Trump team claims uranium was hit in Iran strikes

Binyamin Netanyahu is to visit Trump in Washington as early as the second week of July, Israeli news channel i24 reports.

A Pentagon intelligence leak has sparked a war of words over Iran’s nuclear programme, with conflicting assessments from US intelligence agencies and the White House fuelling heated debate.

Former Pentagon official Jim Townsend joins us to unpack the challenges of intelligence and examine the fraught relationship between the White House and the intelligence community.

President Trump’s comparison of the Iran strikes to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 has stirred anger in Japan.

Earlier this week, Trump said the US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities helped end the recent war in the Middle East like the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan brought World War II to a close.

“It’s scary that a person with such a view is serving as leader,” said Masao Tomonaga, a survivor from Nagasaki.

Shiro Suzuki, the mayor of Nagasaki, said the “use of atomic weapons should never be tolerated for any purpose”.

Toshiyuki Mimaki, who was a child in Hiroshima when the bombing took place, said: “How can the president of America say such a thing? I just don’t understand. What he said is totally unacceptable.”

Mimaki is a leader of Nihon Hidankyo, a group of survivors that won a Nobel Peace Prize last year.

The Hiroshima city assembly on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution calling for the peaceful settlement of all conflicts, saying Trump’s remark apparently justifying the atomic bombing “cannot be overlooked or accepted,” Japan’s NHK national television reported.

Israel wanted to eliminate Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, according to its defence minister, Israel Katz.

In a television interview due to be broadcast on Israeli television tonight, Katz says Israel could not find an operational opportunity to do so.

The UN atomic energywatchdog said on Thursday that it had not received an official communication from Iran after media reports earlier in the day said a parliamentary bill to suspend co-operation with the organisation had received final approval.

“We are aware of these reports. As of now, the IAEA has not received an official communication from Iran on this matter,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement.

Despite President Trump and Pete Hegseth’s assertions that Iran’s nuclear capabilities had been “obliterated”, European capitals believe the country’s enriched uranium stockpile remains largely intact.

The Financial Times quotes two people who have been briefed on preliminary intelligence assessments, who say that EU capitals believe Iran’s stockpile of 408kg of weapons-grade enriched uranium was not concentrated in Fordow where US strikes hit.

The assessments call into question Trump and Hegseth’s claims that Iran’s nuclear ambitions had been severely curtailed.

Those quoted said EU governments were still awaiting full intelligence reports on the damage to Fordow, but that one initial report suggested “extensive damage, but not full structural destruction”.

A key missing element was evidence for President Trump’s hasty conclusion in the immediate aftermath of the bombing that the Fordow facility was “obliterated” (David Charter in Washington, writes). Several times Pete Hegseth urged caution as intelligence is collected and assessed, or attacked the media for jumping to conclusions in the other direction without waiting for better evidence. In other words, his presentation today only underlined that the president used exaggerated rhetoric — which may prove to be justified — but cannot yet be substantiated.

Another key unknown element is the fate of Iran’s uranium. Hegseth at first evaded a question on its whereabouts by saying: “There’s nothing that I’ve seen that suggests that we didn’t hit exactly what we wanted to hit in those locations.”

Pressed on evidence that trucks were seen at the site two days before the bombing, Hegseth then attacked the bona fides of one of the journalists from his former employer, Fox News, one of the most experienced in the room.

Asked a third time about the fate of Iran’s uranium he answered that he was “not aware of any intelligence that I’ve reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be, moved or otherwise”.

Pete Hegseth’s job today was to come out and mop up the mess caused by the leak of a snippet of early intelligence suggesting the Iran bombing mission was less than the total “obliteration” claimed by President Trump, (David Charter in Washington, writes).

Since then several other assessments have been released by the US and Israel to suggest that extensive damage was caused by Saturday’s raids.

• Iran intel leak: who is the ‘low-level loser’ who exposed Trump?

In the continued absence of conclusive intelligence, the US defence secretary and General Dan Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, shared details of the development, testing, planning and deployment of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (Mop) bomb, known as the bunker-buster, which they said was developed with this very mission in mind.

Caine gave insight into the Defence Threat Reduction Agency and how two of its staff had been dedicated for 15 years on studying Iran’s deeply buried Fordow facility and working out its vulnerabilities.

Trump has responded to suggestions that Iran had moved stocks of uranium in trucks from its Fordow site before the US strikes.

