Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), the former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN on Tuesday it was “unfortunate” that “intelligence gets leaked so quickly” in the Trump administration.
After three unnamed sources told
CNN that President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran failed to take out the country’s nuclear facilities, despite Trump’s claim
that they had all been destroyed, McCaul told The Arena host Kasie Hunt:
Well, it’s unfortunate that intelligence gets leaked so quickly in this administration. I understand the president’s frustration. Having said that, it did cause significant damage, and I think that’s important in terms of a time to negotiate a peaceful resolution.
However, and I’ve been briefed on this plan in the past, it was never to completely destroy these three facilities, but rather cause significant damage, but it was always known to be a temporary setback where they could then rebuild the centrifuges.
CNN reported on Tuesday that, contrary to Trump’s claims about Iran’s nuclear facilities being destroyed, the strikes had likely only “set them back maybe a few months, tops.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth both lashed out
at the report, with Leavitt blaming a “low-level loser” for leaking the information.
“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,” said Leavitt. “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.”
CNN stood by its report, telling Mediaite in a statement that the information had “since been confirmed by other news organizations.”
In a statement to CNN, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt ridiculed the network’s report — alleging that a “low-level loser” had leaked it to them.
“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,” Leavitt said. “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.”
While Leavitt tried to pin the leak on a single source, CNN — in its report — cited “three people briefed” on the U.S. intelligence assessment.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, in a separate statement, likewise claimed the sites were leveled in the blasts.
“Based on everything we have seen and I’ve seen it all, our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons. Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target and worked perfectly. The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran. So anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the president and the successful mission.
CNN’s report stated:
“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 three 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.
The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available. But the early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes ‘completely and totally obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.
…
‘So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,’ [a CNN source] added.”
President Donald Trump was confronted aboard Air Force One about his shocking social media post floating “regime change” in Iran, and completely reversed course.
A major subplot of the U.S.-Iran-Israel war was Trump’s controversial message encouraging regime change after Vance and others
had seemed to rule that out as a policy goal.
Before the ceasefire
that’s currently in place, the president wrote on Sunday
that “It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!”
Trump emerged into the press cabin on Tuesday during the flight to the NATO summit in the Netherlands to take questions
from reporters, and was confronted about that rant now that hostilities have ceased.
The president claimed he never wanted regime change, and believes that the regime he just floated the overthrow of will “do a great job,” and renewed his attacks
on CNN and MSNBC for their displeasing coverage of the strikes:
REUTERS CORRESPONDENT JEFF MASON: Can you clarify what you meant when you mentioned regime change in your Truth Social post the other night?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Which?
REUTERS CORRESPONDENT JEFF MASON: Regime change. Do you want to see regime change in Iran?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No. If there was, there was. But, no, I don’t want it. I’d like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible. Regime change takes chaos. And ideally, we don’t to see so much chaos, so we’ll see how it does.
You know, the Iranians are very good traders, very good business people, and they got a lot of oil. They should be fine. They should able to rebuild and do a good job.
They’re never going to have nuclear, but other than that, they should do a great job, which is exactly why I’ve been saying for years, you cannot let iran have a nuclear weapon, but we’re going to be with– where’s Marco?
I think Marco’s here some place. You know our great secretary of state.
But we cannot let them have a nuclear weapon. They won’t have a nuclear weapon and I will tell you the last thing on their minds is nuclear weapons. They don’t even want to think about nuclear.
And our B-2 pilots made this all possible. They had a magnificent hit in the dark of night with no moon, No light, no nothing. They hit the target perfectly, wiped it out, and the press is very disrespectful.
I saw CNN fake news going, “Well, maybe it wasn’t a perfect hit.”.
It was perfect. They said maybe it did destroy it. We agree, it did destroye it, but maybe it could have destroyed it more.
No, no, it couldn’t have destroyed more. Every one hit, and it’s very disrespectful to those great geniuses and patriots that flew those planes through tremendous danger.
So CNN and MSDNC are disgraced, and so are the others. I mean, they’re pretty much all in disgrace.
But it’s an amazing period of time. Now we’re going to NATO, and we’ll get a new set of problems. We’ll solve a new sort of problems.
President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iran is very unpopular outside of his base, according to a new CNN poll that found a whopping 60 percent of independents opposed the move.
Trump also raised eyebrows with a Truth Social post referencing
“regime change” even as his officials tried to assure the public that overthrow is not the goal of this mission.
According to a CNN/SSRS poll
, Trump ran afoul of public opinion and made them feel less safe in the bargain. The poll found overall that 56% of Americans disapproved of the strikes, while 44% approved.
