The Hague, 25 June — U.S. President Donald Trump asserted on Wednesday that American missile strikes inflicted “very severe” damage on Iranian nuclear facilities, even as he conceded that available intelligence offered no definitive assessment.
Speaking ahead of the NATO leaders’ summit in the Netherlands, Trump dismissed the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) recent report that the attacks had only set Iran’s nuclear program back by a few months. “The intelligence was very inconclusive,” he told reporters during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “It says, ‘We don’t know, it could have been very severe.’ That’s what the intelligence says. So I guess that’s correct. But I think we can take the ‘we don’t know.’ It was very severe. It was obliteration.”
Trump’s remarks came in response to widespread media reports, including by Reuters, that cited a DIA assessment downplaying the long-term strategic impact of last weekend’s missile barrage.
Nonetheless, the president insisted the nuclear program had suffered a far greater setback. “I think it’s been set back basically decades,” he said. “Because I don’t think they’ll ever do it again.”
Flanked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Trump cast doubt on the intelligence findings, as did both officials beside him. Rubio announced that the U.S. would be investigating the leak of the classified DIA report, suggesting its conclusions had been misinterpreted or distorted by the press.
“We’re looking into how that information got out,” Rubio said. “It’s not representative of the full picture.”
Meanwhile, the annual NATO summit opened with discussions on a proposed increase in defense spending. Member nations are expected to pledge to raise their military budgets to 5% of gross domestic product. While some allies have hesitated to commit to that target, the Trump administration framed the likely agreement as a foreign policy achievement.
Trump arrived in the Netherlands on Tuesday evening and is using the summit as a platform to reaffirm Washington’s stance on military deterrence and alliance discipline.
