Fake News? CNN Reports Iran’s Nuclear Program Was Only Set Back by Months
U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites “did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program.”
Seven people briefed on an early intelligence assessment produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency allegedly told CNN that last weekend’s U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites “did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months.”
One of the leakers said the DIA’s assessment “is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath” of the strikes.
From CNN:
Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.”
Another source said that the intelligence assessed enriched uranium was moved out of the sites prior to the US strikes. So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.
…
US officials believe Iran also maintains secret nuclear facilities that were not targeted in the strike and remain operational, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Needless to say, there is a lot of daylight between this report and the portrayals from President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who described the sites as obliterated. There’s a reason for that — one I’ll explain shortly.
☢️ @SecDef @PeteHegseth : “I’ve reviewed all the intelligence—every last detail. Our strike eliminated Iran’s capacity to produce nuclear weapons. The bombs hit their targets with pinpoint accuracy and performed exactly as intended. Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is now buried…
— Mark Dubowitz (@mdubowitz) June 25, 2025
In the meantime, CNN tried to present the postponement of classified briefings about the mission to the House and Senate from Tuesday to Thursday as evidence that it had been a failure.
Trump just cancelled a classified House briefing on the Iran strikes with zero explanation.
The real reason?He claims he destroyed “all nuclear facilities and capability;” his team knows they can’t back up his bluster and BS
Here's what they're scared we'll ask:
🧵
— Pat Ryan 🇺🇸 (@PatRyanUC) June 24, 2025
A remark from Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) “when pressed by CNN” constituted further “proof” for the truth-challenged media outlet that the mission fell short of its goals. McCaul said, “I’ve been briefed on this plan in the past, and it was never meant to completely destroy the nuclear facilities, but rather cause significant damage. But it was always known to be a temporary setback.”
Next they cited Jeffrey Lewis, a weapons expert and professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, “who has closely reviewed commercial satellite imagery of the strike sites, [and] agreed with the assessment that the attacks do not appear to have ended Iran’s nuclear program.”
Lewis noted, “The ceasefire came without either Israel or the United States being able to destroy several key underground nuclear facilities. … These facilities could serve as the basis for the rapid reconstitution of Iran’s nuclear program.”
Reached by CNN for a comment, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged the legitimacy of the report, but called it “flat-out wrong.”
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. 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.
But here’s what CNN failed to report.
Fox News senior political analyst pointed out on X, “That CNN report on this left out the part about this intelligence report being considered ‘low confidence.’ Imagine that.”
A pretty major data point for CNN to leave out, don’t you think?
That CNN report on this left out the part about this intelligence report being considered "low confidence." Imagine that. https://t.co/iF5LCys0Vp
— Brit Hume (@brithume) June 24, 2025
In a Substack post about the CNN report, conservative journalist Erick Erickson asked, “What do you think is more likely? The attack did not set back Iran or anti-Trump bureaucrats are trying to make a successful attack look bad to discredit the President and the military.”
I’m with Erickson on this one.
Additionally, we can’t forget that Natasha Bertrand was one of the authors of the CNN article. Reporting for Politico just two weeks ahead of the 2020 election, Bertrand boldly broke the story of the now-discredited letter signed by 51 former high-ranking intelligence officials that claimed the Hunter Biden laptop story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” The next day, Joe Biden cited the letter during a critical presidential debate to shut down Trump’s accusations about his family’s foreign influence-peddling business. That letter and Bertrand’s willingness to report it may have swayed the outcome of the election.
This CNN story was written by the same “reporter” who wrote the very first FAKE NEWS story claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation.
How did that work out for you, @NatashaBertrand? pic.twitter.com/x2CVhlhB1b
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) June 24, 2025
Conservative commentator Joe Concha weighed in:
Surprised CNN just didn’t go with 51 intelligence officers for old times sake… https://t.co/ZRF6U4xX1n
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) June 24, 2025
The authors acknowledged, “It is still early for the US to have a comprehensive picture of the impact of the strikes, and none of the sources described how the DIA assessment compares to the view of other agencies in the intelligence community. The US is continuing to pick up intelligence, including from within Iran as they assess the damage.”
This admission aside, CNN no longer even pretends to report the news objectively. That’s why the network routinely lags Fox News and even MSNBC in the cable news ratings wars.
