Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump lashed out at leakers and the media over an intelligence report that suggested the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were not as much of a success as the president boasted.
CNN was first to report on the intelligence assessment this week, citing four anonymous sources who claimed the three Iranian nuclear sites bombed by the U.S. on Saturday were not “completely and totally obliterated,” as Trump bragged about. Instead, the country’s nuclear program was reportedly only set back by a few months.
The New York Times, which subsequently covered the report, claimed the nuclear sites, Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, had suffered only “moderate to severe damage.”
The White House released a statement following the report, claiming that the U.S. airstrike, combined with “Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program” had “set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.”
Trump on Wednesday compared the U.S. airstrike on the nuclear facilities to the Hiroshima bombing during World War II, which killed an estimated 140,000 people in Japan.
