There are new claims saying Iran’s nuclear program was “badly damaged” in attacks by Israel and the U.S. These differ from earlier published reports that the strikes had a limited effect, highlighting the precarious nature of parsing through preliminary assessments.
Wednesday afternoon, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said that his agency “can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes,” according to a public statement. “This includes new intelligence from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years. CIA continues to collect additional, reliably sourced information to keep appropriate decision-makers and oversight bodies fully informed. When possible, we will also provide updates and information to the American public, given the national importance of this matter and in every attempt to provide transparency.”
Ratcliffe’s analysis follows statements from Israeli intelligence officials on Wednesday that said U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities have caused “very significant” and “long-term damage,” according to Israeli media reports. Iran also confirmed its sites were “badly damaged.” Those assessments are in line with what U.S. President Donald Trump has said. At the same time, they differ significantly from U.S. media reports citing a now-confirmed preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report stating that Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. attack on Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz, had limited results. Experts in the non-proliferation community are also giving their takes on the state of Iran’s nuclear program, some of which are conflicting and even Iran has chimed in.
Clearly this issue is highly politicized at this point and there are many agendas at play when it comes to propagating specific narratives surrounding it. These range from political motivations to state-sponsored disinformation. Unless there are trusted moles with actual access to these sites — or who have direct knowledge from those who do — within the Iranian government, and only if Iran has even gained access into critical areas themselves, conclusions can only be made in a preliminary fashion based on very limited information. Even intercepted intelligence can be falsified in order to throw foreign assessments off. Intelligence reports, as a practice, also range in confidence, and it’s unlikely the confidence is extremely high this soon after the attack. So maybe the B-2s didn’t have the desired effect or maybe they destroyed huge amounts of critical nuclear infrastructure and materials. It’s still not very clear and conclusions in key intelligence products can change drastically based on new information.
Regardless, here is the state of play of the battle damage assessment situation as it sat prior to the CIA report. You can also catch up with our past reporting about the Israel-Iran conflict here.
Earlier this month, Israel began attacking Iranian nuclear facilities and killing its nuclear scientists as a major aim of its Operation Rising Lion. On Saturday, America directly entered the fray, with U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bombers dropping 14 30,000-pound GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster bombs on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear facilities. It was the first combat use of those weapons. In addition, the Isfahan facility was struck with “more than two dozen” Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles (TLAMs) launched from a nuclear guided missile submarine (SSGN) somewhere in the region. An uneasy ceasefire, engineered in part by Trump, seems to be holding.
On Wednesday, Israeli officials touted the success of the attacks on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. However, there are still questions about the whereabouts of the enriched uranium Iran has produced.
“Israeli intelligence services believe U.S. and Israeli strikes caused ‘very significant’ damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities,” Axios reported on Wednesday. “Israel, which initiated the war and faces a far more direct threat from Iran than the U.S., is largely satisfied with the early results from Trump’s military strike on Saturday.”
“A professional battle damage assessment takes time,” an Israeli official told the outlet. “Israeli intelligence services haven’t arrived at any bottom lines for now. But we don’t think there was any bug in the operation, and we have no indications the bunker-buster bombs didn’t work. Nobody here is disappointed.”
Israeli defense officials “assess major, long-term damage to Iran’s nuclear program,” Israeli news outlet Yediot Ahronot columnist Nadav Eyal reported on X. “Israeli Officials confirm most enriched uranium is trapped, following the massive U.S strikes, inside the underground Isfahan facility—and possibly Fordow—after entrances were destroyed. These sites are monitored for any extraction attempt. Western intelligence services are still assessing whether additional enriched uranium exists beyond the known 400 kg, hidden elsewhere.”
Wednesday afternoon, Iran acknowledged that its nuclear installations were hit hard by Operation Midnight Hammer, the first such public comments by Tehran as debate grows over how much the bombardment managed to dent the Islamic Republic’s atomic program.
“Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told Al Jazeera TV.
Baghaei offered no further details and said authorities were still assessing the situation on the ground. The U.S. attacks, he added, were a “detrimental blow” to international law and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which Iran is a signatory.
Earlier on Wednesday, the White House released what it said was a statement from the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission.
“The devastating US strike on Fordow destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable,” the statement claimed. “We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, have set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.”
During a press briefing during the NATO Summit in The Hague, Trump repeated his stance that Fordow was “obliterated” and hinted that Israeli forces had been on the ground at Fordow after Midnight Hammer.
“Israel is doing a report on it now, I understand, and I was told that they said that it was total obliteration,” Trump said. “You know they have guys that go in there, after the hit, and they say it was total obliteration.”
