Trump Denies Report Claiming Iran Nuclear Sites Were Not Destroyed

Washington: U.S. President Donald Trump has firmly rejected a recent intelligence assessment that contradicts his administration’s claim that American airstrikes had "completely and totally obliterated" Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.

The report, allegedly from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and disclosed by CNN and The New York Times, states that while the strikes delayed Iran’s nuclear program by a few months, most of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile had been relocated prior to the attack.

Blasting the coverage, Trump posted on Truth Social, “Fake news CNN, together with the failing New York Times, have teamed up in an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history. The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed! Both the Times and CNN are getting slammed by the public.”

In an interview with Fox News, Steve Witkoff, the President’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, condemned the leak of the report as “treasonous” and called for an investigation.
“Leaking that kind of classified information is outrageous and completely unacceptable. Whoever is responsible must be held accountable — it could jeopardize lives in the future,” Witkoff said.

He also defended the operation, saying: “We dropped 12 bunker buster bombs on Fordow. There is no doubt it breached the facility’s defenses — it was obliterated. Any reporting suggesting otherwise is just preposterous.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also responded, issuing a statement to CNN that dismissed the leaked report as “flat-out wrong.”

“This so-called assessment was classified as ‘top secret’ and was leaked by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community. It’s a clear attempt to discredit President Trump and the heroic fighter pilots who carried out a flawless mission. When you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs on a target with precision, the result is total obliteration — everyone knows that,” Leavitt said.

With inputs from IANS