Iranian officials expected a U.S. strike to do more damage than it did, according to intercepted audio.

Photo Illustration by Eric Faison/The Daily Beast/Getty Images
Trump vs US intelligence: Iran is only the latest chapter
President Trump suggested that federal investigators would coerce reporters to tell the government who leaked the “low confidence” preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that his strikes on Iran may only set the regime’s nuclear program back by a few months.
Trump repeated his demand that the leaker be prosecuted and speculated that Democrats may have been behind the report going public.
“They could find out easily. And you go up and tell the reporter, ‘National security, who gave it?’ You have to do that. And, I suspect will be doing things like that,” Trump told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” in a pre-taped interview.
CNN was the first to report on the DIA assessment, followed by the New York Times. Fox News also reported on the leaked intel.
The extent of the damage done to Iran’s nuclear program remains somewhat murky. CIA Director John Ratcliffe has echoed Trump’s claims, saying that it “has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has similarly back up Trump’s claim.
The Trump administration has also pointed to the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, which found that the bombing of the Fordow facility “destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable.”
- Last week, the Trump administration briefed senators and House lawmakers alike on the strikes. Republicans generally refrained from distancing themselves from Trump’s language, though some, such as Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) suggested that it depends on what one’s definition of “obliterated” is.
Meanwhile, prominent Democrats left those briefings unconvinced about the president’s use of the word “obliterated.”
“Right now, we have no final battle damage assessment that would enable us to be comfortable or complacent about what has been done,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said afterward the Senate briefing Thursday.
His colleague, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), more directly criticized Trump’s use of the word “obliterated.”
- In fact, the International Atomic Energy Commission just confirmed that we only set back their program by a handful of months,” Murphy told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) director general Rafael Mariano Grossi suggested that Iran could get its nuclear program back up in running within months.
“They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that,” Grossi told CBS’ “Face the Nation” in a pre-taped interview that aired Sunday.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s social media account rejected Trump’s characterization of the damage done as well.
“The President of the United States, in describing what happened, exaggerated unusually, which turned out to be necessary for that exaggeration,” Khamenei’s account wrote on X.
“Anyone who heard those words understood that beneath their surface, another truth existed. They couldn’t do anything and exaggerated to cover up and conceal th
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