Early US intel assessment suggests strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites, sources say

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/politics/intel-assessment-us-strikes-iran-nuclear-sites?Date=20250624&Profile=CNN&utm_content=1750791758&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

44 comments

  1. Funny the way the West’s media jumped on this as a huge success anyway, before anyone could possibly know.

  2. > White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement: “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.”

    Whelp…

  3. Trump just continues down this path of looking dumber and dumber. If you are still defending him God Damn do I feel sorry for you because you look just like him.

  4. I mean weren’t there reports going out before the strikes that these facilities are in fact not 200 feet under concrete but 1000 feet under mountainous terrain? I have a feeling whatever “bunker buster” bomb you drop is going to have a drastically different outcome when it’s up against a mountain compared to JUST concrete?

  5. Seeing this on CNN as I type. If true this is a big f*ck up by Trump and only emboldens Iran to build a weapon even more quickly. As it is there is supposedly 900 lb of near weapons grade uranium unaccounted for as said by the IAEA.

  6. I doubted these reports till the White House started whining about them so they just be true or else the White House would just laugh it off and tell Iran to post pictures of whatever was left. The fact that they are yelling fake news at the top of their lungs means this operation did not meet objectives.

  7. What stood out the most to me

    >The White House acknowledged the existence of the assessment but said they disagreed with it.

    >White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement: “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.”

    Really concerned about the apparent disconnect between the Whitehouse and its intelligence. You cannot be an effective government if you act outside of reality and this is now multiple times that the Whitehouse has contradicted and insulted its own intelligence. It happened earlier with Trump saying Tulsi Gabbard’s statements were wrong.

    I guess what I’m trying to get at is, if the report is fake, just say that. Adding all this context about it’s security level and the person who leaked it makes it sound more credible. There’s no way anyone at a “low level” anywhere in the intelligence community would have had access to information on this operation. And if they did, they failed to properly compartmentalize this intel, which itself is worrying. But also saying that implies you know who it is, and if you know who it is, shouldn’t they be behind bars for leaking top secret Intel, because that’s super illegal? But if you did that, that implies the report is legitimate? This statement is very contradictory and this administration honestly just talks too fucking much. It really appears to operating in fantasy land. There’s a reason the response to claims of leaked intel is supposed to be “neither confirm nor deny”, because doing either just gives away more Intel.

    I really worry about the amount of corruption in the US government making us as weak as Russia, who can’t follow up any of their claims or threats because everyone inside the country bullshits everything just to appease Putin and don’t act within the realm of reality. Maybe it helped these cronies get elected but it’s going to get all of us fucked in real world operations.

  9. It was a dud when the US told Iran what they were going to do and moved all their nuclear shit out of the building

  10. A level one loser has top secret clearance. Now…. Whose fault is that? 😂

  11. Trump and the GOP are so incompetent and corrupt.

  14. Of course not. Trump was publicly musing about bombing those sites for over a week. You can be sure Iran took steps to secure all their materials and people.

    In addition, you can BET there were experienced high level military folks telling Trump that even these bombs, of which we only had 25 or so, would not be sufficient to get deep enough but was ignored because Hegseth and Trump needed to play with their toys.

  15. Of course they didn’t, it was all probably some backdoor deal with Iran.

  18. So devils advocate here. If the strikes did nothing then why wouldn’t Iran just go for a truce immediately as opposed to risking further attacks?

  19. Experts said before the strike that anything short of a tactical nuke wouldn’t take out the facility. None of it matters anyway because the Iranians moved everything days before the strike. Wonder who told them it was coming?

  20. Iran says they’ve obliterated Israel… yet Israel still exists. Israel says they’ve obliterated Iran… yet Iran still exists. The U.S. says it’s obligated Iran’s nuclear programme… yet the nuclear programme still exists. Iran says they’ve obliterated the U.S. base in Qatar… yet it still exists.

    What I’ve gathered from this is that the world ran by illiterate lunatics. What a farce.

  21. Doesn’t matter to Trump. he declared it was, screamed victory and has moved on. He doesn’t care about reality

  22. Nice, now we just showed Iran that our arsenal can’t destroy their deep underground facilities. Who’s got no cards now, DONAKD?

