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.
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.
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?
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.
Conservative commentator Joe Concha weighed in:
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.
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.
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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