Majorities of independents (60%) and Democrats (88%) disapprove of the decision to take military action in Iran. Republicans largely approve (82%). But just 44% of Republicans strongly approve of the airstrikes, far smaller than the group of Democrats who strongly disapprove (60%), perhaps reflecting that some in Trump’s coalition are broadly distrustful of military action abroad.
A 58% majority overall say the strikes will make Iran more of a threat to the US, with just 27% believing it will lessen the threat and the rest expecting it to do neither. Even among those who support the strikes, just 55% expect them to lessen the threat level.
Even among Republican leaners, almost a third (31%) said Trump’s strikes made Iran “More of a threat to the US.”
The poll also found that Trump could face even stronger blowback if he ends up taking further action without consulting Congress. A full 65 percent said Trump should “be required to get congressional approval for any further military action in Iran,” including 67 percent of Independents and even forty percent of Republican leaners.
CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten argued MAGA voters made it clear that Tucker Carlson does not speak for the majority of them by approving of President Donald Trump’s Iran strikes far more than voters overall.
On CNN News Central
on Tuesday, Enten showed that overall Trump’s strikes over the weekend against Iran are historically “unpopular,” but the actions have been embraced by most Republican voters despite talk of a “civil war” brewing among Trump’s most vocal supporters.
The president announced a ceasefire
following his strikes, though he also accused Iran and Israel of both violating the ceasefire on Tuesday morning. Escalating fighting between Israel and Iran, and questions about the United States’ potential involvement kicked off fiery debates between right-wing figures like Tucker Carlson and Mark Levin, with the former arguing
for diplomacy and avoiding another Middle East war while the latter pushed for a far more aggressive
approach to confronting Iran.
“I think there’s this idea, okay, maybe the MAGA base wouldn’t necessarily like this. Look, this is Donald Trump’s Republican Party,” Enten
declared on Tuesday with anchor John Berman.
According to averages taken from a CNN/SSRS poll and a Reuters/Ipsos survey, 76% of Republicans back Trump’s Iran strikes, while 18% disapprove.
“Now, I will note that is a bit higher than Donald Trump disapproval rating within the Republican Party,” Enten said of the 18% disapproval, “but overall, Republicans are with Donald Trump on this. Tucker Carlson be darned. The bottom line is he does not speak for the majority of the Republican base.”
Berman noted the rapidly-changing situation could seriously impact that approval.
“All this could change depending on what the ceasefire holds or not. It could become more popular if the ceasefire holds, less popular if it doesn’t,” he said.
Enten noted earlier in the segment that voters overall are much less pleased with Trump’s strikes, something the reporter called “surprising” considering how voters responded to similar past military actions.
Trump’s net approval rating on the weekend strikes was negative 12 points in the CNN survey and negative 9 points in the Reuters poll.
“Why am I so surprised from a historical perspective? Because usually airstrikes rate fairly highly,” Enten said, showing a more than 50% positive net approval for airstrikes on ISIS in 2014.
CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings boasted about the U.S. government violating the national sovereignty of foreign countries on Monday, before questioning, “Who’s gonna stop us?”
During a CNN NewsNight panel discussion about President Donald Trump’sannouncement
of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, and the Trump administration’s bombing
of nuclear facilities in Iran, former Bush White House spokesman Pete Seat argued, “The Iranians do not speak the language of diplomacy unless force is used, and that is what President Trump and the United States used this past weekend in a precision, perfection way.”
After Seat insisted, “It is not illegal in any way, shape, or form!” West shot back, “Of course, it is a violation of international law. You can’t violate national sovereignty of a country.”
Jennings then interrupted, “Why? We do it all the time.”
“I know because America violates international law all the time,” responded West, to which Jennings remarked, “Who’s gonna stop us?”
West replied, “You would think morality ought to play some role.”
“You think it’s immoral to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon? Who’s the moral actor here, Iran or the United States?” asked Jennings, as the two proceeded to talk over one another.
Peter Beaumont, The Guardian (“How effective was the US attack on Iran’s nuclear sites?“):
Donald Trump was quick to claim that US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities had “completely and totally obliterated” them. Still, it remains unclear how much physical damage has been done or what the longer-term impact might be on Iran’s nuclear programme.
What was the target?
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) confirmed that attacks took place on its Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz sites, but insisted its nuclear programme would not be stopped. Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog said there were no immediate signs of radioactive contamination around the three locations after the strikes.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society reported no deaths from the US strikes, appearing to confirm Iranian claims they had been largely evacuated in advance. The health ministry said those who were injured showed no evidence of nuclear contamination. In the immediate aftermath, US military officials said the three sites had suffered “severe damage” after an operation that had been planned for weeks, suggesting it was coordinated with Israel.
The Pentagon said a battle damage assessment was still being conducted.
What do we know about the strike on Fordow?
