THE HAGUE: President Donald Trump on Wednesday dismissed doubts about the damage caused to Iran’s nuclear program by US bomb strikes, and insisted that Tehran’s uranium enrichment facilities had been “completely and fully obliterated.”
Trump also said he believed the war between Iran and Israel was finished, as both sides were keen to end the fight. “I dealt with both and they’re both tired, exhausted,” he said.
Questions over the effectiveness of the strikes on Iran’s underground nuclear plant at Fordow emerged after a leaked preliminary US intelligence assessment, widely reported in US media, suggested that they had inflicted a marginal and temporary setback.
“This was a devastating attack, and it knocked them for a loop,” Trump said. “They’re not going to be building bombs for a long time,” he said, and the strikes had set the program back by “decades.”
He also rejected suggestions that before the strikes Iran had moved its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, which can be developed into fuel for a nuclear bomb.