Writing on Truth Social, the president said: “The cars and small trucks at the site were those of concrete workers trying to cover up the top of the shafts. Nothing was taken out of facility. Would take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!”

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has requested a two-week pause in his corruption trial testimony.

Amit Hadad, the defence attorney, stated that Netanyahu must devote his time to “diplomatic, national and security issues of the first order”, in the wake of the recent war with Iran.

His request came after President Trump said on Truth Social, that Netanyahu’s trial “should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY”.

He also suggested a “Pardon given to a Great Hero, who has done so much for the State”.

The Israeli prime minister denies charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, for which he has been on trial since 2020.

It had long been assumed that at least one of Iran’s main nuclear facilities — the uranium enrichment plant at Fordow — was hidden so deeply beneath a mountain that it would prove extremely difficult for Israel to destroy it.

Israel heavily attacked Natanz, the other enrichment site, Isfahan, where solid uranium was converted to gas for enrichment and then back again, and other sites. It left Fordow to the Americans.

Israel’s whole attack on Iran was, therefore, a gamble. If the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, did not persuade President Trump to join the assault with his B-2s and his GBU-57 “bunker busters”, it might fail at the Fordow hurdle or, at best, only inflict a minor setback to the nuclear programme.

• Read in full: Iran’s setback after US strikes may only be temporary

Asked whether he believes highly enriched uranium was moved out of the nuclear sites before Saturday’s strikes, Hegseth said there was “nothing to suggest” anything was moved out by the Iranians ahead of time.

Dan Caine says that the 30,000lb bunker-busters behaved as the military expected, but that it will not provide a damage assessment due to it being a job for the intelligence community.

“We don’t mark our own homework,” he said.

Dan Caine, the air force general, says that two intelligence officials were investigating the Iranian nuclear site at Fordow for 15 years. They knew it “wasn’t being built for any peaceful purposes … they realised we didn’t have a weapon [to take out the plant],” he said.

“Operation Midnight Hammer was the culmination of their work.

“The weapons were designed, planned and delivered to achieve the effects in the mission space.”

President Trump has said on Truth Social that there is rumour that the New York Times and CNN will fire reporters “who made up the fake stories on the Iran nuclear sites”.

Dan Caine, the air force general and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, is now talking about the Iranian attacks on the US base in Qatar on Monday.

Caine described the deployment of Patriot missiles to defend the base as “the largest single Patriot engagement in US military history”. He would not say how many rounds were fired, saying it is classified.

Hegseth says the press relied too much on a US preliminary intelligence report, which suggested little damage had been done to the sites.

“Specifically you the press corps to cheer against Trump so much, you have to hope the strikes weren’t effective … [you think] ‘let’s take leaked information and spin it to cause doubt and manipulate the public mind’.”

Pete Hegseth has started by attacking the press over its coverage of the damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear sites facilities at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz.

“Searching for scandals you miss historic moments,” he said.

Iran had retaliated on Monday with a missile attack on a US base in nearby Qatar, but caused no casualties.

In an apparent reference to the attack, Ayatollah Khamenei said “such an action can be repeated in the future, too,” adding that Iran had “access to key US centres in the region and can take action whenever it deems necessary”.

“Should any aggression occur, the enemy will definitely pay a heavy price,” he said.

Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, will hold a news conference shortly to offer a fresh assessment of strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

President Trump said that Hegseth, whom he dubbed the “war” secretary, would hold a news conference to “fight for the dignity of our great American pilots”.

Ayatollah Khamenei, 86, hasn’t been seen in public since taking shelter in a secret location after the outbreak of the war on June 13, when Israel attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and targeted top military commanders and scientists.

After an American attack on June 22, that hit the nuclear sites with bunker-buster bombs, President Trump helped negotiate a ceasefire that came into effect on Tuesday.

In his appearance on Thursday, Ayatollah Khamenei sat in front of plain brown curtains to give his address, similar to his June 19 message.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has said his country delivered a “hand slap to the face of America” in his first televised address since the fragile ceasefire was declared in the war with Israel.

Claiming victory over Israel, Ayatollah Khamenei said the US had only intervened because “it felt that if it did not intervene, the Zionist regime would be utterly destroyed.”

He warned the US “will definitely pay a heavy price” should it attack Iran again. His comments came in the wake of an attack on Sunday in which American forces hit three Iranian nuclear facilities with bunker-buster bombs and cruise missiles.