In the video below, CNN “personality” Erin Burnett tells viewers that Iran is years away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon. Five days later, she reported that the U.S. strikes have only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months.
Erin Burnett five days ago: Iran is years away from a nuclear weapon. Trump is risking starting a world war for no reason.
Erin Burnett today: Iran's nuclear program has only been set back a few months. This is a big deal.
This is CNN. pic.twitter.com/qHSRB31LyL
— MAZE (@mazemoore) June 24, 2025
The same people who insisted a few days ago that we didn’t need to do anything because there was no evidence that the Islamic Republic had a nuclear weapons program are now trying to convince you that the regime is only months away from a bomb after we bombed all their nuclear…
— AG (@AGHamilton29) June 24, 2025
While Trump is prone to exaggeration, the U.S. dropped 14 30,000-pound GBU‑57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs on Iran’s nuclear sites, the majority of which targeted the Fordow nuclear enrichment facility. And CNN would have us believe the damage was minimal?
It almost sounds like they’re rooting for the terrorists, doesn’t it?
Update 12:00 pm: In the clip below, President Trump addresses the CNN story at a NATO press conference. Vice President J.D. Vance responds.
BREAKING: @PeteHegseth and @POTUS just WENT OFF on the FAKE NEWS.
I would NOT recommend insulting the GREAT men and women of our military. pic.twitter.com/bvV063znIz
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) June 25, 2025
This is such a revealing clip. The American media is full of the least curious, least insightful people in our country.
To recap, an out of context, “low confidence” and incomplete intelligence report was selectively leaked to the media. The media reported on the findings…
— JD Vance (@JDVance) June 25, 2025
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner and Legal Insurrection. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
I have absolutely no reason to believe a single thing CNN reports. Time and again they have proven themselves to be total liars.
They are garbage.
My confidence in CNN is exponentially lower than the level of confidence this farcical “report” was based on.
All a CNN report does for me is tell me I need to go look up the truth. Elsewhere.
Even Trump is backpedaling now. He first said the nuclear weapons facilities were “completely and totally obliterated.” Now he admits that they were not, but that we dud at least push back their program by a decade. I expect he will change his analysis again soon.
Obvious that some would support Khamenei over Trump. We call these people TDSers. Seeing how the sickness evolves is sad, yet funny. Keep up the good work!
“Trump says Israel sent agents into Iran’s Fordo nuclear site, saw ‘total obliteration’”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-says-israel-sent-agents-into-irans-fordo-nuclear-site-saw-obliteration/
“According to an assessment by senior IDF Intelligence officials and nuclear experts, Iran’s nuclear program was systematically destroyed, not merely tactically, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir said Wednesday in a televised address.”
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-859027
You’re a lying liar who lies, Junior.
You’ve literally been wrong about every single thing you’ve ever posted about Trump.
Do you ever weary of looking in the mirror and hating the face of the loser looking back at you?
Quit upvoting yourself, retard.
Always America last with you isn’t it, traitor
Maybe CNN is right, maybe CNN is wrong.
The Solution: Bomb. Rinse. Repeat. And Repeat Again.
It only gets worse. Trump just keeps on backpedaling. He first said that Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities were “completely and totally obliterated.” Then he admitted that they were not “completely and totally obliterated,” but that he did at least push back their program by a decade. Now he has backpedaled again and is saying that he pushed back Iran’s nuclear weapons by a few years. Stay tuned. Trump will keep on backpedaling, because the truth will eventually come out. Trump is lying about all of this.
Quit crossposting, retard.
Your BS is BS here and BS there.
It’s all just BS.
Dumbass.
Nobody is “backpedaling”. The Iranian nuke program is nothing but smoking wreckage and corpses. Your friends got their asses handed to them, deal with it.
so cnn wants more war?
Well, if it would make them happy, I guess we could drop a few more bunker busters down the holes.
Do we have a bunker-busting nuke we can shove down there to demonstrate how they work? That should remove all doubt.
I said ages ago that we needed to drop a “Rod from God” style penetrator (several in rapid succession, actually), with some nuke material on it, onto the enrichment site. Tell the rest of the world “Well, they must have tried making a bomb in there and it went kablooie. Should have better safety procedures.”