  24. I heard an expert on the radio discussing this after the attack and he was saying that it’s almost irrelevant if this plant was destroyed or not. Apparently they got the uranium out before the attack anyway, that’s the main bit. However he stated that it takes tens of thousands of centrifuges to enrich the uranium, this site alone has about 13000 of them based on intel. Each centrifuge, he said, costs Iran as little as $500 to make, and no I didn’t miss a K or M off that figure. I tried to fact check it and the tens of thousands part is definitely correct, Google was telling me $20k cost for each, maybe its cheaper in Iran, who knows, but it’s still cheap to build some of them.

    His argument based on those facts was that this attack would be impossible to end Iran’s nuclear ambitions. They can just build more cheap centrifuges elsewhere, they probably already have sites around the country. Compare it to an IT datacentre or the power grid, any critical infrastructure, you’re going to have a DR site right? Distributed, multiple points of failure? At best, all this attack would have done is slow down their progress a bit. Worst case, it’s made them more determined to build and use one when they get it.

  25. Trump is such a moron, not only did he not actually make sure the job was complete, but he insisted on a ceasefire with no conditions and still has no nuclear deal.

  26. It was definitely suspicious when Trump immediately claimed the operation was a success. Given the nature of the operation, seems it would take some time before success was known or not… unless there was just a giant crater where a mountain once was or something. 

  27. Well of course a couple bunker busters didn’t destroy a site rated for nukes. Did anyone really think they had? That’s awkward.

  28. “You were supposed to just blow the bloody doors off.”

  29. “You Americans have killed a lot of sand. The sand was very evil.” ~ Goat Herder

  31. This was all a choreographed kabuki show. What else would you expect from a one-time reality television actor and wannabe strongman.

  32. Anyone who thought these Bunker Buster bombs would reach 80m of Basalt fucking Rock is hilarously dumb. The military has been questioning this operation since 2003 in internal files.

  33. Trump said they obliterated the sites… which means the sites are basically fully operational since the White House has fully adopted the Kremlin communication strategy: “never tell the truth”

  34. This is all a huge blind spot in modern news coverage. So much of it is based on 24, 48, 1-week timespans. 

    No doubt many conservatives are praising Trump because “he hit Iran” and then forced them into a ceasefire. Maybe the facilities really are destroyed or severely damaged, and along with Israel’s other strikes, perhaps Iran’s nuclear program really is set back years. In which case, as much as I’d hate to say it, that would be a pretty significant success for Trump. 

    OTOH, while it might seem really successful right now, if Iran with some of the nuclear material they were able to sneak away test detonates a nuclear bomb six months from now… we’ll all the praise of success thrown at Trump gonna like real fucking dumb. 

    But everything has to be wrapped into a 24, 48 hours, or 1 week story… and there will be little noteworthy reporting a month from now on Israel-Iran, assuming the ceasefire holds. 

  36. So if true that basically means these bunkers cant be destroyed without special ops on the ground?

  37. Of course they didn’t. Everything trump touches turns to 💩

  38. FAKE NEWS! I DECLARE IT OBLITERATED AT LEVELS LIKE NO ONE HAS EVER SEEN BEFORE! THANKS TO ME WE HAVE PEACE IN OUR TIME (NOBBELL??) THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER

    —DONAKD TRUMP 45-7 (8??) PRESIDENT!

  39. I wish there was a reporter who would have asked how a “low level loser” in the intelligence service would have access to a top secret report.

  40. So the whole thing was performative? They gave notice, bombed some places without significant destruction, then Iran fired missiles without any significant destruction, and that’s it? What was the point?

  41. So we gave Iran confirmation that their sites are safe from us and every reason to work as fast as they can to get a nuke. 

    MISSION ACCOMPLISHED 🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🦅💪

  42. Gee no surprise there. Trump and his band of fools sounded ridiculous on Saturday night when they were immediately touting the success of the attack.

    And, Barbie, your boss was telegraphing the attack so far in advance that the Iranians relocated everything.

  43. >The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by four people briefed on it.

    Well, fuck. That’s not good.

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