There are plenty of questions about Donald Trump’s decision to launch pre-emptive military strikes against nuclear targets in Iran, but in the short term, there’s one consideration of particular relevance: Did these strikes work? Did they serve their intended purpose?
The president hasn’t exactly taken a wait-and-see posture: Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Republican told the world on Saturday night, “have been completely and totally obliterated.”
When a variety of officials indicated a day later that it was far too early to know whether Trump’s claim was true or not, the president expressed outrage, lashing out at news organizations for daring to report factual information. “The sites that we hit in Iran were totally destroyed, and everyone knows it,” he wrote on social media on Monday, failing to identify “everyone.”
Trump kept this going on Tuesday morning, suggesting media outlets “apologize” to military pilots — he didn’t exactly say why — before describing CNN and MSNBC as “scum.”
As for why the president seems so sensitive about this, it might have something to do with an alleged intelligence assessment that appears to contradict Trump’s premature boasts. CNN reported:
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 three people briefed on it. The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.
The CNN report added that while the intelligence assessment might yet change as more information becomes available, these early findings are “at odds” with Trump’s claims.
The New York Times published a related report minutes later, adding that, according to the unreleased classified intelligence assessment, the preliminary findings suggest Saturday bombings “sealed off the entrances to two of the facilities but did not collapse their underground buildings.”
NBC News soon after confirmed key details, reporting that the Defense Intelligence Agency’s initial assessment concluded that the U.S. airstrikes “were not as effective” as Trump claimed, and that the mission set Iran’s nuclear program “back by only three to six months.”
The White House didn’t deny the existence of this intelligence assessment, though officials did take issue 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.”
Or put another way, by Leavitt’s reasoning, U.S. intelligence that suggests the Trump-approved mission failed to meet its objectives might hurt military pilots’ feelings — which isn’t as persuasive as the White House might want it to be.
A senior White House official told NBC News, meanwhile, that the early intelligence assessment cited by CNN in their report “did not rise to the highest levels of leadership at the Department of Defense.” The person said Pentagon officials continue to” analyze the impact” of the bombings targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities. For his part, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had a related statement: “Based on everything we have seen — and I’ve seen it all — our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons. Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target — and worked perfectly. The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran, so anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the president and the successful mission.” Of course, Hegseth, whose credibility is suspect given his troubled tenure, also said the Iranian targets were “obliterated,” before claiming, “Many presidents have dreamed of delivering the final blow to Iran’s nuclear program, and none could, until President Trump.” In other words, the beleaguered Pentagon chief has an incentive to downplay the preliminary assessment from his own department’s intelligence office. There’s no shortage of moving parts to a story like this, which may very well continue to evolve, not just in the coming days, but even in the coming hours. But as things stand, what we have is some preliminary evidence, not only that the mission fell short of its objectives, but also that the American president misled the public about the efficacy of his controversial and unpopular policy, all while White House officials once again discard intelligence assessments from their own country that told Trump and his team what they didn’t want to hear. This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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