I know, there’s reasons that wouldn’t really work, but it was an idea.
No need to seed the rods with nuclear material. You hit the site hard enough and the stored material will contaminate the side all by itself. Plus you have the bonus that you don’t have to hope nobody identifies the source of the radioactive material.
If the HEU was there, it’s likely that was the source of the fire that was evident on post strike photos.
I can’t trust CNN to be truthful in any matter.
You can’t trust any of the legacy media to be truthful in any manner. ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN. They have been proven to be nothing more than the propaganda arm of the democrat party that will spout any and all democrat talking points no matter how foolish or nonsensical. That is all.
There’s a reason it’s called “Contrived News Network”.
.
All right, I get the First Amendment.
But how is it right, or fair, or (dare I say) efficacious for a powerful, well-funded media to spit out spurious information day after day with no consequences?
I know, the MSM exists only because the dogs are eating the dog food, but sh*tty reporting is damaging the nation’s psyche.
And I think it’s getting much worse.
What am I missing here?
MiniTrue.
The first lie the despicable Dhimmi-crat media told alleged that the Islamofascist, genocidal, terrorist Iranian regime wasn’t developing nuclear weapons. So, now, in an effort to slander #47, they concede the regime’s intent and allege that said effort was set back “months?”
First “anonymous source” say it all — a person with an agenda who makes thigns up.
Second. Did we obliterate it? No. But we damaged so much that it would cost more to repair and take longer then if they start over.
Third. Look at an engineer opining in the highlughted reply to the YT video . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfnJY2ydvc0&lc=Ugy-D-9QYX9q67u26Ox4AaABAg
Forth Not only is is hard to move radioactive material around without being detected. It is hard to move around without being killed.
Uranium has a half-life over 700 million years. This makes people think it’s very radioactive, but the opposite it true. Really dangerous radionuclides have half-lives in the minutes to hours, because they are decaying at a furious rate, and are spewing vast quantities of particles in a very short time period. U235 is very, very slowly decaying and the alpha particles it emits are of low energy and can’t even penetrate skin. Uranium is toxic, so care in its handling is still necessary, but it is definitely not hard to move around.
https://www.cdc.gov/radiation-emergencies/hcp/isotopes/uranium-235-238.html#:~:text=Because%20uranium%20decays%20by%20alpha,of%20the%20bone%20or%20liver.
Learn some physics.
You couldn’t carry it around in a wood crate. It would have to transported in something metal. As little as 10kg or uranium in a 1 yard by one yard box will gassify. The fact that it emits low energy radiation makes it much easier to start a chain reaction.Enriched uranium decays much faster — that the whole point. If it didn’t it wouldn’t be used in a bomb. Instead of looking at a website describing hazards of commercial uranioum, look at web sites talking about enriched uranium.
Reactor and weapons grade uranium is transported in gaseous form as UF6 (Uranium Hexafluoride) in metal cylinders. Wicked stuff. If a cylinder ruptures, then all you can do is run. Fortunately UF6 is heavier than air and will fall to the floor. You can out run it before it destroys your lungs.
Oh i only knew that Uranium gasifying is a part of the problerm of building a boimb. Good to know!
So much to unpack, but I’ll hit some important problems with your post.
Uranium is a metal. Once it’s been separated from other isotopes of uranium, it is easily transported in ingot form. The gas to which you’re referring is the chemical compound (which is unnatural) used when separating uranium isotopes by gaseous diffusion, which is a process that results, ultimately, in the metal that’s used in bombs. See the photo here (note the caption):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-235#/media/File:HEUraniumC.jpg
Chemically, but not isotopically, separated uranium is stored in a form of a solid called “yellow cake”:
https://en.teqnoverse.com/media/images/yellowcake.max-1200×300.png
You’re mistaking uranium for uranium hexafluoride, which itself is a solid when held below 135 degrees F. Because it’s a solid at “room temperature,” all it would take are sealed containers and refrigerator trucks to move it, if the Iranians bothered with it at all. More dangerous and volatile chemicals are regularly transported by trucks on our roads.