Long regarded as the most difficult military target among Iran’s nuclear sites, the uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow – the primary target of the operation – are buried beneath the Zagros mountains. Reports have suggested that the site was constructed beneath 45-90 metres of bedrock, largely limestone and dolomite.
[…]
The site was hit by a dozen 13,600kg massive ordnance penetrators – known as bunker busters – at approximately 2.10am Iranian time. It was the weapon’s first operational use. The number used suggests a lack of confidence that a smaller strike could penetrate through to the target.
The result to a large extent depends on the kind of concrete inside the facility. Estimates of the bunker busters’ penetration are based largely on reinforced concrete resistant to 5,000psi. Iran is believed to have used more resistant concrete.
While video from the site showed evidence of a fire in the immediate aftermath, satellite images published on Sunday were suggestive but far from conclusive.
The main support building at the site appeared to be undamaged, but the topography of a prominent area of ridge line appeared to have altered and been flattened out, with some evidence of rock scarring close to two clusters of bomb craters around the ridge.
[…]
At odds with Trump’s claim of “complete obliteration”, two Israeli officials who spoke to the New York Times described serious damage at Fordow but said the site had not been completely destroyed.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, added: “As for the assessment of the degree of damage underground, on this we cannot pronounce ourselves. It could be important; it could be significant, but no one … neither us nor anybody else could be able to tell you how much it has been damaged.”
What was the impact at Isfahan?
Isfahan’s nuclear technology centre was struck by Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from an Ohio-class submarine as opposed to bunker busters. Video posted on social media showed a distant detonation from the site on Saturday night.
According to the IAEA, in addition to four hit by Israeli strikes, six other buildings had now been attacked, including a fuel rod production facility. It said facilities targeted at Isfahan either contained no nuclear material or small quantities of natural or low-enriched uranium.
What was hit at Natanz?
Natanz had previously been damaged by the first Israeli strikes of the conflict, with assessments then suggesting they had hit the power plant supplying the main centrifuge hall. Uranium had been enriched to up to 60%, short of weapons-grade material.
It appears that Natanz’s underground enrichment hall was targeted. Enhancement of satellite images from the site on Sunday showed fresh damage to overground buildings and new cratering in the centre of the site.
[…]
Was Iran’s nuclear programme obliterated?
Iran has claimed that it evacuated the sites several days ago, and satellite imagery from several days ago suggests there was unusual truck traffic at Fordow. That appears to confirm the movement of some material from the site, possibly including the uranium stockpile – or parts of it – which remains unaccounted for.
Hassan Abedini, the deputy political head of Iran’s state broadcaster, said Iran had evacuated the three sites – Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow – some time ago.
“The enriched uranium reserves had been transferred from the nuclear centres and there are no materials left there that, if targeted, would cause radiation and be harmful to our compatriots,” he said.
Three days before the US attacks, 16 cargo trucks were seen near the Fordow entrance tunnel.
The head of the AEOI, Mohammad Eslami, claimed this month that Iran had another enrichment site “in a secure and invulnerable location” that could house centrifuges.
Analysts have long argued that while it is possible to disrupt the physical function of a nuclear facility and limit the scope of a programme through, for example, the killing of scientists, the breadth of technical knowledge acquired during the decades-long programme is impossible to destroy.
Ultimately, the question is whether the US-Israeli attacks are seen as sufficient for Iran to capitulate, or whether they instead encourage the regime to accelerate its efforts to produce a viable nuclear weapon.
Peter Sanger, NYT
(“Officials Concede They Don’t Know the Fate of Iran’s Uranium Stockpile“):
A day after President Trump declared that Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely and totally obliterated” by American bunker-busting bombs and a barrage of missiles, the actual state of the program seemed far more murky, with senior officials conceding they did not know the fate of Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium.
“We are going to work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel and that’s one of the things that we’re going to have conversations with the Iranians about,” Vice President JD Vance told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, referring to a batch of uranium sufficient to make nine or 10 atomic weapons. Nonetheless, he contended that the country’s potential to weaponize that fuel had been set back substantially because it no longer had the equipment to turn that fuel into operative weapons.
[…]
In a briefing for reporters on Sunday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, avoided Mr. Trump’s maximalist claims of success. They said an initial battle-damage assessment of all three sites struck by Air Force B-2 bombers and Navy Tomahawk missiles showed “severe damage and destruction.”
Satellite photographs of the primary target
, the Fordo uranium enrichment plant that Iran built under a mountain, showed several holes where a dozen 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators — one of the largest conventional bombs in the U.S. arsenal — punched deep holes in the rock. The Israeli military’s initial analysis concluded that the site, the target of American and Israeli military planners for more than 26 years, sustained serious damage from the strike but had not been completely destroyed.
