US President Donald Trump, who pledged to act as a “peacemaker” in the Iran-Israel conflict, has now put America at its heart with his latest move. The POTUS claimed that the United States’ attack on three key Iranian nuclear sites early Sunday (local time) “obliterated” the targets even though officials are still assessing the true extent of the damage incurred.
Months ago, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified that the US intel community “continued to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” And yet, she eventually added, “Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.” Consequently, the president also reacted to her testimony, insinuating that he thought Iran was “very close to having one.”
‘There is no intel’
In the aftermath of the US Operation Midnight Hammer, Trump administration officials now suggest that the American leader’s decision to hit the Iranian nuclear sites was not fuelled by any new intelligence on the country.
“There is no intel,” said one of the officials privy to internal deliberations. “Nothing new, that I’m aware of… The president is protecting the United States and our interests, [but] the intelligence assessments have not really changed from what they were before.”
Senator Chris Murphy’s comments on Saturday night backed this assertion as well. Given his latest insight into the matter, he wrote on social media, “I was briefed on the intelligence last.”
Murphy, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, added, “Iran posed no imminent threat of attack to the United States. Iran was not close to building a deliverable nuclear weapon.”
However, White House Spokesperson Anna Kelly blasted his admission, calling it “false and lazy ‘reporting’ designed to undermine President Trump’s highly successful operation to dismantle Iran’s nuclear capabilities.”
Pete Hegseth and JD Vance break silence
During Sunday morning’s press conference, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth was also asked about the US potentially harbouring new intel on Iran’s attempts to build nuclear weapons. “I would simply say that the president’s made it very clear he’s looked at all of this — all of the intelligence, all the information — and come to the conclusion that the Iranian nuclear program is a threat.”
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance had something more to add. “Of course, we share intelligence with a lot of agencies, British, Israeli and so forth, but it was our intelligence that motivated us to act,” he said of US intelligence on Iran, or possibly intel offered by Israel, during his Meet the Press appearance on Sunday.
However, he quickly switched course and focussed on Iranians “stonewalling” the US. “That was not, by the way, our consensus back in March of this year, we saw the Iranians making some concessions. We thought the conversations were actually productive,” he said.
“By mid-May, everybody in our intelligence community and the president’s senior team looked at ourselves and said, the Iranians are not being serious. … If you believe, as we did, that the Iranians are rushing towards a nuclear weapons program while simultaneously refusing to negotiate, how can we do anything but take serious action against this program?”
Expert says Iranian facility is still likely intact
Contrary to Trump’s claims of total destruction at the three facilities that have since been hit, sources told CNN that B-2 bombers did not unleash “bunker-buster” bombs on the Isfahan facility. Jeffrey Lewis, a weapons expert and professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, closely reviewed commercial satellite imagery of the targeted locations.
Per his analysis, the damage to the Isfahan facility is limited to structures above the ground. Noting that its underground facilities likely remain intact, he said, “This is an incomplete strike. If this is all there is, here’s what left: the entire stockpile of 60% uranium, which was stored at Isfahan in tunnels that are untouched.”
Prior to the US attack on Iran’s nuclear structures, Trump addressed the nation on Saturday evening. “Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.”