Now, because processed/enriched uranium can be made into ingots, why would anyone transport it in its gaseous form? If the Iranians had uranium at their facilities in its gaseous form it was uranium in the process of being enriched. (It’s put into a gaseous form because the isotopes of uranium are chemically identical, and therefore can’t be chemically separated. They must be physically separated, either by gaseous diffusion or by centrifuge.) The Iranians claim they removed the enriched uranium. That uranium would be in the form of a metal. The same as the uranium used in a nuclear reactor’s fuel rods. (https://www.nrc.gov/images/reading-rm/basic-ref/glossary/pellet-fuel.jpg
Note that in this photo the gloves protect the fuel pellet from contamination by the person’s hand. The gloves are cotton and don’t provide protection from radiation because such protection isn’t necessary. U235 is fissile but must be struck with a neutron in order to fission. There is not enough mass, and therefore too few decays-neutron emissions-taking place, for the U235 to go critical or super critical.) Even if the Iranians wanted to move the uranium in the uranium hexafluoride, but couldn’t move it because it was too dangerous or impossible to move, they could have easily extracted the uranium from the gas the same way they normally extract it from the gas to harvest the enriched uranium with equipment and processes they would have obviously had at the facility.
Enriching uranium does not change its rate of decay. Uranium is enriched because only enriched uranium can sustain a fission chain reaction. All isotopes of uranium are radioactive, with differing half-lives. Their half-lives are determined by their stability (determined by how many extra neutrons they have), not by how isotopically pure it may be. Half-life is a characteristic determined by the composition of each individual atom, not by an aggregation of atoms. In order to increase its rate of fission, a critical mass is necessary. Obviously, the ingots weigh less than that mass and they’re kept separated far enough (or separated by neutron-absorbing material) to prevent criticality. (Very specific conditions must be met for a mass of uranium to reach super criticality).
Because enrichment doesn’t change its rate of decay, enrichment-induced instability isn’t what makes uranium useful in bombs. Indeed, some short-lived radioelements aren’t useful in bombs, not because you can’t make a boom with them, but because their decay during the service life of the weapon could lower its explosive power (less fissile material left in the bomb due to the element’s decay into another element or element), or it could decay into elements that would absorb neutrons, preventing the chain reaction necessary for super criticality – the big event the bomb makers want).
U235 is almost uniquely suited to bomb use for having long-term stability (as its half-live demonstrates) and having a sufficiently large neutron (or chain reaction) cross section (which is a measure of an atom’s likelihood of being struck by and absorbing a neutron, which causes the atom to fission – if the cross section is too small, sustaining a chain reaction becomes problematic or entirely impossible) and because when it fissions it produces, on average, 2.5 neutrons, at least one of which will likely strike another atom and fission it too. (Radioelements that produce neutrons under an average rate of 2.0 are incapable of sustaining a chain reaction.) U235 is a goldilocks element for bomb-making.
Lastly, who said anything about “wooden crates.” Humans have been packing and transporting all manner of elements and chemical compounds with relative safety for a long time. You name it, if there’s a need to move it, it can be done. But my point wasn’t about how it could be moved or whether it would be possible, my point was, and remains, that uranium, even enriched uranium, isn’t particularly dangerous and is certainly not dangerous as a radioactive element. It is NOT hard to move radioactive materials without being killed. Humans have been doing so for more than eight decades now. You’d be hard pressed to cite a single death during such a transport that’s attributable to the radioactive nature of the substance being transported.
From AI:
While it’s important to be aware of the potential risks associated with radioactive materials, the transportation of radioactive materials has not resulted in a fatality directly attributed to radiation exposure in a transportation accident.
Learn some physics, and some chemistry while you’re at it.
BTW, I refer to web sites so that others can confirm what I’m writing. I know my physics. I also check web sites to confirm for myself that I’m correct (as I checked regarding fatality transportation events), something you may find useful.
BTW, your comment that increasing the mass of a lump of uranium increases its decay rate stumped me. Obviously wrong, but why would you think that? I believe you confused uranium’s natural decay rate with an increase in fission due to having a larger mass of U, which will produce more neutrons (during its decay) and has more available nuclei with which to collide (i.e. having a critical mass), increasing the probability that a critical or super critical chain reaction can be sustained. A greater mass can lead to more fission events (when other factors like density and configuration of the mass are also present), but fission and decay are not the same things and result in different levels of energy, the release of different forms of radiation, and result in different products. The point of enriching uranium is not to increase it’s decay rate (which it doesn’t do), it’s to make sustained fission (super criticality, which can be harnessed for energy production or exploited to create a boom) possible.