But there was also evidence, according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the intelligence, that Iran had moved equipment and uranium from the site
in recent days. And there was growing evidence that the Iranians, attuned to Mr. Trump’s repeated threats to take military action, had removed 400 kilograms, or roughly 880 pounds, of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity. That is just below the 90 percent that is usually used in nuclear weapons.
The 60-percent enriched fuel had been stored deep inside another nuclear complex, near the ancient capital of Isfahan. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said by text that the fuel had last been seen by his teams of United Nations inspectors about a week before Israel began its attacks on Iran. In an interview on CNN on Sunday he added that “Iran has made no secret that they have protected this material.”
Asked by text later in the day whether he meant that the fuel stockpile — which is stored in special casks small enough to fit in the trunks of about 10 cars — had been moved, he replied, “I do.” That appeared to be the mystery about the fuel’s fate that Mr. Vance was discussing.
If so, Isfahan would not be the only place where the custodians of the Iranian nuclear program — a subject of nationalistic pride and the symbol of Iran’s ability to defend itself — were trying to move equipment and material out of sight, and harden the Fordo plant to protect what had to stay in place.
Satellite images released by Maxar Technologies at the tunnels leading into the Fordo mountain, taken in the days before the American strike, show 16 cargo trucks positioned near an entrance. An analysis by the Open Source Centre in London suggested that Iran may have been preparing the site for a strike.
It is unclear exactly what, if anything, was removed from the facility.
In fact, there was only so much the Iranians could save. The giant centrifuges that spin at supersonic speeds, purifying uranium, are piped together and bolted to the cement floor. One U.S. official said it would have been unrealistic to completely move equipment out of Fordo after the conflict with Israel began.
The official added that historical documents about the nuclear program were buried in the bowels of the site, likely complicating any efforts in reconstituting it. In coming days, both the Iranians and intelligence agencies expect to learn more about the Natanz enrichment site, which is older, larger and less well protected than Fordo. It was struck by the Israelis repeatedly, and they destroyed an aboveground enrichment center and disrupted the electrical system. Mr. Grossi later said he believed the interruption of the electrical supply could have sent the centrifuges spinning out of control, probably destroying all of them.
How long it would take the Iranians to repair and replace that equipment is unknown; it would probably stretch for years. But Iran is also building a new, deep replacement for Natanz in the south of the city. Officials in Tehran have told the I.A.E. A. that they have not yet opened the plant, so there is nothing to see.
That President Trump’s initial claims were likely wildly overstated comes as no surprise. It’s the nature of his political style. While unorthodox and frequently counterproductive from a policymaking perspective, it’s been highly effective at mobilizing and reshaping his base. It has landed him the White House on two separate occasions and made him the central figure of American politics for more than a decade.
Tactically, the decision to broadcast our intention to bomb Iran if they did not make unacceptable-to-them concessions was a mixed bag. It did not have the desired coercive effect and, rather clearly, gave them time to move materiel that could be moved, thereby lessening the strategic impact of the attack. On the other hand, it did appear to minimize noncombatant casualties.
That said, it’s rather clear that the damage was substantial. At worst, these facilities will take a long time to rebuild. At best, they’re permanently unusable.
But Sanger makes a point I’ve been making for going on twenty years:
If Iran is truly pursuing a nuclear weapon — which it officially denies — it is taking more time than any nuclear-armed nation in history. The United States developed the Manhattan Project in four years or so, developing the bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war in the Pacific. The Soviet Union conducted its first test in 1949, only four years later. India, Pakistan and Israel all sped the process.
The Iranians have been at it for more than 20 years, and an archive of data stolen from a Tehran warehouse by Israel a number of years ago showed that Iranian engineers were exploring nuclear triggers and other equipment that would only be used to detonate a weapon. That was around 2003, when, according to American intelligence, the engineers received instructions to halt work on weaponization.
Comments by Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent days suggest they believe that work has resumed, though no evidence to support the contention has been made public. If so, the strikes on Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan may only reinforce the view among Iranian leaders
that they need a weapon for survival of the government.
The mantra that “Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is unacceptable” has been a bipartisan and, indeed, global consensus for a very long time. I certainly share it. Not so much because I think they’ll immediately nuke Israel—despite eliminationist rhetoric, we have almost half a century of evidence that the Islamic Republic is a rational actor—but because it would likely set off a regional arms race. At the same time, though, we’ve seen time and again that it’s next to impossible to stop a determined regime from acquiring 1940s technology.
To the extent this attack kicked the can down the road, it was effective. But, as Sanger notes, it’s quite possible that it will have the opposite effect: convincing the mullahs that the only way Iran can achieve its rightful place as a dominant regional power is to become a nuclear possessor.