Israeli officials, however, pushed back against the assertion that the country has inside sources with direct access to the sites.
Arye Deri, chairman of Israel’s ultra-right Shas party, “denied Trump’s claim that Israelis visited Fordow,” The Jerusalem Post reported on Wednesday. When he was asked what damage was caused to the Iranian nuclear program, and whether there was enriched uranium inside the facilities, Deri said, “Nobody knows for sure, because nobody has visited there yet.”
On Tuesday, CNN reported that Operation Midnight Hammer “did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months.” The story was based on “an early U.S. intelligence assessment that was described by seven people briefed on it.”
“The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm,” according to CNN. “It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by U.S. Central Command in the aftermath of the U.S. strikes, one of the sources said.”
The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available. But the early findings are at odds with Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated.”
“Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed,” CNN continued. “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.
Several other major media outlets confirmed the CNN report on how the initial assessment showed Iran’s nuclear facilities only suffered limited damage.
During a press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump, Rubio and Hegseth pushed back on the CNN report.
Operation Midnight Hammer set Iran’s nuclear program back “basically decades because I don’t think they’ll ever do it again,” Trump told reporters.
“Now, if you take a look at the pictures, if you take a look how it’s all black and you know the fire and brimstone is all underground because it’s granite and it’s all underground…for 75 yards around the hole where it hit is black with fire.”
Hegseth said the media was reporting information that the intelligence community had low confidence in.
“Do they share the whole information or just the part that they want to introduce?” Hegseth asked rhetorically. “And when they introduce a preliminary report that’s deemed to be low assessment. You know what a low assessment means? Low confidence in the data in that report. Why is there low confidence? Because all of the evidence of what was just bombed by 12 30,000 pound bombs is buried under a mountain, devastated and obliterated.”
Rubio also took issue with the reports.
“First of all, on this stuff about the intelligence, this is what a leaker is telling you the intelligence says,” Rubio exclaimed. “… Number two, here’s a fact – that conversion facility – you can’t do a nuclear weapon without a conversion facility -we can’t even find where it is, where it used to be on the map. We can’t even find where it used to be, because the whole thing is blackened out. It’s gone. It’s wiped out. It’s wiped out. Then we dropped 12 of the strongest bombs on the planet right down the hole in two places; everything underneath that mountain is in bad shape.”
Satellite images obtained by The War Zone show the extent of the damage to Fordow as seen from space.
“New damage caused by June 23rd airstrikes is seen on June 24th imagery with craters along the access roads that lead to the tunnel entrances and the Fordow underground complex,” Maxar Technologies explained. “Multiple craters are visible at several of the tunnel openings and several buildings along the northeastern perimeter road have been destroyed. An additional crater is seen in the middle of the access road to the northwest of the facility.”
What remains inside Fordow is unknown. As we previously reported, earlier satellite imagery showed evidence that Iran may have taken steps to seal off its nuclear enrichment facility at Fordow in the days leading up to the U.S. strikes, which would have shielded it against a potential ground raid.
David Albright, president and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, offered some additional insights into the damage at Natanz.
“We were curious about the reports that few centrifuges were destroyed at the underground Natanz centrifuge hall following the Israeli and US strikes and wanted to present some more of our bomb damage evaluation,” he noted on X. “The bottom line is that those reports are hard to believe. The bomb crater of the MOP is above the hall with the centrifuges. The earth penetrator craters created by the Israelis are also above the hall with centrifuges (see text below and images). (All of Iran’s centrifuges are in this hall; the other two halls are empty of centrifuges.) Images can help understand this result. The first image shows Natanz enrichment site with a MOP penetration crater. The second image is from early construction of the underground Natanz enrichment halls, before the halls were buried. The main halls are located in the center of the image and are greyish in color. Today, the centrifuges are in the large hall on the bottom right, and the center of the red circle is where the MOP hit, well within the boundaries of the hall with centrifuges.”
Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute and a staff member of its James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), offered a less optimistic take, pointing out that Iran has many places where it can work on its nuclear weapons program.
“Even if the US had destroyed Fordow, Iran retained a number of other underground facilities that were never bombed,” Lewis stated on X. “I realize that half the people who voted for Trump think they can ‘manifest abundance,’ but it doesn’t work for disarmament. You actually have to hit the bunker.”
Lewis also noted signals intelligence collected from Iran about its nuclear program could very well be tainted.
So suffice it to say, getting to the bottom of what’s really at the bottom of those holes in Fordow will take time and consensus may be elusive for some time.
