US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities following missile attacks over the weekend was extensive, while claiming that available intelligence on the matter was inconclusive.
His comments followed reports by Reuters and other media outlets on Tuesday that the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) estimated that the missile strikes only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months, despite administration officials saying the program had been destroyed.
“The intelligence is very inconclusive,” Trump told reporters before joining a NATO summit in The Hague. “The intelligence says we don’t know. It could have been very serious. That’s what the intelligence suggests.”
Later, Trump said that Iran’s nuclear program had been delayed “basically for decades, because I don’t think they’re ever going to restart it.”
At the summit, Trump sat alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegzit, who also cast doubt on the reliability of the DIA’s assessment.
Rubio said the United States was opening an investigation into the leak of the DIA report and said the content of the report had been misrepresented in the media.
