Shas leader MK Aryeh Deri refuted U.S. President Donald Trump's assertion that Israeli agents have visited Iranian nuclear facilities to report on the results of the U.S. attacks. Trump had asserted Wednesday morning at the NATO summit that spies had made a site visit to Fordow, which the U.S. hit with a dozen bunker-busting bombs, and said that it had been "obliterated."
"No one knows - because no one has visited there yet," the ultra-Orthodox lawmaker told Haredi news site Kikar Hashabbat. "According to all the statistics, assessments and satellite imagery, damage has been caused there."
US President Donald Trump talks to reporters at the NATO Summit: 'Total obliteration'
(Video: Reuters)
At the same time, responding to reports on the American intelligence assessments, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told Ynet: "The Iranian program to produce nuclear weapons has suffered a dramatic blow and will take many years to restore it. The largest uranium enrichment facility in Natanz has been completely destroyed. The reprocessing facility for metallic uranium in Isfahan has been completely destroyed. The nuclear facility in Arak, which was intended to enable a plutogenic pathway for weapons, has been destroyed. Regarding the extent of the damage caused by the American bombing of the underground uranium enrichment facility in Fordow, the estimates are that it will not be possible to restore it to normal operation over time."
Donald Trump and other senior officials in his administration have been rejecting reports in the past 24 hours that the American attacks on three nuclear sites in Iran did not destroy the key components of the Iranian nuclear program but only delayed it by a few months.
"It was very severe. There was obliteration," Trump told reporters in The Hague Wednesday, where the NATO summit is being held. He claimed that the nuclear facilities were totally destroyed, and that the U.S. "set back the Iranian nuclear program decades." The U.S. president also said that “they’re not going to have a bomb and they’re not going to enrich.”
He claimed that Israeli agents had visited the Fordow facility and were reporting total destruction, and that Israel would soon report on this. "They have guys that go in there after the hit , they said it was total obliteration," the president said.
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President Donald Trump said at the NATO summit that the US would attack Iran again if Tehran rebuilt its uranium enrichment facilities
(Photo: Piroschka Van De Wouw/Pool/Reuiers)
According to sources quoted by CNN and the New York Times, the enriched uranium stockpile was not damaged, and most of the centrifuges remained intact.
Trump said the intelligence following the strikes was inconclusive. "The intelligence says we don't know. It could've been very severe. That's what the intelligence suggests," Trump told reporters, insisting that the damage was indeed "severe." When asked if the US would attack Iran again if Tehran rebuilt its uranium enrichment facilities, Trump replied: "Sure."
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The president added that the U.S. strikes "ended the war," and that the ceasefire is currently "going great." On Tuesday, after Iran violated the ceasefire and before the Israeli response, Trump was furious and said that Iran and Israel "have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the f—- they're doing."
"The bombs landed where they were supposed to land, there was devastation," U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday about the latest reports, saying that the U.S. reports are based on initial intelligence information of low reliability. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also denied the reports. Rubio, who is also in The Hague, said Wednesday: "The bottom line is, they are much further away from a nuclear weapon today than they were before the president took this bold action,” Rubio said. “That’s the most important thing to understand — significant, very significant, substantial damage was done to a variety of different components, and we’re just learning more about it."
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US President Donald Trump at the NATO summit
(Photo: Piroschka Van De Wouw/Pool/Reuters)
U.S. Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff called for an investigation into who leaked the intelligence assessment to the U.S. media. "It goes without saying that leaking that type of information, whatever the information, whatever side it comes out on, is outrageous. It's treasonous," Witkoff said during an appearance on Fox News. "It ought to be investigated, and whoever is responsible should be held accountable."
An IDF spokesman addressed a question this morning about assessing the extent of damage to Iran's nuclear facilities and said: "We met all the objectives of the operation as defined for us - but it is still too early to determine the results of the damage. The assessment is that we significantly damaged the nuclear program and set it back years."