Absolutely true. The longer the half life the less radioactive. Now a big ball of uranium is not dangerous at all because of a self shielding effect. Most of the gamma rays come from the surface, only a few mean-free paths deep. Uranium gets dangerous when it takes the form of small particle. If inhaled then tissue gets exposed. The key parameter is the surface to volume ratio which is 4 pi R^2/(4/3) pi R^3 = 3/R where R is the radius of the particle. The dangerous size for the human respiratory system is one to ten microns. I can explain why is anyone is interested. As a heavy metal uranium is chemically toxic to humans.
As I mentioned, U is dangerously toxic. It’s a “heavy metal.”
But you don’t want to put into a ball. A sufficiently large mass of fissionable material, shaped into a sufficiently perfect spherical shape, can become extremely dangerous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core
Although the demon core was of plutonium, the principle is the same.
At the risk of being thought a know-nothing for knowing that these facts exist and can be looked up online, see this article on the factors that influence criticality:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass
I do not believe what anyone says, including Trump. Those trucks weren’t lined up in front of a facility before the bombing for no reason. 300 feet underground and knowing in no time flat that it is all destroyed in BS. Watch what Israel says and does is the source that matters.
Those trucks weren’t lined up to move enriched material either. Completely unsuited to the task.
Those trucks have also been watched for days, with their destination noted and likely bombed by Israel that monitored their movement both by drones, satellite and fly overs.
No one believes they were carrying radioactive material, however they may have been moving files, computers, office equipment etc.
You don’t lose that many scientists and locations and assets and only suffer a couple months set back.
These people quite literally are getting hard and moist at the idea the moooolahs stuck a finger up to trwaaaaaaamp! It’s quite sad really 😂😂
The person who deliberately and purposely leaked this information needs to be tracked down and made to pay a very heavy price!
Yet again, CNN fortifies it’s lead in the Fake News industry. Journalists everywhere are standing taller.
“One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.””
Anyone been in there to check? No. Its buried under million tons of rock and dirt.
Even if they’re still spinning happily away, enriching uranium… they’re still likely buried where no one can get to them.
The only possibility for “a few months” is that everything important was somehow removed before we dropped those bombs and set up elsewhere. And I can’t imagine we AND the Israelis both missed that movement, somehow.
Unlikely. News reports from commercial imagery show the power plants at the facilities were leveled. Without that power, the centrifuges stop spinning and can’t easily be restarted. It’s not like your PC when you trip over the plug.
If the reactors were not significantly damaged then the Mad Mullahs would have no reason to agree to a cease fire now would they?
There’s no contradiction in saying “Iran is years away from a nuclear bomb” and saying “The strikes only set Iran back by a few months.” Let’s say Iran was 3 years away from a bomb. If the strikes have set it back, say, 8 months, then Iran is now 3 years and 8 months away from a bomb.
BTW, even if Iran was able to clear out Fordow of all its equipment, that equipment needs a huge amount of infrastructure to support its operation. You can’t just take the movable assets of a uranium enrichment facility out of the facility and plop it down anywhere and be back in operation. The site preparation and construction necessary to make a new home for the equipment will not be easily hidden.
But, it certainly is an attempt to have their cake and eat it, too. They switched their statements not because it made sense, but because they have to play “Heads I win, Tails you lose.”
When Donald Trump wins Everybody wins.
When Democrats win America loses.
Just watch NYC.
Correct. And any other interpretation is foolish to the point of being obtuse.
First the intelligence establishment claims Iran had no nuclear ambitions, then they leak an “assessment” that the nuclear program they denied existed wasn’t really harmed. Maybe they can have 51 experts write a letter to clear things up.
On top of that I suspect the kit needed for enriching Clinton cake isn’t exactly…eh, mobile!
So what ever they got out most likely isn’t the most critical equipment that is most likely fixed in to place deep under ground…and that stuff would have been fixed in place because that’s just how that equipment comes.
When designing the facility I suspect they had no expectation of having to move any of it in a hurry so nothing was built with mobility in mind.
Anonymous + CNN = entirely made up.
