Washington, 25 June — A preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment has cast doubt on the effectiveness of last weekend’s American airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites, suggesting Tehran’s program may only have been set back by a few months, according to three sources familiar with the classified findings.
The early report, prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon’s principal intelligence arm, indicated Iran could potentially restart its nuclear activities within one to two months, said one of the sources. All three spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the information.
This assessment stands in stark contrast to public remarks from President Donald Trump and senior administration officials, who have claimed the strikes all but dismantled Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
“Our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement. “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.”
Trump himself has declared the nuclear facilities “obliterated,” though in a more measured tone before the UN Security Council on Tuesday, the administration said the strikes had “degraded” Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt dismissed the DIA findings as “flat-out wrong” in a statement to CNN, adding, “Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”
Yet sources familiar with the DIA’s assessment painted a more cautious picture. One official who reviewed the report said it included significant caveats and assumptions, and that a clearer picture of the damage would emerge over time.
Analysts noted that if the findings were based primarily on satellite imagery, they may not reflect the full extent of damage to Iran’s deeply buried nuclear sites — particularly Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. One source noted the DIA report itself had triggered internal disagreements among analysts and had not been universally accepted across the intelligence community.
The same source confirmed that while entrances to underground facilities were caved in and support infrastructure had been hit, the core subterranean structures remained intact.
“It comes down to how quickly Iran can dig out and restore power and water supply,” said one source, suggesting that nuclear operations could resume in months if undisturbed.
The Washington Post, citing another person familiar with the report, said some of Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges survived the strikes.
David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector and head of the Institute for Science and International Security, said commercial satellite imagery suggests the U.S. strikes destroyed much of Iran’s active uranium enrichment infrastructure — at least in the short term — but did not eliminate Iran’s potential to resume nuclear weapons development.
“Iran retains an ability to break out and produce weapon-grade uranium,” Albright said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. He also noted that Iran’s stock of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium — enough for around nine warheads — remains unaccounted for, as do advanced centrifuges earmarked for a new enrichment site disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Agency this month.
While Defense officials have not denied the existence of the DIA report, they have disputed interpretations that minimize the impact of the strikes. Still, a U.S. official acknowledged the true extent of damage remains uncertain.
Initial military assessments, officials stressed, often evolve as on-the-ground intelligence develops. But the sharp divergence between the intelligence community’s early findings and the Trump administration’s public messaging has revived skepticism in Washington.
Democratic lawmakers were quick to point out that, so far, no public evidence supports the administration’s claims of long-term strategic success.