The Latest
As we previously reported, Mossad has had operatives on the ground inside Iran before and during Operation Rising Lion. Today, IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir acknowledged he had commandos on the ground in Iran in joint efforts with the Air Force and along with the Mossad.
“We achieved full control of the Iranian skies and every location we chose to operate in,” Zamir said. “This was made possible in part thanks to the joint efforts and subterfuge of our air forces and commandos on the ground. These forces operated covertly in the heart of enemy territory, securing operational freedom of action.”
Mossad also added new details about its operations inside Iran. Mossad Chief David Barnea on Wednesday taunted Iran, saying his operatives will remain in that country.
“We will [continue to] be there, like we have been there,” he said.
During the NATO Summit press conference, Trump said that while the ceasefire is holding, there is always a chance that fighting between Israel and Iran could resume.
“I guess someday it can,” Trump said. “It could maybe start soon.”
However, he expressed confidence that the ceasefire will hold.
“I think a big telltale sign was when, as you know, Iran – somewhat by not much – violated the ceasefire and Israel had the planes going out that morning, and there were a lot of them, 52 of them,” Trump told reporters. “And I said, ‘You got to get them back.’ And they brought them back. They didn’t do anything. They brought them back. It was very good. I thought it was amazing.”
The U.S. president also provided some additional details on Operation Midnight Hammer.
The submarine-launched Tomahawks “hit within nine inches from where it was supposed to be,” Trump explained.
In addition to B-2s, the strike package included F-22 Raptors and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and “we had other planes,” Trump stated. “And we had, I think, a total of 52 [aerial refueling] tankers. That means the big tankers, because the refueling was allowed for all of the different planes that we sent.”
Trump also added some new insights into what he said were warnings Tehran gave him ahead of its ballistic missile attack on Al Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. installation in the Middle East.
“You saw that where 14 missiles were shot at us the other day, and they were very nice,” Trump said of the Iranians. “They gave us warning. They said ‘we’re going to shoot them. Is one o’clock, okay?’ They said ‘it’s fine’. And everybody was emptied off the base so they couldn’t get hurt, except for the gunners. They’re called the gunners and had 14 high-end missiles that were shot at the base in Qatar. All 14, as you know, were shot down by our equipment. Amazing stuff, amazing that they can do. It’s like shooting a bullet with a bullet.”
The U.S. will meet with Iranian officials next week, Trump said, adding that he didn’t think that reaching an agreement on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions was even necessary.
During a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he didn’t need permission from Trump to launch Operation Rising Lion.
“Netanyahu says that during his February visit to the White House, ‘we presented the plans for an attack in Iran with American participation, and also without,'” the Times of Israel reported, citing Israel Hayom. “‘This is what we are going to do — the decision is yours.’”
Israel didn’t ask for a “green light,” Netanyahu added.
“Trump got involved and decided to carry out the attacks,” Netanyahu explained.
“I had conversations with him almost every day, and [Strategic Affairs Minister Ron] Dermer’s conversations with [US Vice President JD] Vance, [US Secretary of State Marco] Rubio, and [US special envoy Steve] Witkoff,” the Israeli leader noted. “There was maximum coordination, which became operational coordination.”
Iran is demanding the U.S. pay it back for the damage incurred by Operationa Midnight Hammer.
“Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh says the United States must pay millions of dollars in reparations to the Islamic Republic over its blatant act of aggression against civilian nuclear sites, which it carried out jointly with the usurping Israeli regime,” the official Iranian Press TV reported.
In another move, Iran’s parliament (Majlis) “approved a bill to suspend Tehran’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) following its politically-motivated resolution against the Islamic Republic,” according to Press TV.
This is a developing story. Stay with TWZ.com for updates.
Update: 6:13 PM Eastern –
There will be “big announcements on countries that are coming into the Abraham Accords,” the Trump administration’s Middle East envoy told CNBC on Wednesday.
“One of the president’s key objectives is that the Abraham Accords be expanded,” Steve Witkoff told the network.
The Abraham Accords were a development in the Middle East during Trump’s first term in office in 2020, when the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan agreed to normalize relations with Israel.
A plane spotter posted video of the F-22 returning to Lakenheath Air Base in England from the Middle East. Trump earlier acknowledged that Raptors took part in Operation Midnight Hammer.
CNN released a statement standing by its story and reporter Natasha Bertrand.
After complaining that the coverage of a preliminary DIA assessment denigrated the crews who carried out Operation Midnight Hammer, Trump announced that Hegseth and Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Dan Caine will hold a press conference tomorrow at 8 a.m. “to fight for the dignity of our great American pilots.”
We will cover that presser.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com