The message sent to the Mullahs was more important that how much physical destruction took place.
#47 and Israel will hit the sites again, if necessary. The important thing was a precedent was established.
The point. Whether the underground processing facilities were destroyed or not, they’re definitely inaccessible and any attempt to clean up the mess, reestablish access and rebuild the above ground infrastructure will be visible on satellite and can be destroyed repeatedly until they give up.
CNN would have had thousands of embedded reporters in Normandy had they been around 81 years ago, all willing to take a bullet for the inner party.
They would have all been embedded at HQ, though. And somewhere well away from Patton.
They would have been at his FUSAG Army Group HQ in the UK, while he fed them deception info they would have happily reported as “the plan.”
Perhaps President Trump is plating 3D chess and intentionally leaked this intel assessment to justify more bombing missions over Iran. He can cite CNN reporting as his impetus.
And CNN would have us believe the damage was minimal?
So, you believe in the absolute ability of those bombs to overcome all obstacles just because they’re big and precise?
While I concur with Hegseth and Trump on the media and the idea of this leaked report, don’t ignore the possibility of the bombs not having done what we hoped. There is a reason people bury their command centers and such under mountains. We hit air shafts with these things because dropping on top of the buried structure wouldn’t have done much, even with 30,000lb bombs. There are all sorts of assessments going on right now – ELINT, SIGINT, HUMINT – to see just how effective the mission was (and not just at Fordow), and we should let the folks who know that job do it without getting in their knickers about initial guesses.
(Also, that assessment would have been one of several initial looks. Then they keep looking, and modify some of their efforts if an initial assessment points out something they hadn’t noticed.)
It was reported that Natanz had an “underground site, buried 40 meters under ground and reinforced with an 8-meter think concrete and steel shell.” That could be enough to withstand a nulear explosion. As noted before, I will wait for an Israeli assessment. They have their country on the line.
While I’m second to none in my absolute loathing of the MSM, especially CNN, NYT and the WP, I’m deeply suspicious of the official pronouncements that we destroyed Iran’s nuclear material processing facilities. How deeply are the centrifuges, and the processed uranium stored? What is the nature of the surrounding geology. If rock, then what kind? If concrete, then what are the specs?
According to ZeroHedge, six B-2 bombers dropped at least a dozen (14 according to Wikipedia) GBU-57 MOB, so-called “Bunker Buster bombs on Fordow and Natanz. Supposedly these facilities were utterly destroyed but no detectable uranium measured. So where is the raw and processed uranium? Was it removed before the attack?
If readers want to educate themselves on the subject of Bunker Busters, then check out National Academies Press at https:// nap.nationalacademies dot org/read/11282/ especially chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 7 covers conventional weapons, While this chapter does not cover GBU-57 specifically it does cover the earlier GBU-24 and the specs can be scaled up.
The US did a lot of research on this subject for the design of a nuclear Earth Penetrator, which never got test because of the test ban agreement. The same problem as far as getting payload to the target.
I will have to do some calculations, but at this point, I’m inclined to doubt the facilities were really destroyed.
Not to start anything but there were only 3 B-2’s and they can only carry 2 GBU-57’s each and all of those were dropped on the main target so total of 6. The other sites were attacked with cruise missiles (I believe Tomahawks) fired from a Sub.
Also, of course the facilities were not completely destroyed. Even if the payload had been Nuclear there is always something left behind. Well except for that football field sized hole in the center.
Then there is the simple fact that the only in person BDA that has been done is from the IDF and their report is that the sites were out of commission. No satellite or fly over can show you damage that is 200 ft underground.
Also, let’s be real. Any action that keeps the fanatic government of Iran for whatever amount of time is a success. Maybe not a great success, but a success.
CNN only partially referenced the “low confidence” report as it gave a time range that Iran’s nukes were set back anywhere from “a few months to many years”
So what!!!!??
lets say iran can in fact get back to rebuilding
Trump did the correct move by showing that the usa will not allow iran to go without consequences its plan to do what the dnc is doing to america..desroy it
We know that the media cannot be trusted and they, as we, do not have a security clearance anyway, so I think any news we get should be considered honest or dishonest speculation. I think focus on the media is a distraction.
