From AP News: A new U.S. intelligence report suggests that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months by U.S. strikes, according to two people familiar with the early assessment who were not authorized to address the report publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The assessment contradicts U.S. President Donald Trump’s statements that Iran’s nuclear program was “completely and fully obliterated” after the strikes. According to the people, the report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency on Monday found that although Iran’s nuclear sites sustained significant damage, at least some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium was moved prior to the strikes and survived, and Iran’s centrifuges were largely left intact.
Trump’s special Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the U.S. airstrikes achieved their objectives and the White House called the assessment “flat-out wrong.”
After hearing about the report, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) was quick to take to the media with an incredible accusation that Trump was lying about the level of damage the military strikes caused.
Speaking Tuesday on MSNBC’s “The Weeknight,” Castro said, “What we have now, after the United States got involved in the war by dropping all those bombs on the nuclear facilities, is we had Donald Trump essentially exaggerating and overstating, which is not unusual for him, but exaggerating the damage that was done. And I can’t comment because I’m on the Intelligence Committee, about a particular assessment but it’s my belief, after looking at everything that the president lied about the amount of damage that was done.”
With lawmakers on both sides questioning the limits of Trump’s war powers, is a constitutional showdown brewing? Rep. @JoaquinCastrotx of the House Foreign Affairs Committee joins The Weeknight to break down the bipartisan backlash to the president’s strike on Iran. pic.twitter.com/Ghsp6J8hJU
— The Weeknight on MSNBC (@weeknightmsnbc) June 24, 2025
Meanwhile an expert has stated that strikes created a significant setback. International Atomic Energy Agency director Rafael Grossi said, “The Iranian nuclear program has been set back significantly.”
“It is clear that there is one Iran before June 13, nuclear Iran, and one now, and it’s night and day,” Grossi added.
EXCLUSIVE: President Trump says Iran will never rebuild their nuclear facilities. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi reacts: pic.twitter.com/LJYU8wyLPz
— Martha MacCallum (@marthamaccallum) June 24, 2025
Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s special envoy to the Middle East, agreed. He said the U.S. strikes damaged “most, if not all, the centrifuges” at the sites hit in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow.
“…it will be almost impossible for them to resurrect that program, in my view and in many other experts’ views who have seen the raw data, it will take a period of years,” he told “The Ingraham Angle.”
Witkoff said media reports that thee a different story are “completely preposterous.”
Steve Witkoff: Iran’s nuclear capabilities obliterated pic.twitter.com/JZItAbwE9B
— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) June 24, 2025
READ MORE AT AP News.
