons.
