Iran nuclear effort set back 1 to 2 years by bombings, Pentagon says
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Iran's president, meanwhile, has enacted a law to suspend cooperation with the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, Iranian state media reported Wednesday, in a move that will shut out international inspectors from overseeing the country's contested nuclear program.
American B-2 bombers hit two Iranian nuclear sites with massive 'bunker buster' bombs last month, as Trump joined Israel's bombing campaign in Iran. The Air Force dropped 12 of the massive GBU-57 bombs on the Fordo nuclear site and two on the nuclear site at Natanz. Trump has since declared a ceasefire and said that he was pursuing diplomacy with Tehran.
The issue of how far back the American and Israeli bombing campaign put the Iran nuclear program became almost an instant matter of contention, after Trump announced in the immediate aftermath of the American strikes that the bombs had 'obliterated' Iran's nuclear program.
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Intelligence assessments since then, including ones by the Pentagon and the American intelligence community, have been more cautious. A preliminary assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency that was widely reported on last week estimated that the strikes set back the Iranian nuclear program by only a few months. The CIA director said later in the week that the Iranian program had been severely damaged, and the U.S. intelligence agencies were continuing to assess the strike.
Parnell was not presenting a formal Defense Department battle damage assessment Wednesday. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Secretary last week echoed Trump's language, and said, according to a White House statement, that 'based on everything we have seen -- and I've seen it all -- our bombing campaign obliterated Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons.'
But Gen. Dan Caine, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has used more careful language, saying that 'initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction.'
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