What worries me more is that even.if the program suffered a severe setback, the regime will be more determined than ever, just like what happened after the 1981 operation in Iraq. And if our next President is a crazy like AOC, which I think is very likely, then the wind will be at their back. Israel, at the very least will be tightly restrained by the US, and at worst, will be thrown to the wolves.
…what I also wanted to say is that basically, without regime change now, Israel is in much more danger in 3 – 5 years. An Iran still determined to nuke Israel is not much of an improvement, especially when combined with an anti-Israel President.
I’ve posted this argument elsewhere – but given the media’s failure to note that a mere 2 month delay was rated as the least likely result….
As a soldier and later a civilian contractor I held various flavors of TS clearances – never was tasked with writing up or directly reading the sort of reports that summarize known intel about X and grade the received intel and analysis of same on a reliability scale.
But as I understand it, Best Practice is to turn your analysts loose to look at all possible conclusions, decide which ones are at least possible, and write them all up graded by probability of being correct. Like Schrodinger’s Cat you won’t know the correct conclusion until later – but with multiple choice options instead of just the two.
The MSM and the Dems (but I repeat myself) have recently repeatedly taken to assuming whatever the conclusion LEAST friendly to Trump – that MUST be the only valid conclusion – probabilities be damned.
Which leads to some rather silly “I’m sure this is the case” takes on Intel – a certain laptop must be DisInfo even if that probability is < 1% – Trump is a Manchurian Candidate even when it's his opponent getting rich off of foreign moneys – and all the Bunker Buster Bombs are no better than the non-working torpedoes the US Navy had at the start of WWII.
It’s just a flesh wound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UijhbHvxWrA
Conventional bombing, even with advanced bunker busters delivered by mind boggling-advanced stealth bombers can only do so much. The mission was an unqualified success, but Trump, ever the ringmaster, had to exaggerate. Perhaps the time has come to stop trimming around the edges and use tactical nuclear weapons. This taxpayer would like to see some small return for a lifetime in investing in such technology.
CNN which is close to going out of business received a leak from a detestable antisemitic scumbag like Tucker Heinrich Carlson. This should be investigated and the person should clearly be removed from their position in the Trump Administration and prosecuted if any laws were broken. You don’t have be very knowledge see what an absurd story the Contaminated Nazi News network published. Anyone who could possibly believe that the centrifuges at Fordo would withstand 14 MOPs must have a brain the size a peanut
Old and cold: It is a Zionist imperialist lie that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons!
New and bold: Iran shrugged off the feeble Zionist imperialist attack and will soon get nuclear weapons!
Without regime change, it would be unwise to declare victory. It must be assumed that iran kept at least part of their stockpile of uranium for storage off-site.
The stockpile of 60% U235 is only a relatively small part of the path to a nuke. Making a nuke is actually simple. The Hiroshima bomb design wasn’t tested because of the high confidence it would work. The hard part is enrichment. If the delicate centrifuges were damaged, then much work & time is required to reconstitute the enrichment train. Then it’s a balance between cost of rebuilding vs cost of (14) delivered MOPs.
To Recovering Lutheran but always a Nazi scumbag. Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Wednesday morning that he expects there to be “very significant damage” at Fordow, while the Institute for Science and International Security, led by former IAEA inspector David Albright, released a postattack assessment concluding that the U.S. and Israeli strikes had “caused massive damage to [Iran’s] nuclear program and [set] it back significantly.” The US built a realist model of Fordow to test The GBU‑57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs which were extremely effective. I would not call an attack with eliminated all of the top Iranian Generals and then some of their replacement, and the top 10 Iranian nuclear scientists, and with the end result Iran’s goal to destroy the “little Satan” is set back for at a number of years “feeble”.. Only the “zionist imperialist have ever accomplished wiping out all of the top generals before a country knew they were in a war a “feeble attempt” pea brain.
regardless of its veracity, a classified intelligence report was leaked–an act considerably more dangerous than any information contained in the report
find the leaker and deal with them
The US Intelligence services are chock full of anti-Trump operatives. Perhaps poor information lead Tulsi Gabbard to say Iran was years away from a nuke.
they are alos full of MAGA bootlickers. So….stalemate. OR maybe not. Trump is the most dishonest human being ever to occupy the WH.So, there’s that!