Iran’s nuclear facilities have been “seriously damaged” by Israeli and US attacks, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told Al Jazeera television.
“Yes, our nuclear facilities have been seriously damaged. This is true because (they) have been repeatedly attacked,” Baghaei said, without giving other details.
Axios correspondent Barak Ravid published a document of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission’s findings that the White House sent to journalists. It states, among other things, that the US strike on the Fordow nuclear facility “destroyed its critical infrastructure and disabled a uranium enrichment facility.”
“We believe that American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear programme, have rejected the country’s ability to develop nuclear weapons for many years,” the commission states.
According to The New York Times, U.S. intelligence concluded that the U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites set back Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons by only a few months and destroyed only a small fraction of Iran’s nuclear material. The country’s authorities managed to move and hide most of the country’s stockpile of enriched uranium, the publication said. In addition, the facilities hit by the US strike were not damaged as badly as the Trump administration had hoped. Intelligence also believes that the US strikes damaged the power supply system of the nuclear facility inside the mountain in Fordow, in general, the complex was not destroyed, The New York Times noted, citing intelligence data.
US President Donald Trump criticised the media that published the findings of US military intelligence. “Fake news CNN along with the losers at The New York Times have teamed up in an attempt to disparage one of the most successful military strikes in history. The nuclear facilities in Iran are completely destroyed!” declared Trump.